Why reaper sucks and how to fix it™ [by SC-Westet]

[God.5728]

 

Thanks @Westet.3068 for this video.

I can only hope the devs finally open their eyes and watch this video. These changes are just number changes and should make it to the upcoming Nov 29 patch.

 

 

Edited November 21, 2022 by God.5728

[Ruisenior.6342]

    Thanks for this!!! I hope some members from the balance team watch this video

 

    You called to boost 30% all shroud skills. In my opinion i would say boost the autoattack and soul spiral (shroud skills 1 and 4) up to 50%+ since other ones are just utility skills, or let the reaper give quickness to allies (like harbinger does) and buff same skills up to 40%+.

    It's pretty simple, Reaper doesnt need any kind of rework just tune up its numbers!!!!

Edited November 21, 2022 by Ruisenior.6342

[Arianth Moonlight.6453]

b-bUt mUh sEcOnD HeAlTh BaR D:=

[Dr Meta.3158]

3 hours ago, Ruisenior.6342 said:

    Thanks for this!!! I hope some members from the balance team watch this video

 

    You called to boost 30% all shroud skills. In my opinion i would say boost the autoattack and soul spiral (shroud skills 1 and 4) up to 50%+ since other ones are just utility skills, or let the reaper give quickness to allies (like harbinger does) and buff same skills up to 40%+.

    It's pretty simple, Reaper doesnt need any kind of rework just tune up its numbers!!!!

Honestly... Reaper (Necromancer as a whole really) does need a rework.

All the weapons suck and greatsword is the best of the worst in pve and is clunky and ineffective in pvp. On the opposite in Staff is the best of the worst in pvp and was the worst in pve and still has a horribly boring design.

Reaper is supposed to be an AOE based bruiser and it sucks horribly at it considering that it has difficulty surviving one enemy of equivalent skill and then that survivability plummets as it gets into the AOE based bruiser role against multiple enemies. It is in essence a willbender with less burst, less dps, less speed, less utility, and less survivability against burst and a little more survivability against middling dps.

Reaper's shouts are ineffective outside of the heal. Hell all of the utilities are ineffective outside of spectral, wells, blood is power, and corrosive poison cloud and the last one is niche.

Death magic sucks and doesn't work well with any necromancer except harbinger and only in pvp and wvw.

Blood magic is horrible for support and the sustain it provides doesn't make up for the deficit in taking it.

Spite sucks in pve in group content

Soul Reaping is the most boring traitline, got neutered and is still better than most of the others.

Curses is good actually. Only one useless trait and one very niche trait.

And overall the dependence on lifeforce generation at all costs actually holds back a lot of the tools necromancer has to available on top of a lot of things just having poor application in different situations.

I think honestly, biased as it may be, designing for pve and tweaking for pvp and wvw is a backwards approach for this game. PvP and wvw are far more mechanically demanding than pve and warrants mechanical changes focused around them whereas whatever is left after that can be raised or lowered with numbers in pve; as demonstrated by the video above.

 

[Dadnir.5038]

2 hours ago, Dr Meta.3158 said:

I think honestly, biased as it may be, designing for pve and tweaking for pvp and wvw is a backwards approach for this game. PvP and wvw are far more mechanically demanding than pve and warrants mechanical changes focused around them whereas whatever is left after that can be raised or lowered with numbers in pve; as demonstrated by the video above.

But, that's the issue. Necromancer's tools are designed for PvP/WvW and suck in PvE.

The video above just want a powercrept shroud. It's basically suggesting what the devs have been doing for 10 years already. You support this way of "improving" thing and it's fine. I'm pretty sure the devs can continue deliver those kind of tweak for tens of years and still leave the community disappointed.

You want a sure way to improve the reaper's group content dps?

- As it stand, a power reaper does not benefit from a quickness support. Remove the quickness from Reaper's onslaught and increase the AA base attack speed by 25-30%. (It will result in a higher hit rate in group and thus an increase of damage output and at the same time a lower hit rate out of a group which would balance things for solo PvE and competitive modes)

- The party healer do not know the state of the necromancer's health while he is in shroud. Make some simple UI change by dividing the necromancer's health bar in 2 parallel bars (1 green, 1 red).

- Reaper still lack damage? Divide decimate defence buff into 0.5% critical chance per vuln stack and 0.5% increased strike damage per vuln stack. (which make 12.5% increase crit chance and strike damage instead of 50% increased crit chance. Even if it look like a huge nerf it would make the trait meta and result in a net increase of reaper's dps at the cost of the loss of survivability granted by the current meta trait soul eater)

- Incoming damage kick reaper out of shroud to fast? Have the reaper split incoming damage evenly between LF and health pool and get 50% incoming heal while in shroud. This can be attached to the trait shroud knight.

 

[Agrippa.1693]

42 minutes ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

But, that's the issue. Necromancer's tools are designed for PvP/WvW and suck in PvE.

The video above just want a powercrept shroud. It's basically suggesting what the devs have been doing for 10 years already. You support this way of "improving" thing and it's fine. I'm pretty sure the devs can continue deliver those kind of tweak for tens of years and still leave the community disappointed.

Disappointment is human nature. If the Necro gets completely redesigned, people will still be disappointed, maybe they'd be different people, maybe it's always the same (vocal) group ... who knows, I dont't think the devs can ever make everyone happy!

 

I actually do think the Reaper is quite nice at the moment, except for one thing .... and that's damage! It just isn't enough at the moment (or ever was imho). So just tweaking numbers would indeed be fine imo.

 

48 minutes ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

- As it stand, a power reaper does not benefit from a quickness support. Remove the quickness from Reaper's onslaught and increase the AA base attack speed by 25-30%. (It will result in a higher hit rate in group and thus an increase of damage output and at the same time a lower hit rate out of a group which would balance things for solo PvE and competitive modes)

I agree we could do something with the selfish Quickness, but why the trade-off (as in make it worse in soloplay)??? Is that a Necro (player) thing? It deservers to be buffed! Why not just do that? Just buff it!

 

51 minutes ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

- The party healer do not know the state of the necromancer's health while he is in shroud. Make some simple UI change by dividing the necromancer's health bar in 2 parallel bars (1 green, 1 red).

Agreed! That's a good idea!

 

52 minutes ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

- Reaper still lack damage? Divide decimate defence buff into 0.5% critical chance per vuln stack and 0.5% increased strike damage per vuln stack. (which make 12.5% increase crit chance and strike damage instead of 50% increased crit chance. Even if it look like a huge nerf it would make the trait meta and result in a net increase of reaper's dps at the cost of the loss of survivability granted by the current meta trait soul eater)

Actually would be a nice idea, indeed, I would go for a crit chance increase of 1% per vuln stack, though! For you could still go with (some) Dragon's gear (i.e. for soloplay) ... not sure about that though, but it is indeed interesting to look at!

 

1 hour ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

- Incoming damage kick reaper out of shroud to fast? Have the reaper split incoming damage evenly between LF and health pool and get 50% incoming heal while in shroud. This can be attached to the trait shroud knight.

Interesting! I'd love to see a change like that, but that's mostly because I like to see changes anyway. But I'm pretty sure there's going to be a lot of people who think otherwise. And I understand them as well: see the beginning of my post, there's nothing wrong with the Reaper atm, except its numbers!

[draxynnic.3719]

34 minutes ago, Agrippa Oculus.3726 said:

I agree we could do something with the selfish Quickness, but why the trade-off (as in make it worse in soloplay)??? Is that a Necro (player) thing? It deservers to be buffed! Why not just do that? Just buff it!

I wonder if the actual answer is to keep Reaper's Onslaught as a solo-friendly trait, but buff one of the other grandmasters so that can be what you slot when you're in a group and the Quickness is coming from someone else. For instance, Deathly Chill could grant a damage bonus against chilled opponents in addition to generating bleed stacks. This would make it a buff to condi reaper (which could probably do with one) as well as being a buff to power reaper in group content as long as the net damage increase is greater than Reaper's Onslaught.

[Vlad Morbius.1759]

10 hours ago, God.5728 said:

 

Thanks @Westet.3068 for this video.

I can only hope the devs finally open their eyes and watch this video. These changes are just number changes and should make it to the upcoming Nov 29 patch.

 

 

 

This is exactly why I'm done with the game. It isn't complicated and they are just not willing to fix it. Sad state of affairs for the Reaper and what's worst is they've known for a very long time but haven't lifted a finger to change this which clearly shows they're biased towards meta builds and don't care about those who've been in the tank for years now. Was a ton of fun for a long time but I've had all the slaps in the face I'm going to take from the balance devs' in this game.

Edited November 21, 2022 by Vlad Morbius.1759

[God.5728]

53 minutes ago, Agrippa Oculus.3726 said:

Disappointment is human nature. If the Necro gets completely redesigned, people will still be disappointed, maybe they'd be different people, maybe it's always the same (vocal) group ... who knows, I dont't think the devs can ever make everyone happy!

 

Saw a comment somewhere on Reddit.

I believe there are two camps of people regarding the whole "Shroud is a second life bar" argument.

Just give us a new trait one that is the best DPS trait for Reapers which removes their "Second life bar" in favour for one that is similar to Harbinger Shroud.

 

So yeah, you sacrifice your second life bar for 35 - 38k dps. That is good enough for me.

Let those people who want to TANK with their second health bar go ahead. 😆

Edited November 21, 2022 by God.5728

[Dr Meta.3158]

6 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

But, that's the issue. Necromancer's tools are designed for PvP/WvW and suck in PvE.

The video above just want a powercrept shroud. It's basically suggesting what the devs have been doing for 10 years already. You support this way of "improving" thing and it's fine. I'm pretty sure the devs can continue deliver those kind of tweak for tens of years and still leave the community disappointed.

You want a sure way to improve the reaper's group content dps?

- As it stand, a power reaper does not benefit from a quickness support. Remove the quickness from Reaper's onslaught and increase the AA base attack speed by 25-30%. (It will result in a higher hit rate in group and thus an increase of damage output and at the same time a lower hit rate out of a group which would balance things for solo PvE and competitive modes)

- The party healer do not know the state of the necromancer's health while he is in shroud. Make some simple UI change by dividing the necromancer's health bar in 2 parallel bars (1 green, 1 red).

- Reaper still lack damage? Divide decimate defence buff into 0.5% critical chance per vuln stack and 0.5% increased strike damage per vuln stack. (which make 12.5% increase crit chance and strike damage instead of 50% increased crit chance. Even if it look like a huge nerf it would make the trait meta and result in a net increase of reaper's dps at the cost of the loss of survivability granted by the current meta trait soul eater)

- Incoming damage kick reaper out of shroud to fast? Have the reaper split incoming damage evenly between LF and health pool and get 50% incoming heal while in shroud. This can be attached to the trait shroud knight.

 

The same issues that plague reaper in pve also plague reaper in pvp. Reaper is overly reliant if not the most reliant dps on a support babysitter and yet it is difficult to support because of its shroud mechanics.

The quickness change increases its power vs mesmers, spellbreakers, and other necromancer while giving it a boost when paired with say a harbinger giving quickness and giving options to use blighter's boon to help with the desperately needed survivability since slow animation times kills you in pvp and is exactly while reaper's onslaught is so critical. 

The decimate defenses change benefits reaper in pvp. Outside of say valkyrie which i wouldn't even chance with the nerf to soul reaping's critical chance bonus, the 50% critical change is unnecessary in the commonly taken amulets.

The UI split also helps the reaper's teammates in pvp to know if support/plussing is necessary immediately. 

The split damage is a buff overall especially in a world where you can heal through shroud outside of some leeching since the damage reduction uptime is longer.

Now oddly enough none of ehat you mentioned made reaper more appeasing for pve as it is the same play patterns while making it mechanically more viable for combat vs players and only having more numbers in dps simulator raids which is the same result the video above is proposing. The only difference being your changes only boosts endgame pve and pvp and worsens most open world experiences while the guy in the video's changes improves all of pve experiences and does nothing for pvp.

 

[Dadnir.5038]

5 minutes ago, Dr Meta.3158 said:

The only difference being your changes only boosts endgame pve and pvp and worsens most open world experiences while the guy in the video's changes improves all of pve experiences and does nothing for pvp.

Increasing a few skills damage output only enforce a more rigorous rotation. In fact it is what will happen after the next patch as reapers will be pushed to use executionner's scythe in their rotation while they would have rather just used an AA chain instead. It won't lead to an "improvement of all PvE experience" otherwise elementalist would be extremly popular for it's "PvE experience".

The trend doesn't favor complex rotations, you might believe it's a good thing but most players personally find that a simple rotation is more enjoyable to play than a complicated one (Snowcrow benchmark is filled with builds that requiers complicated rotation but almost nobody play them).

 

Please, do look at thing objectively.

- The decimate defense change benefit nobody in PvP, it only have benefits against foes that can endure having 25 vuln stacks on them for an extended periode of time. You'll seldom find foes that live long enough with 25 vuln stacks to ever take this trait in PvP. Even then, a potential 2.5% increase in damage output wouldn't be attractive enough for anyone in PvP.

- The UI change is direly needed in all gamemodes (not only for reaper but also for harbinger's sake). The fact that the way the UI work penalizes the use of a main mechanism in group content is a shame on ANet's side.

- You say that the quickness change buff reaper in PvP? The devs can reduce the AA damage output there if it's needed. In anyway, seeing lower numbers on the AA would make the PvP community more friendly toward the necromancer. As for increasng the AA speed there is already many AA in game that are faster than what I suggest without quickness. If on top of that such change promote teamplay, even the devs would be happy (I don't think especially does though since core necromancer offer a source of quickness already.

- As for the shared incoming damage and 50% incoming healing while in shroud, I do believe it balance itself pretty well in PvP. The reaper's opponents might even feel like it's a godsend to be able to damage the reaper's health pool while it's in shroud.

[Dr Meta.3158]

31 minutes ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Increasing a few skills damage output only enforce a more rigorous rotation. In fact it is what will happen after the next patch as reapers will be pushed to use executionner's scythe in their rotation while they would have rather just used an AA chain instead. It won't lead to an "improvement of all PvE experience" otherwise elementalist would be extremly popular for it's "PvE experience".

The trend doesn't favor complex rotations, you might believe it's a good thing but most players personally find that a simple rotation is more enjoyable to play than a complicated one (Snowcrow benchmark is filled with builds that requiers complicated rotation but almost nobody play them).

 

Please, do look at thing objectively.

- The decimate defense change benefit nobody in PvP, it only have benefits against foes that can endure having 25 vuln stacks on them for an extended periode of time. You'll seldom find foes that live long enough with 25 vuln stacks to ever take this trait in PvP. Even then, a potential 2.5% increase in damage output wouldn't be attractive enough for anyone in PvP.

- The UI change is direly needed in all gamemodes (not only for reaper but also for harbinger's sake). The fact that the way the UI work penalizes the use of a main mechanism in group content is a shame on ANet's side.

- You say that the quickness change buff reaper in PvP? The devs can reduce the AA damage output there if it's needed. In anyway, seeing lower numbers on the AA would make the PvP community more friendly toward the necromancer. As for increasng the AA speed there is already many AA in game that are faster than what I suggest without quickness. If on top of that such change promote teamplay, even the devs would be happy (I don't think especially does though since core necromancer offer a source of quickness already.

- As for the shared incoming damage and 50% incoming healing while in shroud, I do believe it balance itself pretty well in PvP. The reaper's opponents might even feel like it's a godsend to be able to damage the reaper's health pool while it's in shroud.

I can't really parse use every damage skill off cooldown as rigorous. The people lament being a subpar dps option in raids, fractals and strikes. This is giving them what they want. Now for me, hitting a meatshield and doing the same synchronized dodge patterns isn't fun and is why the prospective esports scene died for GW2 originally for pvp, but the PVErs appear to enjoy that sort of thing so go talk to them about that. I see raiding (most of pve nowadays honestly) as a chore that needs to be done at times, not a pleasure. Regardless, I wholehearted understand the frustrating of contributing less than a support in damage while offering nothing in return for that support and not having the self-sustainability that you'd think would come with a enforced bruiser setup.

I don't think 12.5% increase in damage and 12.5% increase in critical rate equates to a 2.5% increase in damage output. Its very easy to hit people with 25 vulnerability, alone, on reaper in pvp with just Spite; hell, quite a lot of builds can do that. You can survive much worse situations than just having 25 vulnerability on you in pvp. The worst conditions to have are conditions that impede your ability to defend yourself, not some damage amps.

Yep people have complained about the UI forever. They only recently made it as bad as everyone else on Specter instead of egregiously bad.

Yes. Speed is the most important thing in pvp. Its why thief has been meta defining for all of conquest's existence. Hit fast, move fast. Even in dragon ball z of all places they even covered the concept of bulking up and hitting hard is useless if you can't hit your opponent. In PvE, just removing quickness and increasing base animation speed of shroud skills alone by 30% would make the endgame pve reapers much happier than their entire list of November 29th changes.

I wouldn't hold your breath for pvpers being happy about damaging through shroud. There are still a lot people in pvp that complain about harbinger being too hard to kill because it has two lifebars and that's a small amount to when end of dragons first released. They're about as foolish as the people that think shroud tanking is a good defense vs outsustaining incoming damage and just outright negating damage entirely without losing dps in the process.

 

 

 

 

[Ruisenior.6342]

8 hours ago, Agrippa Oculus.3726 said:

I actually do think the Reaper is quite nice at the moment, except for one thing .... and that's damage! It just isn't enough at the moment (or ever was imho). So just tweaking numbers would indeed be fine imo.

    That's what i want!!!! And it's pretty simple!!!!!!!!!!

   Pump up the autoattack and soul spiral damage of reaper shroud to match highest dps classes, bring back the damage reduction to what it used to be while in shroud, revert death perception changes and tweak reaper utility Rise! And maybe let us get the benefits from regeneration while in shroud.

 

THATS IT!!!!!!!

Edited November 21, 2022 by Ruisenior.6342

[Ruisenior.6342]

1 minute ago, Ruisenior.6342 said:

Mistake post repeated

 

Edited November 21, 2022 by Ruisenior.6342

[Infusion.7149]

I think the issue here is mainly crit chance as well as Death Perception losing 300 ferocity in June for 15% crit. Reaper was already lacking before the change to crit chance and having to use thief rune while in shroud is extremely penalizing. Increasing damage in shroud by pure numbers won't fix that limitation. 

A pure number buff across the board to shroud only actually makes it worse when you take damage. Instead, I would be looking at Chilling Nova, Spiteful Talisman, Decimate Defenses (since it is purely offensive), and perhaps Soul Eater. I would also look at improving dagger, axe, warhorn, and focus offhand. Else you are looking at the curses traitline for crit chance which is underwhelming.

Luckily for most instanced content scourge is more than viable and so is harbinger.

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

30 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

I think the issue here is mainly crit chance as well as Death Perception losing 300 ferocity in June for 15% crit. Reaper was already lacking before the change to crit chance and having to use thief rune while in shroud is extremely penalizing. Increasing damage in shroud by pure numbers won't fix that limitation. 

A pure number buff across the board to shroud only actually makes it worse when you take damage. Instead, I would be looking at Chilling Nova, Spiteful Talisman, Decimate Defenses (since it is purely offensive), and perhaps Soul Eater. I would also look at improving dagger, axe, warhorn, and focus offhand. Else you are looking at the curses traitline for crit chance which is underwhelming.

Luckily for most instanced content scourge is more than viable and so is harbinger.

The change of 300 Ferocity to 15% crit damage was a straight up buff, but losing the crit chance definitely hurt.

 

I agree that moving more of the damage to be out of shroud is probably the way to go.  Let Shroud be higher DPS, but close the gap between in-shroud and out of shroud.  Buff the weapons and the traits.  Maybe give function to the Spite minors beyond Might stacking.

Edited November 21, 2022 by Drarnor Kunoram.5180

[Bookah pls.9352]

22 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

I think the issue here is mainly crit chance as well as Death Perception losing 300 ferocity in June for 15% crit. Reaper was already lacking before the change to crit chance and having to use thief rune while in shroud is extremely penalizing. Increasing damage in shroud by pure numbers won't fix that limitation. 

 

I said it at the time and still do, a total monkey paw "buff" that could have been just enough to tilt reaper into the more favoured side of the meta had it been purely the buff part instead of the needless nerf parts.

I still can't comprehend how in the patch designed to compensate for banner losses we somehow actually got nerfed or how 5 months later it's still not been addressed.

--

On top of the crit nerf revert i want to see

self fury generation via chills or crits on chilled on shivers of dread or cold shoulder traitline

Soul Eater to convert the healing into damage while in shroud

Hell, give big buffs to spite and we can buff power harb at the same time.

 

Considering we're necro with 2 viable condi specs i wouldn't be opposed at totally killing the condi reaper stuff with a revamp of those traits into giving a qdps role option, preferably with stab generation to give more competition for that.

Edited November 22, 2022 by Bookah pls.9352

[Dr Meta.3158]

10 minutes ago, Bookah pls.9352 said:

 

I said it at the time and still do, a total monkey paw "buff" that could have been just enough to tilt reaper into the more favoured side of the meta had it been purely the buff part instead of the needless nerf parts.

I still can't comprehend how in the patch designed to compensate for banner losses we somehow actually got nerfed.

--

On top of the crit nerf revert i want to see

self fury generation via chills or crits on chilled on shivers of dread or cold shoulder traitline

Soul Eater to convert the healing into damage while in shroud

Hell, give big buffs to spite and we can buff power harb at the same time.

 

Considering we're necro with 2 viable condi specs i wouldn't be opposed at totally killing the condi reaper stuff with a revamp of those traits into giving a qdps role option, preferably with stab generation to give more competition for that.

Yes. I agree. Change the bleed grandmaster trait to something else. 

Also more damage in downstate is not necessary. That can be changed to something else preferably something that works when others provide might and vulnerability. 

[Nabbut.7480]

Sucking is a core feature of Necromancer, fix urself.