Feb 14 WvW Reaper shouts

[Lonewolf Kai.3682]

are very...... underwhelming.

 

 

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

Can't say I'm surprised.  The shout rework seems okay-ish in PvE, maybe PvP.  WvW where melee range is a rarity and nigh impossible to hold, it doesn't seem to do anything but nerf Nothing can Save You.

Edited February 14 by Drarnor Kunoram.5180

[Marxx.5021]

It plays as expected in PvP. Dogshit would give it to much credit.

[Asum.4960]

Shouts still irrelevant, Dagger still irrelevant, Warhorn still irrelevant - beyond their previous niches/for the fun/sake of it use (+all the untouched stuff ofc). Productive patch.

Could be worse though, at least things didn't regress like FB Mantras.

[Radina.6057]

What did we expect?

The whole "buff shout damage" idea is silly. You need the mobility from other skills to play PvP and WvW properly. In instance content you want damage.

 

They would have to buff the damage by what? Six to ten times to come close to a well?

 

I dont know what the gentleman that is doing the Reaper changes is thinking, but some hours in each of those game modes would instantly show whats wrong about the "shout buff" idea.

 

We are soon at the point where the "buffed axe 2 damage by 3%" meme will get reborn as "buffed shout damage by some random number we dont wanna list".

[Mikhael.2391]

The problem remains since launch almost, no reall access to stability and CC prevention, theres just too much that shuts down necro and reaper in wvw, ridiculous, I would be embarressed to work in that company tbh.

[Dadnir.5038]

11 hours ago, Radina.6057 said:

What did we expect?

Nothing 😉

11 hours ago, Radina.6057 said:

The whole "buff shout damage" idea is silly.

More than "shout damage", the "buff" is mainly a 1v1 buff where shout now have a shorter CD and can be used quickly to burst down a foe way faster than Wells can. The main issue being that taking shout to burst down anything mean you totally give up mobility in PvP while in PvE foes (that matter) have way to much health point to be bursted down by shouts.

The funniest point is that there is now a possibility that some meme builds appear in PvP and that it end up with some nerfs to shouts there.

 

Chilling victory and Blighter boon are the only 2 truly relevant change for reaper in this update. There is a lot of newfound sustain in PvP baked in these 2 changes even if it end up with unsatisfying damage output.

[Nimon.7840]

Well as I predicted.

130 range is way too short, maybe 240 would be reasonable.

"Nothing can save you" nerfed, but they made it look like it got something extra.

 

Shouts still unusable for roaming. only elite is useable and can now give quickness, if, by some miracle the enemy allows you to use the 1 second Casttime in 130 range.

 

WvW:

Roaming:

Wurm and spectral walk are a must have for mobility. Even consume conditions is set (well arguably against power enemies you could take the shout). So we are left with one more utility skill.

Which either is poison cloud to somewhat release pressure against heavy range, or most of the time another stun break, because Necro is way to easy to cc.

Elite skill is the shout since you can bait dodges, and it gives stability.

 

Zerg:

Before the patch I recommended something like:

Heal: according to player preference, most of the times the shout.

Utility skills:

For very good players:

Well of suffering, well of corruption, nothing can save you. Elite: lich

 

Other option:

Well of corruption, nothing can save you, spectral armor. Elite: lich

 

For players learning: 

Well of suffering and corruption, spectral armor. Elite: shout

 

Basically lich was viable, because nothing can save you was good.

You could go in with shroud, then when shroud was deleted go a bit outside of the Zerg, pop NCSY and lich and be a caster.

Just in case: Yes there are other Playstyles!

 

There was just no space for YAAW, Suffer and rise.

I didn't play Zerg yet, but I expect that nothing much has changed. 

Maybe you don't play NCSY anymore and now always take double well + spectral armor, but I didn't have time to test.

 

What does all of this tell us? Shout are still too weak compared to other skills. Or at least they don't offer, what reaper needs: mobility and sustain from life force.

 

[Greviathan.6107]

Outside of PvE the situation has not changed much.
The only good shouts were and remain: "Your Soul Is Mine!", "Chilled To The Bone!" and occasionally "You Are All Weaklings!".

While "Rise!", "Nothing Can Save You!" and "Suffer!" are still almost useless. Maybe even worse than before in some case.
 

What the reaper needs is an alternative or better solution than Flesh Wurm and Spectral Walk, which as a mobility skills are not even that good... these are simply the only options. (In terms of mobility Spectral Walk is just a return and Flesh Wurm has an extremely long cast time which makes it impractical in many situations).
 

As already mentioned several times by many others, the reaper mainly needs mobility (now more than ever IMO) and a better sustain, not more damage in melee range!

[KrHome.1920]

Any buff to shouts is appreciated. And thematically it makes sense. When you scream someone directly in his face from a short distance, you deal more damage to his ears. 

The same goes for dagger and warhown. Still not perfect, but just buffs, no hidden nerfs. It's more than we could expect from ANet.

Both actually brought me back to the game after a while.

The heal shout is pretty fantastic now and on the same level as consume conditions and the traited signet heal.

[Esufer.8762]

idk that chilled to the bone buff is pretty good imo

[Elldar.1647]

1 hour ago, Esufer.8762 said:

idk that chilled to the bone buff is pretty good imo

Same, glad that Flesh Golem isn't the only obvious option as an elite anymore. The only thing I'd change about it at this point(besides fixing the incorrect Quickness duration in the tooltip, since it actually gives 5 seconds per melee target, instead of 10) is increase the "melee" range from 130 to 180, just to give you a little bit more leeway in hectic situations.

[Dr Meta.3158]

The major wins for reaper in this patch was the cooldown reduction on chilling victory, Your Soul Is Mine! and Chilled to the Bone! The minor win is unblockable fear on warhorn although that should had been there from the start since the change from the daze. Everything else is irrelevant. As noted before. A little more mobility is more needed. I mentioned some desired changes before notably changing relentless pursuit losing the trait outside of shroud and gaining 1 second superspeed on chill application, dagger 3 turning into a leap and greatsword 3 turning into a leap. I would also consider putting flesh wurm back to 32 second cooldown since its the worst blink variant.

Overall the real wins are vindicator, catalyst, and spellbreaker getting toned down. Virtuoso is even more toxic but still useless in conquest. Bladesworn is looking very interesting, I'm curious on seeing how those builds develop. Mirage could be a problem, have to see how that plays out. Untamed could also be a problem, also have to see. 

[felincyriac.5981]

Damage is not the way to buff shouts. They are utility skills. Buff their utility ability. 

 

For damage improvements buff the actual damage focused skills.

[Extacy.6192]

The strip gvg/zerg reaper got nerfed... nothing can save you and lich combo is practically dead. On top way less strips, especially combined with the absorption sigil change before that.

I don't know what they are doing. At least nothing for wvw/zerg (15-35) gameplay.

Hate it.

[sdaugherty.1984]

Yes, when I read the Feb 14th news I had an overwhelming feeling of disappointment. My favorite class reaper was going to be harder and harder to play in WvW....    Come on Anet! Get creative with Reaper! Give it something like a spectral/Ghost ability to enter and become invisible for a short time to help with escapes. Or buff the classic necro weapon Staff to reap and harvest boons. I have seen many creative ideas in the community.     If not,  RiP WvW Reaper.

[Radina.6057]

4 hours ago, Extacy.6192 said:

I don't know what they are doing.

 

Anet doesnt know either. I still dont know how they pulled off the Soulbeast rework. That one was majestic.

[Greviathan.6107]

 

1 hour ago, sdaugherty.1984 said:

Yes, when I read the Feb 14th news I had an overwhelming feeling of disappointment. My favorite class reaper was going to be harder and harder to play in WvW....    Come on Anet! Get creative with Reaper! Give it something like a spectral/Ghost ability to enter and become invisible for a short time to help with escapes. Or buff the classic necro weapon Staff to reap and harvest boons. I have seen many creative ideas in the community.     If not,  RiP WvW Reaper.

 

Invisibility on Necro doesn't seem like a good idea to me and there's already too much stealth in gw2 (also quite abused), plus it would be problematic with minion masters for various and obvious reasons.

On reaper in my opinion a short active defense wouldn't hurt, after all it's a light armor power melee spec... and the reaper-shroud isn't really an efficient defense (way too many counters/weakness and makes necro pretty predictable).
 

Personally I think two very simple things are enough to make the reaper a lot less obsolete in PvP/WvW:

1. Instant Flash Wurm or short cast time.
2. A Leap on Greatsword with something like a half-second Evade of Stability + Life Force + Chill or Vulnerability or Life Steal. (Basically a Reaper version of the guardian's "Leap of Faith")

And a third that is more a quality of life than anything else: Life force generation out of combat and out of shroud in PvE and WvW.

[Seuchenherbst.2746]

1 minute ago, Radina.6057 said:

Anet doesnt know either.

yeah, it seems at times that one hand doesn't know what the other is doing/has done. Good example for this: they introduced "drawbacks" to the elite specs so the core classes would have something special and not feel completely useless, e.g. they gave Core Engineer the F5 toolbelt, to which the elite specs do not have access to. I really really liked this idea, because otherwise why would you ever play a core class anymore?

However, soon the crying of certain segments of the player base (*cough* Soulbeast) got too loud, so Anet reverted these "drawbacks" in many instances, BUT NOT IN ALL. For instance, the "drawback" for chosing Reaper spec was that your shroud now deteriorates 5% per second instead of 3%. They haven't reverted this and most likely never will. Yet other classes like mesmer (virtuoso) got full access to everything the core class can do.

[KrHome.1920]

10 hours ago, Seuchenherbst.2746 said:

yeah, it seems at times that one hand doesn't know what the other is doing/has done. Good example for this: they introduced "drawbacks" to the elite specs so the core classes would have something special and not feel completely useless, e.g. they gave Core Engineer the F5 toolbelt, to which the elite specs do not have access to. I really really liked this idea, because otherwise why would you ever play a core class anymore?

However, soon the crying of certain segments of the player base (*cough* Soulbeast) got too loud, so Anet reverted these "drawbacks" in many instances, BUT NOT IN ALL. For instance, the "drawback" for chosing Reaper spec was that your shroud now deteriorates 5% per second instead of 3%. They haven't reverted this and most likely never will. Yet other classes like mesmer (virtuoso) got full access to everything the core class can do.

They gave up that drawback idea a long time ago and switched to just include the elite spec mechanics into their normal balancing attempts. 

Current state of reaper shroud:

PvE: degenerates by 4% and reduces incoming damge by 33%

PvP/WvW: degenerates by 5% and reduces incoming damage by 50%

That has nothing to do with tradeoffs and stuff anymore. I couldn't even say which of the two above is better for any game mode. For those who can't remember: 4% degen / 50% inc dmg used to be the baseline for core shroud, which you could lower to 2% degen / 50% inc dmg with a soul reaping trait.

Edited February 20 by KrHome.1920

[Asum.4960]

10 hours ago, KrHome.1920 said:

For those who can't remember: 4% degen / 50% inc dmg used to be the baseline for core shroud, which you could lower to 2% degen / 50% inc dmg with a soul reaping trait.

You had to remind me of the good ol' Vital Persistence, Speed of Shadows, Foot in the Grave and Soul Battery days..

[Arianth Moonlight.6453]

12 hours ago, Asum.4960 said:

Foot in the Grave

😭