Feb. 28 Patch.

[Arianth Moonlight.6453]

Quote

Profession Skills

Necromancer

• The melee range of all reaper shout skills has been increased from 130 to 240.
• "Nothing Can Save You!": Initial unblockable stacks increased from 5 to 10. Unblockable stacks gained from melee hits reduced from 2 to 1.

noise! I didn't expect a balance update and I didn't even notice when I played today b'cuz I'm used to be on top of targets, but I think the change is nice.

[ZTeamG.4603]

I was glad to see this change. It helps to make it so that now, between this patch and the previous one, reaper shouts as a whole were buffed (previously they were mostly buffed but the unblockable one was a net nerf).

 

Also the melee range being larger is great, 130 was too small for the shout trait to ever be worth taking. 

[DEATHsCLAW.1978]

22 hours ago, ZTeamG.4603 said:

I was glad to see this change. It helps to make it so that now, between this patch and the previous one, reaper shouts as a whole were buffed (previously they were mostly buffed but the unblockable one was a net nerf).

 

Also the melee range being larger is great, 130 was too small for the shout trait to ever be worth taking. 

 

In what world is the shout trait worth taking? 

I 100% agree with the rest of your statement..

[ZTeamG.4603]

It still can't really compete with the other two options (granted, they're not great either) now that the cooldown reduction is inherent in the shouts, but using it in zerg fights can provide you a little more damage and sustain from the life steal.

[Arianth Moonlight.6453]

1 hour ago, DEATHsCLAW.1978 said:

In what world is the shout trait worth taking? 

the whole point of the change was to remove the need to take the trait. However, the DPS difference compared to Chilling Nova isn't really that great and the extra healing is sometimes useful.

if you want max DPS, you shouldn't be taking Shouts anyway, though again, the difference compared to the best DPS build with Wells is minimal too.

[Acanthus.8120]

On 3/2/2023 at 5:34 PM, Arianth Moonlight.6453 said:

the whole point of the change was to remove the need to take the trait. However, the DPS difference compared to Chilling Nova isn't really that great and the extra healing is sometimes useful.

if you want max DPS, you shouldn't be taking Shouts anyway, though again, the difference compared to the best DPS build with Wells is minimal too.

I mean, if you want sustain, you still don't take shouts because signets are so much better at it when traited. We're in a weird position where the necessity of being in shroud because of our "in-shroud only, get x effect or do y effect to enemies" traits is crowding out almost every utility that isn't a signet because signets actually do things while we're in shroud, unlike everything else, not to mention that they cooldown faster while we're in shroud, so they're always available when we have to pop out. Until core traits are cleaned up, that will be continue to be the case unless they buff the numbers so dramatically that our shouts become objectively overpowered because the design was to give us selfish, offensive shouts for some reason.

[Arianth Moonlight.6453]

18 hours ago, Acanthus.8120 said:

if you want sustain, you still don't take shouts because signets are so much better

sustain with signets?

[Asum.4960]

6 hours ago, Arianth Moonlight.6453 said:

sustain with signets?

I'm guessing we are talking OW here, where it's generally best/easiest to just run Signets with Signet's of Suffering. 

That way you can camp Shroud as much as possible via Signet of Undeath (meaning being Shielded by Shroud for Core and Reaper, Barrier and Condi Conversion spam for Scourge, high passive Blight uptime and therefor high Alchemic Vigor healing per second for Harbinger), while getting constant healing ticks from Signet of Vampirism both in and out of Shroud, as well as optionally perma free movement speed increase from Locust and or Power from Spite - all while being able to use those actives, like Vampirism and Locust, to heal every time you are out of Shroud, without losing the passives when going back into it. 

 

Plus Spite further synergising for every solo build with 25 self Might from Reaper's Might, and Dread further Synergising on esp. Reaper and Core builds with SR's Fear of Death to facilitate near unkillable perma Shroud solo builds (which then additionally to the 25 Might from Spite also get 25 Vuln from Unyielding Blast for solo play). 

 

There isn't any setup that gives you equally as much sustain, except for some Blood/Death/Minion shenanigans - but those in turn sacrifice ~50% of your damage to do so, while proper Signet solo builds are on the upper end of solo build DPS.

Edited March 5, 2023 by Asum.4960

[Acanthus.8120]

4 hours ago, Asum.4960 said:

I'm guessing we are talking OW here, where it's generally best/easiest to just run Signets with Signet's of Suffering. 

That way you can camp Shroud as much as possible via Signet of Undeath (meaning being Shielded by Shroud for Core and Reaper, Barrier and Condi Conversion spam for Scourge, high passive Blight uptime and therefor high Alchemic Vigor healing per second for Harbinger), while getting constant healing ticks from Signet of Vampirism both in and out of Shroud, as well as optionally perma free movement speed increase from Locust and or Power from Spite - all while being able to use those actives, like Vampirism and Locust, to heal every time you are out of Shroud, without losing the passives when going back into it. 

 

Plus Spite further synergising for every solo build with 25 self Might from Reaper's Might, and Dread further Synergising on esp. Reaper and Core builds with SR's Fear of Death to facilitate near unkillable perma Shroud solo builds (which then additionally to the 25 Might from Spite also get 25 Vuln from Unyielding Blast for solo play). 

 

There isn't any setup that gives you equally as much sustain, except for some Blood/Death/Minion shenanigans - but those in turn sacrifice ~50% of your damage to do so, while proper Signet solo builds are on the upper end of solo build DPS.

Pretty much all of this.

If you trait Augury of Death and have "Your Soul Is Mine", "You Are All Weaklings", "Suffer", and "Chilled to the Bone" and are hitting a single target (because, realistically, fighting trash mobs isn't a realistic test of viability and the test of viability tends to be against single, very tanky, hard-hitting targets), your extra healing is roughly 25.347 healing per second when used off cd with 0 healing power. When considering the active heal of "Your Soul Is Mine", that goes up to 310.035 healing per second. Signet of Vampirism heals 195 a second passively. When in shroud, it cools down in 13.64 seconds. With the passive AND active's life leech, as well as the active's heal used off cooldown, you would have 728.138 healing per second. Obviously, these numbers are theoretical maximums and you would never reach either of these numbers. The point is merely to show how signet of Vampirism, by itself, is better than all Augury of Death shouts combined. When you take Signet of Undeath into account, the disparity is even bigger.

Anyway, to reply to what Asum said now, even if we're taking endgame, Reaper doesn't exactly have a whole lot of tools to help others. I would still keep Signet of Vampirism and Signet of Undeath at the minimum because healers can't heal me in shroud, and Signet of Undeath is one of the very few helpful actives we can have since I can point at someone downed at get them up instantly. You would just give up Signet of Spite for utility, maybe even Spectral Walk too. Others can cleanse me. I can grab more boon strip. But really, Reaper is just a poor option in Raids in general. As for CMs, well, I haven't done them.

Edited March 5, 2023 by Acanthus.8120

[Boh.4568]

I was a shout trait enjoyer on my corrupt-power-havoc reaper, used NCSY way more than wells for quick uncoordinated attacks. Nice to see it readjusted, I guess the negligible heal I lost from untraiting augury becomes a buff with chilling nova. All 3 trait choices for that node are underwhelming anyway.

Heal shout and elite CTTB becoming better and better, love them. Now if only they reverted the crit chance on death perception..........

[Bookah pls.9352]

On 3/6/2023 at 12:51 PM, Boh.4568 said:

Now if only they reverted the crit chance on death perception..........

It really bugs me that 9 months later they never readdressed that, it was such an awful and unnecessary monkey paw change. 

Here's a nice dps buff that might lift you higher than the boon supports! but in return for this nice buff you now crit less often and have to totally reshuffle gear around, which will actually counter the buff.  Ironically in the patch that was making crit more accessible after removing precision banner.

 

 

Tell a lie, they did give 5% back in november which did help a bit to be fair. Still needs more.

 

 

Actually another note on that.

There are boon supports rocking full zerker with force and impact sigils while upkeeping their boons and achieving 100% crit chance.

Meanwhile reaper, a spec that can only dps, has to use assassins and accuracy sigils just to reach crit cap?!?

 

Where is the logic here??

Edited March 7, 2023 by Bookah pls.9352

[Methuselah.4376]

Honestly I like this buff to shouts, makes them worth running in open world and even in fractals. CTTB + YAAW tends t to clear most trash plus the quickness and might is always nice. 

[Nimon.7840]

Problem:

The shout trait is now pretty much useless.

If i remember correctly it gave flat cooldown reduction as well as on hit reduction?

The lifestyle was a nice bonus imo.

Yes shouts have decreased cooldowns, but the trait does literally nothing now.

What is it? Like around 120-130 healing per target hit?

And around 160 dmg per target on a power build?

And double the effects in melee range.

That's around 1k healing per shout while traited if you are in melee range of 5 targets.

While that sound pretty good, it's actually, not in my opinion.

In wvw for example that's useless, if you are ganked by 5 people, you're dead anyways.

In group content you will almost always have a healer.

And in open world, there's better things to play than shout reaper.

 

 

Edited March 7, 2023 by Nimon.7840

[Methuselah.4376]

9 minutes ago, Nimon.7840 said:

Problem:

The shout trait is now pretty much useless.

If i remember correctly it gave flat cooldown reduction as well as on hit reduction?

The lifestyle was a nice bonus imo.

Yes shouts have decreased cooldowns, but the trait does literally nothing now.

What is it? Like around 120-130 healing per target hit?

And around 160 dmg per target on a power build?

And double the effects in melee range.

That's around 1k healing per shout while traited if you are in melee range of 5 targets.

While that sound pretty good, it's actually, not in my opinion.

In wvw for example that's useless, if you are ganked by 5 people, you're dead anyways.

In group content you will almost always have a healer.

And in open world, there's better things to play than shout reaper.

 

 

Might be a bit busted, but maybe they could rework Augury of Death to cause shouts to delivery a secondary attack package after a delay (3s?) or make enemies affected by your shouts take 5% more damage for 15 seconds. 

[Greviathan.6107]

Good adjustments.
However Augury Of Death has become a pointless trait.
So I lay out a couple of ideas for a possible rework to make it an interesting trait again:

1. Shouts usable in shroud
2. Additional effects like:
   • "Your Soul Is Mine!": Resistance or Vigor
   • "Nothing Can Save You!": Reveal or Immobilize
   • "Rise!": Shambling Horrors no longer require attacking to absorb damage for their master
   • "Suffer!": Daze
   •  "You Are All Weaklings!": Stability
      "Chilled to the Bone!": Fury or Might (Though I believe CTTB needs absolutely nothing else but it's just for consistency)

[Arianth Moonlight.6453]

Augury Of Death 2.0

• Shouts grant carapace 🙂