Reaper Shroud in All Game Modes.

[Astralporing.1957]

3 hours ago, Malus.2184 said:

How did you reach this conclusion? While Shrouyd is an additional life bar it's effectively a barrier of the same amount as the Life Force used when it's invoked. And Barriers are by far considered stronger than blocks and evades, with invuls being on the same level except in the case of Shroud they can potentially last longer or shorter.

Barriers are more easily reapplied, but also, far more importantly, they are a good complement to normal healing (both direct and regen). If barriers prevented you from being healed, they would not be used. So, in that way, Barriers are already massively superior to Shroud. Additionally, there will never be a situation where damage mitigation would be superior, or even equal, to complete damage avoidance (due to either negation or evasion). It's only good because you can never have enough of the latter.

3 hours ago, Malus.2184 said:

 

Yes, imagine if it had any. They would make the Shroud unimaginably strong. Because Shroud is so unimaginably and potentially powerful by the sheer game balance they're unable to get those things since else they would be way too OP.

Again, Shroud is only "so unimaginably and potentially powerful" in your uninformed vision. In reality, it's nothing of that sort. I have already explained why, it's just (as i have already mentioned) you clearly lack enough experience with the class to understand my explanations. Hint: and i will be extremely unkind here - i am not speaking here about any sort of in-depth class knowledge here - the amount of knowledge (or rather lack of) you show here strongly suggest to me you have never actually tried to play this class for more than 5 minutes.

3 hours ago, Malus.2184 said:

If Shroud was weaker then all those things could potentially be given to Reaper which would overall make them stronger.

Maybe. You are not suggesting that however. You are suggesting making Shroud completely useless and nothing beyond that. Hint: if you want to renovate the building, you don't start by bulldozing it first, unless you've aready had a plan how to rebuild it fast after this. Or you did not ever plan on living there and don't care what might happen to those that did.

3 hours ago, Malus.2184 said:

I see this argument often that nothing should be done about Shroud because it's already so weak. This shows an inability to look at it holistically and failing to understand the reason Reaper has poor mitigation tools aside from Shroud.

You are the person that is not looking at it holistically. You just suggest a Shroud nerf (and not even a well-thought one), without caring about the whole picture. The change you suggest does not help Reaper in any way, and is not a good starting point for any future design changes. All it does is make a mess that would have to be fixed later on. By someone else.

And the reason Reaper has poor mitigation tools apart from Shroud is due to Necromancer (and reaper) getting designed on basis of narrative ideas by peopl e that did not fully understood the impact those ideas would have on actual mechanics and gameplay.

3 hours ago, Malus.2184 said:

It has to be because the Shroud in itself is a defensive/offensive utility. Harbinger Shroud brings amazing offensive utility and has Utility Skills that are meant to be used proactively before entering the Shroud. Scourge can still use Utility Skill while it has its version of Shroud up since it's inherently weaker than Reaper Shroud. 

Defensively it's just like barriers (but significantly worse). Offensively it's not any better than, say, Warrior's berserk mode. But it's tied to many handicaps those other mechanics do not have.

Honestly, most of the Reapers i know would gladly exchange all the "defensive utility" of shroud for a normal complement of defensive utilities, ability to use utilities while in shroud, and shroud time not getting shortened by getting hit. That's how goodbad it is.

So, again, i suggest that you educate yourself about the class first, before you start offering ideas about how to "fix" it.

Edited April 25, 2023 by Astralporing.1957

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Reaper Shroud is not God Mode, but it comes with an immense amount of defense while covering the HP bar.

You can't use your heal skill or get healed by others while in Reaper Shroud, but there are ways to gain self-healing while in shroud.

Reaper has tools to CC juggle opponents so they don't take the damage in the first place. (PSA: drop Wurm and play around with other utility skills for a bit 😉)

I can honestly say that I've never felt like a rag doll or as a punching bag while playing my Reaper out in WvW.

Edited April 26, 2023 by Lan Deathrider.5910

[Zex Anthon.8673]

On 4/25/2023 at 1:49 AM, Malus.2184 said:

You just literally did a "what about." This subject is about Reaper alone and nothing else. The purpose of this is about Reaper. Do others have issues? Yes. Are they the subject of this, or should they serve as a derailment of the topic? No.

What are you even comparing reaper to if you think its so omega op "god-mode"? By your logic literally all blocks, evades, and invulns should only stop 50% of damage. 

Others have already said this, but there are many reasons why shroud is an inferior defense.

To be objective I'll start with what's good:

• It has the potential to ignore damage for longer than other forms of defense
• It allows you to deal damage while also being defended (not unique to reaper btw)

Now let's move on to the bad:

• It is entirely health based, so if your dealt enough damage players can break through the defense (unique only to shroud and barrier)
• It prevents healing, supports will find it very difficult to do their job when half the time they cannot heal you (at least barrier allows for this)
• It removes access to utilities, you lose access to your stun breaks, mobility skills, condi cleanses, and cc skills. Core necro doesn't even have the stability or mobility on shroud like reaper. Though reaper loses range. So you are a very easy target while in shroud and you can be kited easily.
• It requires a resource, not only does it have a cooldown, but you have to maintain enough life force for it to be an effective shield. This resource comes from attacking and nearby deaths, so kiting as a necro is more challenging because you need to build a resource.
• It is tied to necro's primary offense, which forces you to use it when you don't need defense. Alternatively, when you do use it as a shield your offense is crippled until you can build enough lifeforce again.

Then you compile all these draw backs with necro's inherent weaknesses:

• No access to stability
• Low mobility, necro is the slowest class
• Very little boon access, no vigor, no resistance, little swiftness, little regeneration.
• No useful auras or superspeed.
• Very little projectile block
• Very limited combo fields and finishers
• Low sustain, life stealing is complete garbage

With all of this its difficult to see how anyone could view reaper shroud as "god-mode". Judging by the overwhelmingly negative response to your post I'd say you are in the minority. 

[Malus.2184]

On 4/27/2023 at 6:11 AM, Zex Anthon.8673 said:

What are you even comparing reaper to if you think its so omega op "god-mode"? By your logic literally all blocks, evades, and invulns should only stop 50% of damage. 

That would be a pretty good idea in any PvP environment. Especially invuls since getting full reign with no retaliation possible for three-four seconds is stupidly good in that environment.

[Malus.2184]

On 4/25/2023 at 1:30 PM, Astralporing.1957 said:

Maybe. You are not suggesting that however. You are suggesting making Shroud completely useless and nothing beyond that. Hint: if you want to renovate the building, you don't start by bulldozing it first, unless you've aready had a plan how to rebuild it fast after this. Or you did not ever plan on living there and don't care what might happen to those that did.

Those skills were at the level they should be though and they were nerfed hard because Reaper Shroud made them too good. That's the issue. They can be used before you go into Reaper Shroud. and then you get an additional health bar and a second set of abilities.

This is what happened before and it's what's going to happen again since due to the way Reaper Shroud is right now the other abilities of the Reaper will either be underpowered or overpowered. It's a necessary pill the spec has to take. ANet is literally tuning every reason for the spec being the way it is and letting the cause of the issue alone. Unless you fix the cause it'll always show itself in a different form if only the outcomes are changed. This is the equivalent of doing every other treatment on someone with flu aside from giving them antibiotics.

[Astralporing.1957]

15 minutes ago, Malus.2184 said:

Those skills were at the level they should be though and they were nerfed hard because Reaper Shroud made them too good.

No. Reaper never had a defensive suite on par with other classes. It's not just a case of respective skills being weaker - it just doesn't have those skills at all.

Also, again, your method of weaking the shroud does not form a good basis for the overall rework of Necro mechanics. It just kills Shroud. If a rework would be forthcoming it would also be something that would end up being reworked into something else.

Edited May 3, 2023 by Astralporing.1957

[Dr Meta.3158]

On 4/27/2023 at 12:11 AM, Zex Anthon.8673 said:

What are you even comparing reaper to if you think its so omega op "god-mode"? By your logic literally all blocks, evades, and invulns should only stop 50% of damage. 

Others have already said this, but there are many reasons why shroud is an inferior defense.

To be objective I'll start with what's good:

• It has the potential to ignore damage for longer than other forms of defense
• It allows you to deal damage while also being defended (not unique to reaper btw)

Now let's move on to the bad:

• It is entirely health based, so if your dealt enough damage players can break through the defense (unique only to shroud and barrier)
• It prevents healing, supports will find it very difficult to do their job when half the time they cannot heal you (at least barrier allows for this)
• It removes access to utilities, you lose access to your stun breaks, mobility skills, condi cleanses, and cc skills. Core necro doesn't even have the stability or mobility on shroud like reaper. Though reaper loses range. So you are a very easy target while in shroud and you can be kited easily.
• It requires a resource, not only does it have a cooldown, but you have to maintain enough life force for it to be an effective shield. This resource comes from attacking and nearby deaths, so kiting as a necro is more challenging because you need to build a resource.
• It is tied to necro's primary offense, which forces you to use it when you don't need defense. Alternatively, when you do use it as a shield your offense is crippled until you can build enough lifeforce again.

Then you compile all these draw backs with necro's inherent weaknesses:

• No access to stability
• Low mobility, necro is the slowest class
• Very little boon access, no vigor, no resistance, little swiftness, little regeneration.
• No useful auras or superspeed.
• Very little projectile block
• Very limited combo fields and finishers
• Low sustain, life stealing is complete garbage

With all of this its difficult to see how anyone could view reaper shroud as "god-mode". Judging by the overwhelmingly negative response to your post I'd say you are in the minority. 

A little late in responding to this but death and reaper shroud is like the old flamethrower scrapper. It is very oppressive and hard to contend with for new players and old players that never developed any skill. And its very easy to deal with for everyone else.

That being said, part of the play pattern, when playing as any necromancer class, is to be patient and calculating; force openings in the defenses and pu ish them for it while not getting greedy and overcommiting. Its a class that looks simple and straightforward to play but actually requires though and careful planning althoughout the fight including knowing when to disengage completely before the time to disengage even comes.

Patience and calculayed plays are both the answer to playing as and playing against necromancer classes.