Expanded Weapon Proficiencies Beta Feedback: Necromancer

[Poplolita.2638]

Sword#4 second skill should apply slow along with chill and vulnerability. As of right now, it's just a weaker version of Haunt that cost a lot of HP. Just why would I ever use it??  Give it slow and the HP cost will make sense since necromancer lacks slow. As of now. it's just not worth taking offhand sword when I can apply more reliability both vulnerability and chill with my offhand focus while actually gaining some health.

Edited January 4 by Poplolita.2638

[August.5934]

2 Sword for reaper!!! very excited. 

But it takes too much HP. Currently i am using Axe+Focus, and this weapons have much more higher damage and boon removal then swords So unless swords provide something more better then Axe+focus (power) then i might end up not using swords after a short while. More so in HoT map, where mobs hits very hard and instead of healing, using swords would be same as killing myself cause of not enough recovery.

I personally don't see swords been viable in PVP.

[mirage.8046]

I gave some time to make swords a potential choice and less slow:

autoattacks: reduced cast times
sword 2: ravenous wave. gain might or fury on critical hits.
sword 3: path of gluttony and gorge are now leap finishers. gorge gets a 1/2 evade.
sword 4: hungering maelstrom now creates a dark field that pulses life siphon damage on enemies inside it.
sword 5: reworked entirely. whirlwind terror: you dash past enemies, fearing anyone in your dash and reflecting projectiles. it has a whirl finisher. -> consume flipover skill: sacrifice health to create a bubble that reflects projectiles.
 

[Seuchenherbst.2746]

So what are the chances the skills will just arrive as shown in the beta? IMO pretty high. I'm a little concerned that there was only one of them. Doesn't seem enough to balance everything out. And when will they be launched? Forgot the date and can't seem to find it 😅

[Dadnir.5038]

2 hours ago, Seuchenherbst.2746 said:

Forgot the date and can't seem to find it

There is thread that claim it's for feb 27.

[dreamin.5102]

 

Hello,

I would like to propose some ideas for changing the Reaper's lines.

I apologize if I'm not in the right place, but apparently this is it ^^

Affected Functionality:

• Soul Eater: Remove the bonus damage and increase healing by 5%, or rephrase the effect to apply a barrier of 500 to 750 hp per shroud skill used (1 tick/skill use).

• Decimate Defenses: Reduce the critical hit bonus per vulnerability charge from 2 to 0.5, and this trait would now increase damage by 0.5 per vulnerability present on the target. Justification: for the soul eater & decomates defenses. These two changes would bring tactical consistency in the Reaper's build choice: you choose either more damage or more healing, but not both at the same time.

• Reaper's Shroud: I suggest simply removing the second HP bar, to directly take damage, as with the Harbringer, so gameplay isn't just about tanking all damage, which I find very flat. The loss of this survival ability could be compensated by a buff that increases the Reaper's speed based on missing HP, for example, since it has a lot of melee spells (up to 10 or 15% max).

• Death's Charge: Maybe a modification with a longer cooldown and a different effect? For example, a dash or a blink with a maximum range of 900 that inflicts chill | blindness | generates some life force and has a cooldown of 10 - 13 seconds? (and no longer blocks projectiles, but converts a boon into a condition if the skill hits a target).

What do you think?

Edited April 10 by dreamin.5102

[Daevhalla.7823]

On 4/10/2024 at 9:08 PM, dreamin.5102 said:

Reaper's Shroud: I suggest simply removing the second HP bar, to directly take damage, as with the Harbringer, so gameplay isn't just about tanking all damage, which I find very flat. The loss of this survival ability could be compensated by a buff that increases the Reaper's speed based on missing HP, for example, since it has a lot of melee spells (up to 10 or 15% max).

Shroud is vital mechanic to a necromancer as it is. Later iterations changed it (scourge and harb, harb softened the lose of shroud with barrier applicaiton), but it is still a core ability to the necromancer and simply giving it speed or even quickness is not a viable option at all, not only because of all the possible boons to get in a group setting, but because necromancers have very little actual damage mitigating skills (blocks, aegis) and stability application, which would cause them to be stunned (like in current gameplay) and killed off - it would just happen faster than it's happening now. Removing shroud - changing it to something like harb has would not only kill the spec but kitten off the majority of the necromancer player base, becasue as it is right now I believe that next to support scourge, reaper is the most used spec exactly because of the shroud.

Why you're finding the reaper playstayle flatter is simply the lack of movement and the easy way they get controlled, especially compared to the harb. The initial idea with reaper was this horrendous monster coming after you, that's even why they made it slower and tougher, but the progression and changes since then took the game in a completely another direction that's why it doesn't hold up, especially with the "balance" changes made in the past year.

[Dadnir.5038]

16 hours ago, Daevhalla.7823 said:

Removing shroud - changing it to something like harb has would not only kill the spec but kitten off the majority of the necromancer player base, becasue as it is right now I believe that next to support scourge, reaper is the most used spec exactly because of the shroud.

I disagree. Fact is that harbinger is a lot more durable than what you seem to think. It's durable to the point that people facing them in competitive modes believe that harbinger are close to unkillable. So, no, it wouldn't "kill" the spec. Objectively, It's not the 2nd health bar of reaper shroud that make reaper popular but the fact that it's shroud skillset "feel good" to use (And, unfortunately, there is few skillsets in the game that offer such experience).

That said, diversity is nice so I don't think that reaper shroud should become something like harbinger's shroud. Thought, it's disappointing that reaper shroud does not have his own twist, it's just Death shroud with a different skillset.

As for the playerbase being pissed of by something Anet would do... Let's be fair, everything the devs do kitten off the majority of the playerbase. And even when they don't do anything it kitten of the majority of the playerbase 😅.

Nowadays, the main issue I have with the devs is that they have great ideas but they don't give these ideas the room to live to expectation. Both harbinger and necromancer's dual swords are perfect examples of this impression of mine.

• Harbinger have been left rotting in a semi finished state since it's release. The amount of work it need is huge yet it's like the devs purposefully look away from the spec issues since it's release. They could make this spec so much more interesting by just reworking the traitline that direly lack in imagination.
• As for the dual sword, they sold us a poorly thought out "sacrifice" mechanism with 0 support from any traitlines leading to a bland weaponset with skills that that barely step outside of what the other necromancer's weapon skills offer. You don't even get more damage output out of this "sacrifice" mechanism.