Reaper DPS needs to be toned down

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

^ Thread title.

There, I said it. Someone needed to do it.

[Eddbopkins.2630]

Man of few worlds today.

[Waffles.5632]

I think reaper is pretty fine? What specifically is the issue that's happening?

They don't strike me as being able to cleave better than WB atm but I could be wrong on this. I would agree with toning both down though but obviously not the anet way which is to nuke into orbit. I'm talking slight shaves here and there, nothing drastic.

I think in general condi oppression is out of control though. It's even crazier because most condi builds are far easier to play than their power oriented versions, and combine that with condi ammy's inherently being more survivable and it's just a bit whack imo. I feel most power builds are simply getting shoved out right now.

 

[Gotejjeken.1267]

IMO, it's overabundance of chill + fast regen shroud/double HP bar--outside of that seems balanced.  Hard to burst them down too when second bar is down because running glassier stats typically gets you +1 or die trying as they can pelt with pistol too now in order to stall.

Too many of them is a bad thing though--had a Q with 3 reapers on my team, we lost badly 😂.

Edited December 4, 2023 by Gotejjeken.1267

[Waffles.5632]

Just now, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

IMO, it's overabundance of chill + fast regen shroud/double HP bar--outside of that seems balanced.  Hard to burst them down too when second bar is down because running glassier stats typically gets you +1 or die trying as they can pelt with pistol too now in order to stall.

Too many of them is a bad thing though--had a Q with 3 reapers on my team, we lost badly 😂.

Yeah I can see that and agree with chill 100%.

I hate that condi and think it's the strongest one by far, only really tied with immob. The fact that it cripples & slows CD's means you can put people in mechanical deathloops where you know 100% your CD's will come up before their's and they can't outrun you either because -chilled-

This was the major problem with vindi awhile ago. Spammable chill is way too OP mechanically. No class should have such easy access to it IMO.

 

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

4 hours ago, Waffles.5632 said:

What specifically is the issue that's happening?

Three main things to point out imo:

1. General power creep from new rune/relic system and cross class weapons. I don't think any class has benefitted from the rune/relic system and cross weapons as much as Necro has, specifically Reaper benefitting the most. When they can attach something like speed relic to any other good rune that maintains damage/sustain, and put a Harb pistol on, it removes the one balancing factor drawback that Reaper had, which was being slower and nearly full melee. If they wanted speed before, they had to ditch damage/sustain stats for it. But now, they can stay on top of you much more easily and have a lot of ranged pressure to boot between pistol and staff, while maintaining all of their damage and gaining the extra CC off pistol. The ranged pressure/CC from Reaper is no joke in current patching. It's comparable to a Condi Ranger that has a bit less damage but more CC.
2. Specifically relics that add additional condis that the Reaper wouldn't normally have. If they choose to ditch speed, they can take relics that are arguably better through the boost to bursting. It's not that the relics are adding too much raw damage but what they do is they provide imo too many cover condis for Reaper bursting. Lately Reapers who time it all right, can actually one-shot you from full health, nearly as easily as Soulbeast pre-nerf, because there are so many condis reapplying constantly and you can't cleanse all of it unless you have panic cleanses like Cont Of Purity. The chill also makes animation tied cleansing difficult to access during these bursts. A large contributor to what makes this burst so ridiculously strong are these: Target the Weak - Guild Wars 2 Wiki (GW2W) Furious Demise - Guild Wars 2 Wiki (GW2W) <- This is A LOT of free crit chance, especially when the Reaper is applying nearly ALL condis with its burst. Even +900 power off Carrion becomes significant power damage when you're getting fury 20% + 2% more per condi applied. Necro already has the highest raw +condi stat damage in pvp easily. Due to traits that add this enormous amount of +condi stat, they can get upwards of like 2000 condi in pvp without might. Do they really need to also have around 60% crit chance for power damage as well on what is supposed to be a condi burst tank that doesn't even have precision on an amulet? It's just an awful lot of damage and too many condis to where the cover condis for the hard damage condis is too deep.
3. And this right here Spinal Shivers - Guild Wars 2 Wiki (GW2W) is hitting awfully hard nowadays. It's like a ranged Worldly Impact. It's a bit much.

[JosephKatz.9375]

7 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

IMO, it's overabundance of chill + fast regen shroud/double HP bar--outside of that seems balanced.  Hard to burst them down too when second bar is down because running glassier stats typically gets you +1 or die trying as they can pelt with pistol too now in order to stall.

Too many of them is a bad thing though--had a Q with 3 reapers on my team, we lost badly 😂.

Have you tried pressing the W key? Seriously you can outrun them without any effort. Look at any gold or low platinum player, they literally spam ranged and W.

Edited December 5, 2023 by JosephKatz.9375

[Gotejjeken.1267]

15 minutes ago, JosephKatz.9375 said:

Have you tried pressing the W key? Seriously you can outrun them without any effort. Look at any gold or low platinum player, they literally spam ranged and W.

You an aisle fight enjoyer, I can tell--perhaps also one of those that likes to go in and get Yasmi's Favor?

[Last Crab.6054]

Reaper...lol.....NO.

Reaper is and always was the most balanced necro spec.

I just don't think bunker condi druid is ever really gonna be meta, let go broski

[Waffles.5632]

2 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

You an aisle fight enjoyer, I can tell--perhaps also one of those that likes to go in and get Yasmi's Favor?

People sleep on Giant Meteor but it's amazing for covering downed states and controlling nodes. The other 2 are mid tho but thankfully meteor always the first one given. Try it!

3 hours ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

Three main things to point out imo:

1. General power creep from new rune/relic system and cross class weapons. I don't think any class has benefitted from the rune/relic system and cross weapons as much as Necro has, specifically Reaper benefitting the most. When they can attach something like speed relic to any other good rune that maintains damage/sustain, and put a Harb pistol on, it removes the one balancing factor drawback that Reaper had, which was being slower and nearly full melee. If they wanted speed before, they had to ditch damage/sustain stats for it. But now, they can stay on top of you much more easily and have a lot of ranged pressure to boot between pistol and staff, while maintaining all of their damage and gaining the extra CC off pistol. The ranged pressure/CC from Reaper is no joke in current patching. It's comparable to a Condi Ranger that has a bit less damage but more CC.
2. Specifically relics that add additional condis that the Reaper wouldn't normally have. If they choose to ditch speed, they can take relics that are arguably better through the boost to bursting. It's not that the relics are adding too much raw damage but what they do is they provide imo too many cover condis for Reaper bursting. Lately Reapers who time it all right, can actually one-shot you from full health, nearly as easily as Soulbeast pre-nerf, because there are so many condis reapplying constantly and you can't cleanse all of it unless you have panic cleanses like Cont Of Purity. The chill also makes animation tied cleansing difficult to access during these bursts. A large contributor to what makes this burst so ridiculously strong are these: Target the Weak - Guild Wars 2 Wiki (GW2W) Furious Demise - Guild Wars 2 Wiki (GW2W) <- This is A LOT of free crit chance, especially when the Reaper is applying nearly ALL condis with its burst. Even +900 power off Carrion becomes significant power damage when you're getting fury 20% + 2% more per condi applied. Necro already has the highest raw +condi stat damage in pvp easily. Due to traits that add this enormous amount of +condi stat, they can get upwards of like 2000 condi in pvp without might. Do they really need to also have around 60% crit chance for power damage as well on what is supposed to be a condi burst tank that doesn't even have precision on an amulet? It's just an awful lot of damage and too many condis to where the cover condis for the hard damage condis is too deep.
3. And this right here Spinal Shivers - Guild Wars 2 Wiki (GW2W) is hitting awfully hard nowadays. It's like a ranged Worldly Impact. It's a bit much.

This is pretty insightful ty.

Yeah condi's are indeed out of control. Realistically, either nerf condi's or buff cleanses. I would prefer buff cleanses but something gotta go idc.

I don't think necro in this case is a cause rather a symptom, but again I do think both necro and guardian in general need small adjustments. I have been asking for the WB nerf to righteous sprint for ages. It's a disgusting trait that speaks to the above. It gives both passive 25% movement speed and then it also self procs swiftness. Why? Why does it need to do both? 

My top 3 classes to bring down a smidge right now tho would honestly be tempest, guardian & necro.

[Frequency.6407]

Dear Anet,

Class X beats my class. Please nerf.

ty

bb

gl

gg

[Mythras.2091]

No stab (just after elit... but come on, i didnt see that coming 😛 ), and mostly one stunbreak. Im just killed in this cc hell if not careful enough 😞

[Myror.7521]

Me wondering what comes next? Power Berserker doing too mutch DMG? xD

[Sahne.6950]

6 hours ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

Lately Reapers who time it all right, can actually one-shot you from full health, nearly as easily as Soulbeast pre-nerf

I just love how you compare everything to pre-nerf Soulbeast....   but i have yet to take a 17k hit out of stealth from anyone...

 

Yes its strong....  but it still has the glaring weaknesses it had before.    Relic of speed doesnt suddenly change that.

You see him pop shroud?   Run.....  wait for him to activate his single stab....  let it run out... and chain cc.    

He will be forced to switch out of Shroud to Stunbreak, or he will eat your full combo.

 

Rinse and repeat till he is dead.    NEVER try to go toe to toe with a reaper.  It wont end well.    But does that make reaper overpowered?

 

In the FFA.... reaper is absurd.... i get that... but in a real match?

Reaper matchup is all about abusing its weaknesses.   Once you hit plat , you barely see any reapers, because they will just crumble, as most people have learned how to deal with them. If your team focuses the reaper, he wont survive for very long.

The current iteration of spvp features soooo many stuns/dazes/immobs/yada yada...  Reapers need to be very careful, or they will just find themselves in the wombo combo of their life.

Edited December 5, 2023 by Sahne.6950

[maxwelgm.4315]

5 hours ago, JosephKatz.9375 said:

Have you tried pressing the W key? Seriously you can outrun them without any effort. Look at any gold or low platinum player, they literally spam ranged and W.

Referring to "low platinum players" as if P1 is not basically all of the top 50 players atm is pretty funny. That said, Reaper does have limited use in that very top due to people being aware of CDs but balancing only for the top is a problem in itself.

[remorseless.6352]

Reaper more than fine u just need a fat l2p

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

7 hours ago, Frequency.6407 said:

Dear Anet,

Class X beats my class. Please nerf.

ty

bb

gl

gg

It's ignorant or possibly apathetic to post stuff like this.

The game's balance is not fine. We need more discussion on it, not less.

7 hours ago, Arheundel.6451 said:

Oh my....isn't the OP the same guy who told others to L2P when they were complaining about necros, and specifically reaper?......hmm yes yes, he's the same guy who laughed at me for claiming spinal shivers is too much......well well well...how the tables have turned! xd

Dude I haven't been in a Necro discussion for like 2 years or more. Me commenting now after rune/relics/new weapons is a lot different than me commenting 2+ years ago.

6 hours ago, Sahne.6950 said:

I just love how you compare everything to pre-nerf Soulbeast....   but i have yet to take a 17k hit out of stealth from anyone...

Because it was a standard of damage output. Soulbeast has always been referenced in this regard concerning single target burst potential.

Come on now. There are plenty of things that deal beyond 17k out of a 1s stealth burst if you don't dodge. I shouldn't have to list them for you.

6 hours ago, Sahne.6950 said:

Yes its strong....  but it still has the glaring weaknesses it had before.    Relic of speed doesnt suddenly change that.

Yeah it does. Go test play a Reaper with speed relic. Things can't get away from you because you are faster with swift, you have mobility skill shroud 2 to chase as well and now you have ranged pressure on both weapon sides, A LOT of ranged pressure between pistol/focus/staff. And this isn't to mention the mega stopping CCs it has like Chilled To The Bone that goes through & around pillars and deep freezes you for 3 seconds which often results in an insta-free kill, or the constant chill that just in general slows you down so much it's like it forces "Anti-Speed" onto the opponent.

Speed relic definitely makes the Reaper a thing that is extremely difficult to disengage unless your a DP Daredevil with a ton of stealth & teleports.

6 hours ago, Sahne.6950 said:

You see him pop shroud?   Run.....  wait for him to activate his single stab....  let it run out... and chain cc.    

He will be forced to switch out of Shroud to Stunbreak, or he will eat your full combo

But this is no longer a solid counter strategy anymore due to what I just explained. IT CAN CHASE YOU DOWN with speed relic and all these other effects, and when he's out of shroud he has a lot of mid ranged pressure, CCs and really high damage output due to pistol/focus.

I don't understand how you're in this thread vouching what you're saying as an Ele main when you full well know a good Reaper is like an impossible counter for you to deal with for all of the reasons I've explained.

I'm not even a Necro main but when I go on Reaper, I can **** all over Eles. It distinctly feels like a situation where I'm just shoving out double the numbers they are. Their builds are slow and they can't get away from you. Everything about current Reaper hard counters Ele.

6 hours ago, Sahne.6950 said:

Rinse and repeat till he is dead.    NEVER try to go toe to toe with a reaper.  It wont end well.    But does that make reaper overpowered?

It does when you can't disengage it without a lot of stealth output and a bunch of teleports/long range mobility skills.

6 hours ago, Sahne.6950 said:

Once you hit plat , you barely see any reapers, because they will just crumble, as most people have learned how to deal with them. If your team focuses the reaper, he wont survive for very long.

The current iteration of spvp features soooo many stuns/dazes/immobs/yada yada...  Reapers need to be very careful, or they will just find themselves in the wombo combo of their life.

Yeah I don't know what's going on in EU there, but there are like 2 Reapers in every NA game and lately I'm seeing teams of 3-4 Necros in ATs. Then some of our Necro players in NA are actually good. If you tried to 1v1 Doze on a Reaper as example, you'd see what I'm talking about here. When a player is good and doesn't do stupid stuff to allow you to exploit your described easy tactic of waiting out shroud, when they play counter-offensively like a Spellbreaker, Reaper wins nearly every 1v1 it takes and lords over team fights with its AoE DPS, CCs, and stab output. From my own play testing, the only exception here is specifically Deadeyes and very experienced Thieves in general. They are the only class that can stealth reposition often enough to dance around the Reaper. I can chase & kill anything else as Reaper, including Rangers "which it hard counters nowadays actually".

6 hours ago, maxwelgm.4315 said:

Referring to "low platinum players" as if P1 is not basically all of the top 50 players atm is pretty funny. That said, Reaper does have limited use in that very top due to people being aware of CDs but balancing only for the top is a problem in itself.

Anything that's above 1550 in NA is win trade multi-window bot throw territory lately, or sometimes players duo with someone who likes them that they don't realize is manipulating. The only exception is a lucky day when you can find an hour to queue without running into manipulations, but then the very next day you're going right back down to 1500 or lower. It is exceedingly rare to find clean queue times in NA anymore.

Edited December 5, 2023 by Trevor Boyer.6524

[Sahne.6950]

18 minutes ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

There are plenty of things that deal beyond 17k out of a 1s stealth burst if you don't dodge. I shouldn't have to list them for you.

I would like you to list them. 

Edited December 5, 2023 by Sahne.6950

[Sahne.6950]

13 minutes ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

but then the very next day you're going right back down to 1500 or lower.

So you are Gold? 

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

40 minutes ago, Sahne.6950 said:

I would like you to list them.

Do I really need to stream for you how fast you can kill things out of stealth with a Chrono or Scrapper?

Have you never seen something like a Willbender duo & travel with someone who can stealth prebuff so he can gank?

39 minutes ago, Sahne.6950 said:

So you are Gold? 

No I'm hovering in plat+ right now. But yeah, sometimes in NA you just go down to nearly gold 2 man.

You EU guys don't seem to understand how bad the match manipulation is in low population NA. Obtaining and keeping even a 1500-1550 rating solo queue in NA WITHOUT playing a hard queue dodge game and/or joining into certain discords to know the schedules of when they log in and work the system, is like what old 1600-1650 used to be. All of this becomes exasperated when they identify each other's queue cliques and then they begin to queue dodge each other. Because with low population this results in a situation where usually only one game or two is seeding for ranked at any given time of day. You get one low elo game being seeded for guys down in silver 2 to gold 2, and anything g3+ is being funneled into the other game being seeded, often sucking in low golds & silvers to fill missing spaces because there aren't enough people g3+ queueing. When they queue dodge each other's groups, it makes then essentially stand in line for these games being seeded, resulting in every game you try to enter, there is a win trade queue clique in it. This is often easily identified by too many queue pops in a row that go: "queue pops - someone doesn't accept - it requeues - queue pops - someone doesn't accept - requeues - finally game starts - you lose the game 500 to 20 and notice you were 3v5 the whole game from guys walking in never dodging never using heal skills never go to nodes only swing auto 1s or sometimes they just AFK right at the gate before game start". You think I'm exaggerating this but I am not. What that is, is people trying to get their synch queues into the same game. When the window pops for the mains being supported, if the window pops same time for the others, they know they are in the same game together. If the windows don't pop same time, they just an alt not ready up to force requeue. Because the population is so low and there aren't enough games being queued, you can't avoid this stuff anymore. You either join in on it and play a fake larped pvp or you just do your best to learn how to scout it and wait for clean queues, which is becoming very very difficult to do. This describes the common day queueing ranked in NA when you are not in on what's going on. In NA, when you queue and see queue pops where there is always 1 person who doesn't accept, just stop queueing and try again later.

This is also why you hear NA people say "I get better games when I solo queue". This is because when you duo queue, the algorithm likes to throw duos against duos, and most of the active duos in NA are wielding some form of manipulation even if it's soft manipulation. So when you duo queue in NA you're likely gonna keep getting matches against those duos. But if you solo queue, you have a higher likelihood of landing on the team with the match manipulators, which gives the placebo that "you're getting better matches".

Some of the known better players in NA who are always wanted for ATs, are often sucked down into g3 and forced to fight back into plat+ for these reasons. The ones who don't join in on the monkey **** who try to organic queue, know exactly what I'm talking about here. Sometimes you just get a bad week man. Every game you try to queue into, even when it doesn't initially LOOK like there is any synching going on, it just ends up being a bad incarriable obvious win trade. Population is so low in NA that even in gold 3, you get +11 on wins and -15s -17s on losses. No joke. You shouldn't try to trash on the organic guys sitting in low plat. If you knew how difficult was to hold that position in top 100 ranked, you'd change your sentiment.

Hey you don't believe me? I'll pay for you to transfer to NA. Come queue some games with me. See what you think after that experience.

I'm serious, i'll pay for you to do it. Let me know.

Edited December 5, 2023 by Trevor Boyer.6524

[Saiyan.1704]

A reaper froze me in place. I stayed there for what felt like an eternity. I saw the stars flutter across the awe inspiring night sky as I slowly slumber. I dreamt.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

Reaper's fine. they have the same weakness to people walking away from them the moment they press shroud that they had before the additional content they could use. Up for being proven wrong on that, but I haven't seen anything that can't be beaten with proper position adjustment yet personally.

1 hour ago, Sahne.6950 said:

So you are Gold? 

Trevor plays at a plat level, but I hazard he's upset at chill deleting his druid chain, more so than reaper specifically being overpowered/ too high damage. 

Maybe that opinion will change once I see Sea Cod running something particularly disgusting or whatever. 

 

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

25 minutes ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

Trevor plays at a plat level, but I hazard he's upset at chill deleting his druid chain

Nah, I run that Side Node Bunker/Support Druid lately. I don't have a problem holding vs. Reaper. You've fought it, that build is a damage soaking condi removing machine.

What I'm mostly basing this on is the general observation of how much impact the presence of a Reaper is making in teams. Remember, I mostly just run ATs all day outside of the ranked match once per 3 days to maintain rating. In coordinated AT teams, a single good Reaper with support on it is just ****ing OP lately dude. I don't know how else to explain it. When this next 2v2 or 3v3 season pops up, you watch. A single good Reaper also auto counters most side noders. Eles, Untamed, even Condiserk has to be REAL careful you can die in like 2s to a Reaper if you mess up once. That stupid build I run is like the only thing with enough condi cleanse to make sure it can't die to the Reaper while standing on the node and not needing to to kite & get decapped.

Edited December 5, 2023 by Trevor Boyer.6524

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

26 minutes ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

Reaper's fine. they have the same weakness to people walking away from them the moment they press shroud that they had before the additional content they could use. Up for being proven wrong on that

Go duel Doze or Ckod. They play like counter-offensive Spellbreakers, and when they do this on modern Necro builds, there is nearly zero opportunity to find a way to interract with the Necro in a meaningful way without it turning into a numbers vs. numbers slugfest where the Necro will bully you every time.

26 minutes ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

Maybe that opinion will change once I see Sea Cod running something particularly disgusting or whatever.

Oh he already does, but for some reason he's been strangely absent for about the past month. I'll see him log in for 30 minutes and then leave for a week.

No idea what he's doing.

Edited December 5, 2023 by Trevor Boyer.6524

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

7 minutes ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

Go duel Doze

Do fairly often. This and fights with Dr. Meta/ @ZDragon.3046 are largely what I'm basing that opinion I made on. Most people don't play at/around this level, besides (namely, what you'd fight 1+ levels out of pools on AT if I am assessing that correctly) 

If something significant changed between last patch and now apart from the new synergies with Parasitic contagion (which is more a condi build thing than anything to do with what I assume is your standard power reaper) I haven't caught up with it yet. 

 

 

Edited December 5, 2023 by Azure The Heartless.3261