Tempest, Reaper, Scrapper, Deadeye

[Chaith.8256]

@Milan.9035 said:Renegade is not even up for decision?

Currently listed as meta in PvE. This thread is only about how to make every spec excel somewhere.

Clearly every spec should not be unplayable anywhere like Renegade PvP/WvW, I agree it should be changed.

[jaif.3518]

@Chaith.8256 said:

Deadeye I feel has great potential to be desirable in PvE with its unique stolen items mechanic affecting nearby allies in more unique, damaging ways than currently when traited for Fire for Effect. If fire for effect granted those affected less might stacks but caused their next attack to inflict a harsh condition or lifesteal effect, Deadeye could bring enough raid DPS without being personally amazing.

I've been using Deadeye-condi-shortbow in zergs, and I think it is underestimated. With Range 1500 on Mark, I can dip into a fight, turn the tide, and since Mark instantly refreshes on death, go do it again. Shortbow's poison AoE is a good (not amazing) skill, with the daze benefit very useful. This is especially true on downs - If I hit 2 or 3 downs with poison and daze them, they will likely die fast.

I'm not sure how you measure it, but I find myself very busy through most fights, both supporting and fighting.

-Jeff

P.S. I use pistol/dagger off-hand; if someone jumps me, then it's pistol-3, pistol-2, and maybe a mark if they clear that.

[Chaith.8256]

@"jaif.3518" said:I've been using Deadeye-condi-shortbow in zergs

Yes I'm glad that Deadeye is not unplayable, but finding what I call "not unplayable" or "decent" roles for these 4 specs are not what I'm talking about.

[Shiyo.3578]

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:Honestly I think Tempests are fine in PVE. I've tried playing around with Weaver, and the biggest problem with it are all of the high damaging attacks are channels. In high end fractals, I almost never complete them. They get interrupted all the time. Second biggest issue is that the weaver has no innate defenses. The Tempest comes with a stun break, stability, and souped-up auto protection with a magnetic field. The weaver's skills are also locked behind two weapon swaps, whereas the tempest has instantaneous access to all of them. This comes in to play when all the best CC and invulnerability skills are in the 4 and 5 skill slot. The tempest itself didn't suddenly become a low damage spec because the Weaver's unrealistic rotation is ridiculously powerful.

Actually, it did. Pre-POF patch gutted tempest DPS, tempest is like 30%+ worse than weaver. Tempest is not allowed in my fractal groups - I'm actually sick to death of having to kick them out. They make runs take so much longer it isn't even funny.

Also, aurashare needs to be default for elementalist like venomshare is now. Ele's water/earth tree's in general need to be updated to 2017, they are so outdated and old and make no sense in the current version of the game compared to every other classes trees.

[Chaith.8256]

@Shiyo.3578 said:

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:Also, aurashare needs to be default for elementalist like venomshare is now.

Totally agreed. However instead of 600 radius I'm thinking 240-300. What would you suggest go in the place of current Aura Share?

[Crinn.7864]

@Chaith.8256 said:Reaper I think needs straight selfish damage buffs for PvE. Likely a pointless task for it to compete with Scourge in the PvP/WvW realms.

No, it should be the other way around.Reaper is less suited for PvE than Scourge at the mechanical level. The entire 2nd HP bar has never had value in PvE, but it does have value in the PvP modes.

Moreover Scourge's shade mechanic isn't actually very good for PvP. Scourge only gets away with it because of how massively overloaded Scourge's torch, f skills, and punishments are. Even then, Scourge is still dependent on Sand Savant for it's power. Take away Sand Savant and Scourge would drop from meta-defining to barely viable, due to how poorly suited the shade mechanic is to PvP.

The only thing Reaper needs to become relevant in PvP is for Scourge to die. However for Reaper to become relevant in PvE, it would need massive buffs.

[Chaith.8256]

@Crinn.7864 said:

@Chaith.8256 said:Reaper I think needs straight selfish damage buffs for PvE. Likely a pointless task for it to compete with Scourge in the PvP/WvW realms.

No, it should be the other way around.Reaper is less suited for PvE than Scourge at the mechanical level. The entire 2nd HP bar has never had value in PvE, but it does have value in the PvP modes.

Moreover Scourge's shade mechanic isn't actually very good for PvP. Scourge only gets away with it because of how massively overloaded Scourge's torch, f skills, and punishments are. Even then, Scourge is still dependent on Sand Savant for it's power. Take away Sand Savant and Scourge would drop from meta-defining to barely viable, due to how poorly suited the shade mechanic is to PvP.

The only thing Reaper needs to become relevant in PvP is for Scourge to die. However for Reaper to become relevant in PvE, it would need massive buffs.

Crinn, I almost always end up guaranteeing with your opinions but here you say that Sand Shades as a base mechanic are so awful in PvP with no reason, where IMO Sand Shades and their area denial is perfectly suited to killing people forced to stand in circles. I do not agree that suddenly taking Demonic Lore over Sand Savant would delete Scourge from PvP and replace it with Reaper. Without Sand Savant, you're still capable of denying an entire point easily with 3 shades, and counterpressuring in an 180 radius on you. It's certainly comparable area denial.

If all of Scourge's power is reliant on bloated Torch, Shade Skills, and punishment skills, in the same breath you wouldn't say that Scourge is barely viable without Sand Savant, no?

Reaper Shroud is now more of a limited duration Super Saiyan transform than a 2nd health bar now. This change made it more suited to PvE and even less for PvP.

Correct me if I'm wrong, Scourge is even more poopy for raiding as barriers, area denial, boon convert & corrupt vs. a boss gets you what exactly, and the DPS is worse than Reaper, no?

Edit: I just queued a couple games without Sand Savant and as a non-necro player I was still able to carry very well, easily using the 180 radius Shade on the Scourge to shut all melee down and and land F1-F2 combos on the target I wanted. Sand Savant is best but Scourge will still have 20% representation in PvP without it.

[Crinn.7864]

@Chaith.8256 said:

@Crinn.7864 said:

@Chaith.8256 said:Reaper I think needs straight selfish damage buffs for PvE. Likely a pointless task for it to compete with Scourge in the PvP/WvW realms.

No, it should be the other way around.Reaper is less suited for PvE than Scourge at the mechanical level. The entire 2nd HP bar has never had value in PvE, but it does have value in the PvP modes.

Moreover Scourge's shade mechanic isn't actually very good for PvP. Scourge only gets away with it because of how massively overloaded Scourge's torch, f skills, and punishments are. Even then, Scourge is still dependent on Sand Savant for it's power. Take away Sand Savant and Scourge would drop from meta-defining to barely viable, due to how poorly suited the shade mechanic is to PvP.

The only thing Reaper needs to become relevant in PvP is for Scourge to die. However for Reaper to become relevant in PvE, it would need massive buffs.

Crinn, I almost always end up guaranteeing with your opinions but here you say that Sand Shades as a base mechanic are so awful in PvP with no reason, where IMO Sand Shades and their area denial is perfectly suited to killing people forced to stand in circles. I do not agree that suddenly taking Demonic Lore over Sand Savant would delete Scourge from PvP and replace it with Reaper. Without Sand Savant, you're still capable of denying an entire point easily with 3 shades, and counterpressuring in an 180 radius on you. It's certainly comparable area denial.

3 shade scourge cannot maintain 3 shades simultaneously, and deploying 3 shades takes dramatically more time. Moreover going from 300 denial to 180 denial is a pretty dramatic drop in denial. For example 180 radius means that Proton Forge skills and Reaper Shroud skills can hit a Scourge without the Holo/reaper entering the scourge's hate zone. 180 radius shades means that trying to run at people as a Scourge loses it'ss efectiveness due to how difficult trying to keep a target in that tiny of a circle. I spent a enormous amount of time after PoF dropped trying every possible setup, both 3-shade and Savant. With 3 shade scourge, you end up being limited to trying to snipe people with shade drops.

If all of Scourge's power is reliant on bloated Torch, Shade Skills, and punishment skills, in the same breath you wouldn't say that Scourge is barely viable without Sand Savant, no?Scourge isn't meta. Savant is. The bloated torch and punishment skill are just icing on the cake.Reaper Shroud is now more of a limited duration Super Saiyan transform than a 2nd health bar now. This change made it more suited to PvE and even less for PvP.Oh Reaper's Shroud is certainly not nearly as defensively strong as it used to be. But that change also made power Reaper a monster. After the last two patches, Reaper is second only to Scourge when it comes to forcing decaps. A marauder Reaper simply has to step onto the point, press soul spiral, and anything on that point will either be forced to blow some serious cooldowns, abdicate the point to the reaper, or die.

Besides even at 5% degen, Reaper's Shroud is still a better defense than Scourge's little barriers.

Correct me if I'm wrong, Scourge is even more poopy for raiding as barriers, area denial, boon convert & corrupt vs. a boss gets you what exactly, and the DPS is worse than Reaper, no?Scourge is actually highly desired in wing 5 because of Shades being uniquely suited to handle certain mechanics. Also Sand Swell can fudge a number of boss mechanics. Scourge is so suited to w5, that I've actually heard w5 referred to as "the scourge wing." Also Scourge does more DPS than Reaper.

However there are no mechanics in any raid that suit Reaper's toolset, and every reaper theorycrafting discussion I've had with my raid guild has always come to the conclusion that there is no reasonable way to make reaper useful beyond being a generic DPS.

Scourge has unique PvE capabilities. They might be more niche that some of the "staple" classes of PvE, but they are unique capabilities nonetheless. Reaper has no unique capabilities and cannot ever be anything more than a generic DPS for PvE.

[Shiyo.3578]

@Chaith.8256 said:

@Shiyo.3578 said:

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:Also, aurashare needs to be default for elementalist like venomshare is now.

Totally agreed. However instead of 600 radius I'm thinking 240-300. What would you suggest go in the place of current Aura Share?

+300 vit and some other bonus to healing or self sustain, like +10% healing to yourself and others. Going water or earth should give you survivabiity.

[jaif.3518]

@Chaith.8256 said:

@"jaif.3518" said:I've been using Deadeye-condi-shortbow in zergs

Yes I'm glad that Deadeye is not unplayable, but finding what I call "not unplayable" or "decent" roles for these 4 specs are not what I'm talking about.

Have you tried it? I'm not intending this in a nasty way, I'm honestly curious.

[Chaith.8256]

@jaif.3518 said:Have you tried it?Again you seem to be missing the point, because I know for a fact Deadeye is not unplayable in PvP/WvW. The point of this thread is discussing where and how every build should find their niche to fit into the meta somehow.I've played a little Deadeye in PvP, mostly non-Rifle.

[Chaith.8256]

@Shiyo.3578 said:

@Chaith.8256 said:

@Shiyo.3578 said:

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:Also, aurashare needs to be default for elementalist like venomshare is now.

Totally agreed. However instead of 600 radius I'm thinking 240-300. What would you suggest go in the place of current Aura Share?

+300 vit and some other bonus to healing or self sustain, like +10% healing to yourself and others. Going water or earth should give you survivabiity.

I feel like Cleansing Waters kind of destroys any choice in that tier, y'know

[Morwath.9817]

@Chaith.8256 said:

@Shiyo.3578 said:

@Chaith.8256 said:

@Shiyo.3578 said:

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:Also, aurashare needs to be default for elementalist like venomshare is now.

Totally agreed. However instead of 600 radius I'm thinking 240-300. What would you suggest go in the place of current Aura Share?

+300 vit and some other bonus to healing or self sustain, like +10% healing to yourself and others. Going water or earth should give you survivabiity.

I feel like Cleansing Waters kind of destroys any choice in that tier, y'know

Imho Cleansing Waters should be in Aquatic Benelovence slot and AB should be merged with new trait.

[jaif.3518]

@Chaith.8256 said:these Elite Specializations don't seem to have any unique advantages when building a serious class comp.

I agree with your general premise, however I think Deadeye does have a unique advantage (Mark w/traits) that can be used seriously in zergs. Maybe even in smaller groups, not sure there.

-Jeff

[Crinn.7864]

@"Chaith.8256" said:Edit: I just queued a couple games without Sand Savant and as a non-necro player I was still able to carry very well, easily using the 180 radius Shade on the Scourge to shut all melee down and and land F1-F2 combos on the target I wanted. Sand Savant is best but Scourge will still have 20% representation in PvP without it.

There are a lot of variables to that anecdote, and I think you know that.

But we are getting off track. The larger point that I was trying to make is that Scourge is mechanically far more suited to PvE, while none of Reaper's mechanics work at all in PvE.Pushing Reaper to be the "pve spec" of necro is pushing a square peg into a round hole.

[Chaith.8256]

@Crinn.7864 said:3 shade scourge cannot maintain 3 shades simultaneously, and deploying 3 shades takes dramatically more time. Moreover going from 300 denial to 180 denial is a pretty dramatic drop in denial. For example 180 radius means that Proton Forge skills and Reaper Shroud skills can hit a Scourge without the Holo/reaper entering the scourge's hate zone.

Oh yeah, dropping 2 small shades is enough. Dropping a 3rd shade simultaneously is actually more area denied than the Greater shade so that isn't the goal... the regrettable thing is that you only maintain 5-10% damage reduction instead of 15%.

Have you actually tried maintaining a 60-120 outside of a Scourge kill zone who's kiting around? He can easily turn around and press shade skills before you can react, it doesn't actually mean you can't fight back against Photon Forge lol. On maps like Khylo mid, a 180 radius shade still covers the entire point, same as Acid Bomb which I have lots of practice doing. I think if the Meta Shadefire build lost Sand Savant and gained Demonic Lore it would still be at least A tier with the Firebrand combo, probably still 20% representation in competitive. You may think it'd barely be viable, but it has so much other synergy with its proper comp still.

Scourge isn't meta. Savant is. The bloated torch and punishment skill are just icing on the cake.

I've been playing Demonic Lore all evening, since we started talking about this, and it's not ruining my experience that's for sure. I'm getting no support, I am terrible at Necro, and I'm able to pick it up and smash veteran players in my MMR, and survive. When you're used to hitting 180 Grenades with travel time, landing 180 Radius F1-F2 or F4 is not hard to consistently do. 300 Sand Shades a bad joke nightmare I wish I'd wake up from.

Also Scourge does more DPS than Reaper.

Interesting, I had thought it was the other way around.. that does change my perspective on it. I certainly WISH that Scourge would just be meta in PvE only and Reaper be Meta in PvP but the fact remains that there exists a role for 'condi teamfight Necro' in every meta where there are viable support, and Reaper, nor any other class can do that even close to as well as far as I know.

[Chaith.8256]

@"Crinn.7864" said:But we are getting off track. The larger point that I was trying to make is that Scourge is mechanically far more suited to PvE, while none of Reaper's mechanics work at all in PvE.Pushing Reaper to be the "pve spec" of necro is pushing a square peg into a round hole.

Sure, I agree with you that Reaper is not suited for raids due to bringing nothing but damage. But seriously, I think it's almost destined to be terrible then, because Scourge will always be there to smack it out of PvP too unless Scourge is re-worked to not be very aggressive towards foes in melee range. Making Reaper meta in PvP is an insurmountable task, almost more difficult than making it do enough PvE damage. :lol: Reaper is in such an awkward spot.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

@Shiyo.3578 said:

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:Honestly I think Tempests are fine in PVE. I've tried playing around with Weaver, and the biggest problem with it are all of the high damaging attacks are channels. In high end fractals, I almost never complete them. They get interrupted all the time. Second biggest issue is that the weaver has no innate defenses. The Tempest comes with a stun break, stability, and souped-up auto protection with a magnetic field. The weaver's skills are also locked behind two weapon swaps, whereas the tempest has instantaneous access to all of them. This comes in to play when all the best CC and invulnerability skills are in the 4 and 5 skill slot. The tempest itself didn't suddenly become a low damage spec because the Weaver's unrealistic rotation is ridiculously powerful.

Actually, it did. Pre-POF patch gutted tempest DPS, tempest is like 30%+ worse than weaver. Tempest is not allowed in my fractal groups - I'm actually sick to death of having to kick them out. They make runs take so much longer it isn't even funny.

Also, aurashare needs to be default for elementalist like venomshare is now. Ele's water/earth tree's in general need to be updated to 2017, they are so outdated and old and make no sense in the current version of the game compared to every other classes trees.

QT's benchmark for August Tempests was 37k for large hitboxes and 35k for the condi build on small hitboxes. Even if you take away 10% for GoTL and include the ice bow nerf, that is still competitive DPS. Weaver performance is actually so bad in fractals that most groups I join prefer that I play DPS Tempest over Weaver.

[Crinn.7864]

@Chaith.8256 said:

@"Crinn.7864" said:But we are getting off track. The larger point that I was trying to make is that Scourge is mechanically far more suited to PvE, while none of Reaper's mechanics work at all in PvE.Pushing Reaper to be the "pve spec" of necro is pushing a square peg into a round hole.

Sure, I agree with you that Reaper is not suited for raids due to bringing nothing but damage. But seriously, I think it's almost destined to be terrible then, because Scourge will always be there to smack it out of PvP too unless Scourge is re-worked to not be very aggressive towards foes in melee range. Making Reaper meta in PvP is an insurmountable task, almost more difficult than making it do enough PvE damage. :lol: Reaper is in such an awkward spot.

Even if Reaper is boosted to the DPS levels of the mainline raid dps slots, it still won't have a spot because it doesn't bring extra utility that the other mainline dps have. (example mirage has distortion, weaver brings blast finishers galore, etc.) So to make it desirable you'd have to increase it's dps beyond that of mainline dps classes, but doing that would take reaper from never taken for anything to raid squads taking reaper in every DPS slot under the theory that DPS is the best utility. Which of course would alienate all the other classes. Scourge avoids this problem because Scourge does actually bring some utility in the form of barriers and sand swell.

Plus as much as I love Reaper I'm not sure how healthy having Reaper being meta in PvE would be given that Reaper's rotation is to literally just spam gravedigger to exclusion of everything else the moment the boss drops below 50%.

[Maugetarr.6823]

I think they could have really have had Deadeye Rifle be more of a sustained damage weapon over the spike that it has now. The kneel mechanic is interesting, but I think it could have been done differently. I would have liked to see rifle fill out both sides of pistols in terms of range, with standing being very short range (600-750) while focusing on very strong sustained damage, speed boosts, an evade, and some decent utilty (vigor, fury, might). Kneeling would have actually been walking speed (-66%) while giving long range attacks (1200-1500) with good sustained damage (less than standing), some hard hitting CC (soft and hard) , and much less of a spike than currently. Rifle could have been a flexible weapon that helped with different phases in boss fights in PvE, or different enemies in PvP. Let pistols keep the burst and give rifle a different role.

The trait line is actually not terrible, but I do like the idea that @Chaith.8256 had for giving a unique next attack buff to allies with fire for effect. Sort of like a venomshare build, but focused differently.

[Ivantreil.3092]

@Crinn.7864 said:

@Chaith.8256 said:

@Crinn.7864 said:But we are getting off track. The larger point that I was trying to make is that Scourge is mechanically far more suited to PvE, while none of Reaper's mechanics work at all in PvE.Pushing Reaper to be the "pve spec" of necro is pushing a square peg into a round hole.

Sure, I agree with you that Reaper is not suited for raids due to bringing nothing but damage. But seriously, I think it's almost destined to be terrible then, because Scourge will always be there to smack it out of PvP too unless Scourge is re-worked to not be very aggressive towards foes in melee range. Making Reaper meta in PvP is an insurmountable task, almost more difficult than making it do enough PvE damage. :lol: Reaper is in such an awkward spot.

Even if Reaper is boosted to the DPS levels of the mainline raid dps slots, it still won't have a spot because it doesn't bring extra utility that the other mainline dps have. (example mirage has distortion, weaver brings blast finishers galore, etc.) So to make it desirable you'd have to increase it's dps beyond that of mainline dps classes, but doing that would take reaper from never taken for anything to raid squads taking reaper in every DPS slot under the theory that DPS is the best utility. Which of course would alienate all the other classes. Scourge avoids this problem because Scourge does actually bring some utility in the form of barriers and sand swell.

Plus as much as I love Reaper I'm not sure how healthy having Reaper being meta in PvE would be given that Reaper's rotation is to literally just spam gravedigger to exclusion of everything else the moment the boss drops below 50%.

I mean that's exactly what Condi Engi was before the Pinpoint Distribution rework?, only damage? and even then it isn't the most flashiest and amazing support thing you can bring. And i was still accepted nonetheless, showing great numbers was more than enough for keep me along pugs.

[Shiyo.3578]

@Chaith.8256 said:

I feel like Cleansing Waters kind of destroys any choice in that tier, y'know

Cleansing waters should be a minor trait.

Aquatic benevolence - > merged with cleansing waters

Powerful aura - > Changed to +300 vit and +healing based on vit.

Cleansing water - > changed to ???

Soothing power - > now grants 10 allies and self 10% damage reduction and condition damage reduction on top of stronger soothing mists.

Tempest:Unstable conduit:+Healing when wielding a warhorn

Invigorating torrents:Aura's also now grant 8 stacks of might for 12 seconds as well as the other bonuses and now works on 10 allies.

Imbued melodies and elemental bastion merged together.

Imbued melodies - > changed to shouts gain reduced recharge.

Lucid Singularity - > also grants superspeed for x seconds.

Earth:

Stone heart:Now also grants 300 toughness at all times.

Earth's embrace merged with stone flesh, now a minor trait.

Earth's embrace - > convert 1 condition to a boon every x seconds

Elemental shielding:Duration increased to 4 seconds

Rock solid: Duration increased to 4 seconds, now breaks stun as well.

Tempest now has unique utility(more DR than any other healer by far) and GOTL. It's now good in PVE. For PVP/WVW it'd be a lot tankier and be able to keep people alive a lot better.

[Laila Lightness.8742]

@Shiyo.3578 said:

@"Chaith.8256" said:Across all 3 game modes, objectively, these Elite Specializations don't seem to have any unique advantages when building a serious class comp.

What is your vision for these specs?

Tempests vision was to force ele's to play weaver and have 0 utility 0 group healing and only have fire/air because it's what casuals wanted back in 2012 for elementalist. "Im a glass cannon!". As you said, it has no unique utility and is just a healbot that increases party dps by a very minor amount, you will almost never want this over a druid. It should've never been turned into a pure healer, as it has FIRE OVERLOAD and AIR OVERLOAD meaning it was MEANT TO DEAL DAMAGE. All healers should be given grace of the land.

Scrapper is a disaster of a spec, it ruined pvp for years and never had a place in PVE. I'd love for hammer to be GOOD at dps in pve. Hammers are fun, guardian hammer used to be good, now it got powercrept out by greatsword.

Deadeye should honestly just be ignored and left to rot. Thief did NOT need a silly "stealth sniper" spec or a "ranged" spec. Really silly elite spec idea that was created by marketing to try to bring in overwatch players or something silly. I was pretty mad they gave thief a spec I have no interest in when I love thief/rogue classes in every MMO. This should've been a ranger spec, not a thief one ;/

Condi reaper during HOT was really cool and fun. You'd have a zerg of pets and chill a lot that would turn into bleeds and kill things while being super tanky, then go into a reaper shroud and spin for even more bleed stacks. Now they're trying to make it the "power spec" but it has ZERO utility compared to scourge AND does less dps. As you said, no unique advantages.

True deadeye was the worst concept and idea for an spec for everything in it is inferior too core theif

[Zacchary.6183]

The whole point of Deadeye was to give Thief a long ranged option. That was what players asked for, that's what anet gave. Thief in general provides nothing but decap bleeds and poisons, but at least with deadeye you can relax the might stacking requirements in the rest of the comp. A Deadeye with Improv and Fire for Effect focusing down weaker adds and procing Renewing Gaze can pump out more party might than any other profession