SPEED OF SHADOWS CHANGE WAS USELESS

[KrHome.1920]

I don't want the old SoS back. Shroud degen is too high to make any use of it while traveling. It had a good synergy with old VP. You could fill the 15s non Swiftness gap between two Wh5 casts and lose only 30% of LF. The trait should remain as it is now to not further mess up stuff.

8s Shroud CD should be baseline for Reaper. The justification for the SoS rework because of Scourge feels like a punch in the face to every Reaper player now where ANet suddenly starts to split traits (Path of Corruption) and mechanics (Reaper: 5%, Core: 3%) for specs. Why on earth didn't they keep the 7s CD just for Reaper?

[Morde.3158]

@cobracommander.5861 said:I just imagine the uproar if warriors got a 10s cd on weapon swap. Same thing anet.

warriors can get 7sec swap from just a rune and 4second swap after the trait.... Its not like the shroud skills have short cooldowns besides death's charge and we should be able to use that skill when its up. The thing is if anet made necro unkillable in their eyes the player base wouldn't know how to play it still , look back at the old traits was amazing, shroud cd was 5seconds lich form was OP plague was OP and the class was still unpopular and noobs would die instantly anyway. I remember the flesh golem spectral grasp combo to cause somone to take fall damage was so fun...

[Morde.3158]

@KrHome.1920 said:I don't want the old SoS back. Shroud degen is too high to make any use of it while traveling. It had a good synergy with old VP. You could fill the 15s non Swiftness gap between two Wh5 casts and lose only 30% of LF. The trait should remain as it is now to not further mess up stuff.

8s Shroud CD should be baseline for Reaper. The justification for the SoS rework because of Scourge feels like a punch in the face to every Reaper player now where ANet suddenly starts to split traits (Path of Corruption) and mechanics (Reaper: 5%, Core: 3%) for specs. Why on earth didn't they keep the 7s CD just for Reaper?

I cant agree with you here the 25% movespeed in shroud helped me stay on targets and it let me use any rune I wanted. As of late I went from ice to travelers rune now iam just taking a break from the game hoping they will do something. In my strongest opinion I think anet does not play necro besides from attacking golems in the mists this would explain why the skill functionality has always been horrible since the start.

[DeceiverX.8361]

@"KrHome.1920" said:I don't want the old SoS back. Shroud degen is too high to make any use of it while traveling. It had a good synergy with old VP. You could fill the 15s non Swiftness gap between two Wh5 casts and lose only 30% of LF. The trait should remain as it is now to not further mess up stuff.

8s Shroud CD should be baseline for Reaper. The justification for the SoS rework because of Scourge feels like a punch in the face to every Reaper player now where ANet suddenly starts to split traits (Path of Corruption) and mechanics (Reaper: 5%, Core: 3%) for specs. Why on earth didn't they keep the 7s CD just for Reaper?

The movespeed is/was still critically important into its weaker matchups, and 25 flat is way better than swiftness these days, again, especially into weak matchups like thief (boon steal), mesmer (boon rip), and condi necro (cripple/weakness).

They probably didn't make the change because people were so insistent the trait was "never possibly worthwhile to take over Soul Marks" like so many people kept saying when I shared my build/trait configs. There are people out there who still insist SoS was a bad trait on reaper and that staff > all weapons which is total nonsense.

[cobracommander.5861]

Please everyone, make comments on the new build thread for pvp/wvw asking for the reaper CD back.

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/29690/pvp-wvw-skill-split-release

[cobracommander.5861]

Doesn’t look like they’re gonna make changes to reaper.

[ZDragon.3046]

hmmm i honestly dont know I dont see the 3 seconds from SoS being to major. In all honestly i found myself getting screwed by immobilize more than anything while using reaper specifically against druids or in some instances chill/ cripple from everything else. These things hindered necro so badly in general but really screwed up trying to stick to foes in reaper shroud.

While the swiftness is not the best thing ever the current SoS is still pretty darn good with reaper. I would rather have super speed on his trait instead of the swiftness and keep the condi removal it has now over the previous shroud entry reduction. Being able to go into shroud more often is pointless if you get immobilized or chilled and cant stick to people.

Ideally its free instant clear that necro needed. No tricky having to land an xfer or blowing your long cd heal just to be able to stick/catch someone. I would say I got killed by being immobilized and ranged far more often than getting killed and being within 3 seconds of being able to shroud again and thinking well if I had the old SoS.

Of all the changes I want them to make this would be one of the last as there are other issues and traits that are busted and more important than SoS

[KrHome.1920]

SoS is not the primary reason why 8s (not 7 - this would be too strong) should be baseline. It's because of the faster degeneration now. We are hardcountered too easily by just running away from us for a few seconds waiting for us to leave shroud and then reengage.

With 2% of degeneration we had plenty of time to sit in shroud when we were kited. We could use Death's Charge multiple times (to chase or disengage) or just wait 15+ seconds as our skills (esp. the heal) would go off cooldown. It was much more difficult to outrotate us. If our opponent kited for too long he would achieve nothing. Now he is achieving a lot: either our LF runs out or we leave shroud. In both scenarios we are a freekill for 10s.

Even in a Reaper vs. Reaper duell. The Reaper that enters Shroud first loses... (because he will also leave it first)

A shorter cooldown will punish us less for leaving shroud when someone starts to kite us.

[Shazmataz.1423]

Shame they haven't tossed reaper a bone in the balance changes....

[Sarrs.4831]

Speed of Shadows is a good trait imo.

Personally I'd rather they do something with Relentless Pursuit, it's kind of a bum trait and having more options for Reapers would be nice.

[pah.4931]

@"Shazmataz.1423" said:Shame they haven't tossed reaper a bone in the balance changes....

Yeah. I was really, really hoping for "Necro and Reaper Shrouds coold downs have been reduced from 10s to 5s"

[Lahmia.2193]

@Sarrs.4831 said:Speed of Shadows is a good trait imo.

Personally I'd rather they do something with Relentless Pursuit, it's kind of a bum trait and having more options for Reapers would be nice.

The trait itself is fine. Problem being is that the only places it is useful (pvp/wvw) is where reaper is not that useful anymore because of scourge. An old favourite of mine pre pof was a holbrek rune/poultry soup combo with Relentless Pursuit, meaning 106% reduction on snares inside shroud and 73% the rest of the time. Great stuff considering it was immob that got me killed most of the time.

[Crinn.7864]

@Lahmia.2193 said:

@Sarrs.4831 said:Speed of Shadows is a good trait imo.

Personally I'd rather they do something with Relentless Pursuit, it's kind of a bum trait and having more options for Reapers would be nice.

The trait itself is fine. Problem being is that the only places it is useful (pvp/wvw) is where reaper is not that useful anymore because of scourge. An old favourite of mine pre pof was a holbrek rune/poultry soup combo with Relentless Pursuit, meaning 106% reduction on snares inside shroud and 73% the rest of the time. Great stuff considering it was immob that got me killed most of the time.

FYI condi duration reduction effects are all multiplicative with each other, not additive. So no you did not have 106% reduction.

[DeceiverX.8361]

@Crinn.7864 said:

@Lahmia.2193 said:

@Sarrs.4831 said:Speed of Shadows is a good trait imo.

Personally I'd rather they do something with Relentless Pursuit, it's kind of a bum trait and having more options for Reapers would be nice.

The trait itself is fine. Problem being is that the only places it is useful (pvp/wvw) is where reaper is not that useful anymore because of scourge. An old favourite of mine pre pof was a holbrek rune/poultry soup combo with Relentless Pursuit, meaning 106% reduction on snares inside shroud and 73% the rest of the time. Great stuff considering it was immob that got me killed most of the time.

FYI condi duration reduction effects are all multiplicative with each other, not additive. So no you did not have 106% reduction.

Was going to say this. Granted, it's still a 97% reduction while in shroud

SoS was just better when the movespeed couldn't be stolen or corrupted. I'm sorry, but reaper's very limited mobility shouldn't come with counterplay when it already needs a trait investment in another line as it is. It's honestly better to just run UB and Signets of Suffering at this point because SoS's swiftness is just too unreliable and the OOC movement is/was already pretty much necessary as it was.

Even still, the hardest hit was to the shroud cooldown reduction.

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

@Crinn.7864 said:

@Lahmia.2193 said:

@Sarrs.4831 said:Speed of Shadows is a good trait imo.

Personally I'd rather they do something with Relentless Pursuit, it's kind of a bum trait and having more options for Reapers would be nice.

The trait itself is fine. Problem being is that the only places it is useful (pvp/wvw) is where reaper is not that useful anymore because of scourge. An old favourite of mine pre pof was a holbrek rune/poultry soup combo with Relentless Pursuit, meaning 106% reduction on snares inside shroud and 73% the rest of the time. Great stuff considering it was immob that got me killed most of the time.

FYI condi duration reduction effects are all multiplicative with each other, not additive. So no you did not have 106% reduction.

Pretty sure the way condi duration reduction works is that it gets added with the duration extension, then the final value is what you get.

For example, someone with +50% Cripple duration uses a Cripple on a Reaper with Relentless Pursuit (not in shroud). The final duration is 117% of the base value (100+50-33=117). We had issues with Warrior Rampage in PvP giving a whopping 98% reduction to snares with Melandru Runes (-25%), Dogged March (-33%), and Rampage (-33%). While it's still possible, Rampage kinda sucks now, and its uptime got hammered. Necros, due to usually running Nightmare runes, still could slow them down some. Everyone else, Rampage basically just couldn't be snared.

This is 100% the way it used to work at launch and I have not seen any patch notes saying it changed. Even the wiki states that modifiers to condition duration are additive (albeit, it's only specifically mentions bonuses in its example).

[DeceiverX.8361]

It's definitely not added in that way by comparing +/- duration bonuses and adding them together like you suggest. A 10 second immob with + 50% hitting a RP reaper will be treated as 15 outgoing * .67 = 10s. Outgoing and incoming are definitely treated separately/the total outgoing value is surely used as a parameter for incoming effect duration calculation.

It does say that traits are multiplicative in the same article, though. Even if additive on negative bonuses, it'd still be .33 * .6 value which is an 82% reduction overall

I made a major error in my initial math, however; it should be 79% total duration reduction, if multiplicative. Think I was typing in .2's instead of .8's.

Iunno, may require some further testing.

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

Traits are only multiplicitive when they affect specific skills (eg. Lingering Curse). Otherwise, they're additive. (Fear of Death, Cold Shoulder, Barbed Precision).

Again, the wiki is silent entirely on how duration reduction actually factors in.

[Lahmia.2193]

All that aside, Relentless Pursuit is a good trait.

[Anchoku.8142]

@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

@Nimon.7840 said:

@hash.8462 said:What if Vital Persistence also reduce the Shroud CD? (-20%)...and maybe Strength of Undeath also reduce Shroud Degeneration? (-15%)

That would be too much ine one trait. Vital persistance is already the most picked trait. Giving it shroud cd as well would make the others completely useless

Fear of Death isn't completely useless? News to me.

Oh, Balthazar, I hate Fear of Death for consuming a trait slot. That trait should be combined with Reaper's Protection.

[jalmari.3906]

Old sos would not work with current reaper

Also swiftness is better now with a lot of shroud degen, you can just flash and get swiftness, with ds #2 you can travel super fast. for pve I also use that one swiftness utility so I can permanently run with swiftness.

Only thing I'd miss is cd reduction. But they also changed shroud procs, which used to be much better with flashing if I recall right, or well at least kind of useful in that meta back then.

[DeceiverX.8361]

Am I the only one who thinks incorruptible movespeed is amazing on a melee-only kit? ._.

I ran SotL + SoS for permanent non-volatile movespeed and could catch daredevils without much of a problem despite everyone complaining about the matchup, because BT steals the current swiftness and into any corruption matchup into scourge or core necro it just gets turned into cripple which causes it to be kited pretty quick. Even with RP there's a big movespeed deficit for a melee-kit.

Old SoS is just universally better on reaper as a whole than the new version. It's better to just run Signets of Suffering on SotL and take unyielding in our already-weak matchups because the mobility gained is just strictly better, and obviously the CDR was a big part in what carried power reaper's viability.

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

Unremovable movement speed was an excellent part of the old Speed of Shadows. I was annoyed when they changed it to Switfness.