The un-needed nerf of Reaper Touch...

[Solomon Darkfury.3729]

Per the update notes-

Reaper's Touch: This skill has been significantly reworked, and it has been renamed Soul Grasp.

Soul Grasp: This skill has two casts. Each cast sends forth a disembodied hand to inflict vulnerability on foes, grant the necromancer life force, and steal health from a foe.

Seriously Devs... what were you thinking? This isn't even a nerf... you GUTTED the skill completely to the point of making it ABSOLUTELY WORTHLESS.

Like, literally NO ONE was complaining about the balance of Reaper Touch. At least none that I saw anywhere. The place where it was most useful was WvW and again, no one was complaining about it.

What was the "logic" behind this unwanted "balancing"?

[derd.6413]

1) did you really need 2 threads about this and 2) ppl were complaining about it because of the same reasons focus 4 on guardian was changed.

[Solomon Darkfury.3729]

@"derd.6413" said:1) did you really need 2 threads about this and 2) ppl were complaining about it because of the same reasons focus 4 on guardian was changed.

ANET needs to stop determining all their "balances" based on a few complaining pvpers... They've done it for 5 years and it craps all over builds in other game modes. Was hoping the changes to the dev team would fix that but I guess not...

[Khisanth.2948]

Lost some damage, healing

Gained some consistency and reliability

No change is ever going to be to everyone's liking but at least this is not a straight nerf

[Solomon Darkfury.3729]

@Khisanth.2948 said:Lost some damage, healing

Gained some consistency and reliability

No change is ever going to be to everyone's liking but at least this is not a straight nerf

You don't need the consistency and reliability (I assume you mean being able to sustain damage pressure) if you are just... good...

And yes it is a straight nerf, they completely gutted the skill and changed it into something totally different.

That's like getting hit with the nerf bat then run over by the nerf dumptruck only to have it unload 50,000 nerf balls to suffocate you with...

[LucianDK.8615]

You should be complaining about the warhorn, not the focus

[Khisanth.2948]

@Solomon Darkfury.3729 said:

@Khisanth.2948 said:Lost some damage, healing

Gained some consistency and reliability

No change is ever going to be to everyone's liking but at least this is not a straight nerf

You don't need the consistency and reliability (I assume you mean being able to sustain damage pressure) if you are just... good...

I don't. In the old version the actual results depends on who is standing near your target and how many of them around. You might heal yourself, you might heal an ally, you might not heal anyone. Same with the damage aspects. There are a bunch of different permutations.

Healing from the regen also takes time and susceptible to boon strip. On the other hand boon duration would have been a huge multiplier for increasing how much healing you get out of it.

Feedback simply claiming a change is bad without actually providing any reasons will probably gets ignored.

[ElderNewt.5840]

It is actually better now. As a long time necromancer player that skill before today was always soo bad. Literally the only reason people took focus was because of 5 skill.To say a few complaints would be undermining the MANY complaints about it over the years. Just because you liked it does not mean it was good.

[LucianDK.8615]

@HardRider.2980 said:It is actually better now. As a long time necromancer player that skill before today was always soo bad. Literally the only reason people took focus was because of 5 skill.To say a few complaints would be undermining the MANY complaints about it over the years. Just because you liked it does not mean it was good.

Well said, change his always hard to adjust to for many. Made me shift gear from making Verdarach to Binding of Ipos to go with my Astralaria.

[PseudoNewb.5468]

At least it can now be used at long range 601-1200 without a broken bouncing mechanic. At some point in the past, they increased it's range, but left it's bounce distance alone. That means, that if you cast it at a lonely target from max range it would only do 1/5 of it's possible effects because it would have no valid bounce targets.

One on one and within the bounce range, it would proc damage three times and regen twice, so it does seem like, with 2 casts, they make it slower to use, and they seemed nerfed the number of offensive hits every 15s from 3 to 2, and then the seem to have nerfed the vulnerability stacks per hit too.

Seems like they changed it's focus from, causes vulnerability, to draw life force.

[Nimon.7840]

Well a lot of people were complaining about the old version, reapers touch.

Me myself as well.

1. It wasn't a homing missle, could be out run pretty easily.
2. 1200 range but it bounced. Hitting only one target at that range gave no reward, even though it was super hard to hit because of point 1
3. The bounces: fighting in a group sometimes did only hit the target enemy once, then bounced between allies, applying regeneration, which was overwritten by any other regeneration tick

That doesn't mean I'm a fan of the new skill.I like that it generates so much lifeforce.

The other effect is rather meh... It can't crit anymore, which is very sad, also vulnerability is gone...

But the biggest issue is the travel-speed of the projectile.

1. it's a projectile that can be reflected
2. I think someone posted the traveltime towards a target, 1200 units away from you: 3 seconds, that's way too long for such a small effect. If it would hit really hard, then ok. But like this, doing only 800 dmg? I don't know. Not so good in my opinion.
3. And that's the worst point: you can still just run away. After the projectile traveled it's 1200 units it just vanishes.

[Warscythes.9307]

@Nimon.7840 said:Well a lot of people were complaining about the old version, reapers touch.

Me myself as well.

1. It wasn't a homing missle, could be out run pretty easily.
2. 1200 range but it bounced. Hitting only one target at that range gave no reward, even though it was super hard to hit because of point 1
3. The bounces: fighting in a group sometimes did only hit the target enemy once, then bounced between allies, applying regeneration, which was overwritten by any other regeneration tick

That doesn't mean I'm a fan of the new skill.I like that it generates so much lifeforce.

The other effect is rather meh... It can't crit anymore, which is very sad, also vulnerability is gone...

But the biggest issue is the travel-speed of the projectile.

1. it's a projectile that can be reflected
2. I think someone posted the traveltime towards a target, 1200 units away from you: 3 seconds, that's way too long for such a small effect. If it would hit really hard, then ok. But like this, doing only 800 dmg? I don't know. Not so good in my opinion.
3. And that's the worst point: you can still just run away. After the projectile traveled it's 1200 units it just vanishes.

Soul grasp still applies vulnerability.

But I can agree the main issue is that is too slow, increase the projectile speed and is a solid PvP weapon.

[Nimon.7840]

@Warscythes.9307 said:

@Nimon.7840 said:Well a lot of people were complaining about the old version, reapers touch.

Me myself as well.

1. It wasn't a homing missle, could be out run pretty easily.
2. 1200 range but it bounced. Hitting only one target at that range gave no reward, even though it was super hard to hit because of point 1
3. The bounces: fighting in a group sometimes did only hit the target enemy once, then bounced between allies, applying regeneration, which was overwritten by any other regeneration tick

That doesn't mean I'm a fan of the new skill.I like that it generates so much lifeforce.

The other effect is rather meh... It can't crit anymore, which is very sad, also vulnerability is gone...

But the biggest issue is the travel-speed of the projectile.

1. it's a projectile that can be reflected
2. I think someone posted the traveltime towards a target, 1200 units away from you: 3 seconds, that's way too long for such a small effect. If it would hit really hard, then ok. But like this, doing only 800 dmg? I don't know. Not so good in my opinion.
3. And that's the worst point: you can still just run away. After the projectile traveled it's 1200 units it just vanishes.

Soul grasp still applies vulnerability.

It does? Couldn't remember it from the 10 minutes of testing.

I did mainly test pve dmg rota with different types of food and traits

But I can agree the main issue is that is too slow, increase the projectile speed and is a solid PvP weapon.

[Psaro.6178]

I believe the new focus 4 is much better than it's predecessor

[Falcon.8713]

They should start making up their mind about necromancer's offhand weapons;They reworked both warhorn and focus to have the same lame ass life siphon that isn't even useful..Vuln stacks sure, not needed, life force gain sure, that's 1 thing that can be worked with.But why in the name of grenth do condis have 2 viable options and power not 1 offhand that scales of our stats ?Both have become utility weapons that live in a shadow of their former self. At least 1 of warhorn or focus should be reworked towards a power offhand.

[LucianDK.8615]

It applies 5 stacks of vulnerability, so you missed that.

[mijitoboy.4208]

new focus 4 is really good at least in pvp best thing in this patch for reaper imo

[KrHome.1920]

Reaper's Touch was overall a very unreliable skill. Therefore people complained. No one complained about the effects it had (which were very good).

It was great in two scenarios:

• two targets standing right next to each other
• a melee cast right before entering shroud to have a nice burst

In these scenarios the damage was great, the LF generation was great and the vulnerability application was great.

Now it's only good for one single thing: LF generation. That's it. This it can do a bit more reliable than before.

In contrast it deals negligible damage, it's bad for vulnerability stacking (ammo cooldown of 3s, vulnerability duration 6s), the leeching is useless.

Locust Swarm got an even bigger usability hit, GS5 got a hidden nerf because they did not increase the animation speed for the higher travel distance (it's easier to dodge now) and they did not adjust the cone so that the pull covers a smaller area in terms of wideness.

But this is not the topic in this thread...

[gavyne.6847]

It's pretty much used for lifeforce regen now. And for double weapon builds, it's a welcome change since LF is often an issue when you go staff-less. You can now more reliably get LF.

[Lily.1935]

Personally. I despise the focus 4 change. It feels awful. Life steal is fine, but the issues I have with it are beyond just that. It's life force now is better, but its slower and breaks rotations more. Its projectile is still extremely slow and its removed what little support the necromancer has outside of Scourge. The theme now of Focus seems to be SLOW. And not like the reaper's greatsword were it hits like a truck. Just slow.

Also the life steal on Warhorn doesn't work while in shroud. Just thought I'd throw that in. I actually really like the warhorn change. Its great. But that bug needs to be fixed.

[dceptaconroy.7928]

Agreed Lily. The projectile speed is ridiculous. I understood itd be eventually fixed in terms of actually landing but this change they've made and deciding to leave it at that speed is unreal. Someone mentioned the 3 second travel time at full distance... pvp wise you need to be sitting on their head or vs an afk for a hit. I know we're the slow class but they're pulling the p with this rework. I might have to try dagger at this rate.../shivers.

[Hesacon.8735]

@LucianDK.8615 said:

@HardRider.2980 said:It is actually better now. As a long time necromancer player that skill before today was always soo bad. Literally the only reason people took focus was because of 5 skill.To say a few complaints would be undermining the MANY complaints about it over the years. Just because you liked it does not mean it was good.

Well said, change his always hard to adjust to for many. Made me shift gear from making Verdarach to Binding of Ipos to go with my Astralaria.

The stellar weapons from Istan look better with Astralaria than other legendaries.

[KrHome.1920]

@Lily.1935 said:Also the life steal on Warhorn doesn't work while in shroud. Just thought I'd throw that in. I actually really like the warhorn change. Its great. But that bug needs to be fixed.Focus 4 lifesteal does not work in shroud too btw.

The heal will fail if you cast the projectile and enter shroud before it hits the target (which happens pretty often since the projectile is awfully slow).

[ZDragon.3046]

Reapers touch the skill that would never hit anything above 400 range if it moved or suddenly stopped or started making change in direction after you launched it.The skill that was completely unreliable and could randomly miss another person as bounced off your target if they stopped making change in direction or started.

The skill that literally was garbage unless you were touching your target despite it having 1200 range. Generally this is a upgrade to the skill when you look at core necomancer its an easy life force sustain building tool It also will not proc things like full counter shocking aura or other pushing on hit effects that react specifically to strikes.

[ZDragon.3046]

@dceptaconroy.7928 said:Agreed Lily. The projectile speed is ridiculous. I understood itd be eventually fixed in terms of actually landing but this change they've made and deciding to leave it at that speed is unreal. Someone mentioned the 3 second travel time at full distance... pvp wise you need to be sitting on their head or vs an afk for a hit. I know we're the slow class but they're pulling the p with this rework. I might have to try dagger at this rate.../shivers.

The skill is slightly to slow but considering it will actually hit unless dodged now makes it consistent and not clunky which was the main complaint behind the old focus 4Its tracking is similar to death shroud 2 so no... it will hit your target pretty much always unless they dodge or block it now it does feel odd though because it does not perform a strike the damage works more like vampiric auras damage unless you are watching close its easy to miss in the chaos of a fight.

Ive been using it and its been hitting just fine for me but it feels odd because it does not perform a strike. Ideally you dont have that essence of feeling the hit follow through like you do with most attacks but generally i check the combat log as i fight and it is hitting unless people dodge , block, or blink away regardless of how they are moving around.