Fear on Warhorn and/or Focus for Necro

[Pooh.6897]

@"QuirkyDM.2351" said:

I am currently running a test with my reaper. I run staff + axe/focus but i could switch that out for staff/gs. My findings so far are quite interesting. with reaper's onslaught, acquired quickness from skill 3 gets "stored" until shroud wears off. the rotation so far is quite complex, but it's working out quite nice. when alternating between staff skill 5 and shroud skill 3, you can have quickness most of the time. When there are multiple mobs around, shroud skill 3 resets very quickly allowing to build up more quickness. I've ended some fights with 9 seconds quickness left. That is in PvE. I'm not really into WvW so cant comment on there. Quickness with axe is really nice because of the fast building of a lot of vulnerability. Quickness staff 1 builds life force very quickly.

If anything, Dread is very good for reaper BECAUSE shroud skill 3 has a long cooldown. whenever an npc dies, the timer gets a -50% recharge which has a bigger impact on reaper than on core or scourge. So far Dread has been far from underwhelming for me as a reaper.

For clarification/TL:DR: GS/staff on reaper. Use skill 5 on staff for quickness, swap to gs. when quickness wears off go to shroud. stay as long in shroud as you can, popping terrify as often as you can. this will happen quite often if you fight many weak enemies. Reaper's onslaught will make sure that your quickness is not going down the drain since it pulses additional quickness every few seconds. while fury is up, fight with GS. when fury goes down, switch to staff. skill 5 might almost be ready. like I said, you can get quickness most of the time, not permanently. soul marks helps a lot. skill 3 on staff is also handy, skill 4 is a condi transfer just in case, skill 2 is a regen when you're in it, skill 1 with quickness builds up life force like i've never seen before.

I haven't tried this build yet, but I like the experimentation. It's not really convincing me to give it a shot, though. One of Dread's main advantages is the faster recharge with mob deaths. For Reapers, fighting multiple enemies is not an issue; Reapers are already built to excel against multiple foes and it's not something I need to improve in. The traits that would make me interested in changing my build are the ones that help against bosses. Dread does very little on this front, unless I sacrifice DPS for sustain to focus on Dread, Blighter's Boon and Fear of Death. If we could add Dread's recharge ability to also trigger upon a boss's defiance bar being broken, THAT would be a pretty interesting option and hardly an overpowering one.

I'm interested in hearing your feedback though as one of the few players getting good mileage out of Dread so far.

Sorry for the long quote, but i've tested it some more. I swapped around some skills here and there and i'm still in the process of tuning. So far my build seems extremely powerful in situations where a lot of small mobs spawn and die. as you said, reaper had no issue handling those, but with Dread you can now use this to your benefit to stack quickness while in shroud. What i find myself doing often is using shroud as a "quickness buffer" with reaper's onslaught. when a lot of small enemies die and i get to trigger skill 3 often, sometimes i have around 20s quickness left to burn on my GS. As for the fury: holy smokes. permanent fury uptime can be achieved, especially during world boss battles. I have left Tequitl with upwards of 30-40s fury uptime left. it is absolutely insane.

Because of this i am now testing with swapping out Decimating Defenses for Soul Eater. I run spite and soul reaping with death perception and zerker gear. i'm not sure if i really need the extra crit chance from decimate defenses. I am also planning on using staff/Axe+focus or warhorn in combination with Spiteful talisman, dropping bitter chill. I'll let you know how it went over a while when I have done more testing.

Edit: my thoughts on what Anet could do to perfect this build would be: give a fear to an offhand weapon (preferably focus), remove the 3s internal cooldown of dread.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

For PvE this won't matter, but for PvP and WvW Necro has a fair amount of corrupts available across several weapons and utilities that will turn stab into fear and thus benefit from Dread.

[Brujeria.7536]

@"Lan Deathrider.5910" said:For PvE this won't matter, but for PvP and WvW Necro has a fair amount of corrupts available across several weapons and utilities that will turn stab into fear and thus benefit from Dread.

Yeah but its not reliable like at all. If you pick a offensive based GM trait you want a reliable, frequent benefit, not a lucky random corrupt. Some classes also dont have stab in the first place or simply can decide not to use the skill. Look at Elementalist fire GM traits for example. The benefit of every GM is there on every weapon while attuned to fire, and across other skills as well. You only pick what kind of reliable advantage you want. Thats good design, its a benefit, not limiting the class.. If you want a "reliable and frequent" use of this trait you are forced to pick staff and maybe fear ring which is limiting you by quite a lot.

[Pooh.6897]

@Brujeria.7536 said:

@"Lan Deathrider.5910" said:For PvE this won't matter, but for PvP and WvW Necro has a fair amount of corrupts available across several weapons and utilities that will turn stab into fear and thus benefit from Dread.

Yeah but its not reliable like at all. If you pick a offensive based GM trait you want a reliable, frequent benefit, not a lucky random corrupt. Some classes also dont have stab in the first place or simply can decide not to use the skill. Look at Elementalist fire GM traits for example. The benefit of every GM is there on every weapon while attuned to fire, and across other skills as well. You only pick what kind of reliable advantage you want. Thats good design, its a benefit, not limiting the class.. If you want a "reliable and frequent" use of this trait you are forced to pick staff and maybe fear ring which is limiting you by quite a lot.

From my testing fear ring is absolutely horrendous in terms of reliability. It’s skill meant for applying protection and area denial, it has absolutely no offensive play, even in pve. Staff skill 5 is pretty good though

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

@Brujeria.7536 said:

@"Lan Deathrider.5910" said:For PvE this won't matter, but for PvP and WvW Necro has a fair amount of corrupts available across several weapons and utilities that will turn stab into fear and thus benefit from Dread.

Yeah but its not reliable like at all. If you pick a offensive based GM trait you want a reliable, frequent benefit, not a lucky random corrupt. Some classes also dont have stab in the first place or simply can decide not to use the skill. Look at Elementalist fire GM traits for example. The benefit of every GM is there on every weapon while attuned to fire, and across other skills as well. You only pick what kind of reliable advantage you want. Thats good design, its a benefit, not limiting the class.. If you want a "reliable and frequent" use of this trait you are forced to pick staff and maybe fear ring which is limiting you by quite a lot.

I take it that you have never ping ponged a warrior with boon corrupts huh? Yeah, this does rely on stability access on your foe, but unless you have fighting a ranger or necro the odds are that there is some stab somewhere to corrupt and Anet has to take that into account.

[Brujeria.7536]

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@Brujeria.7536 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:For PvE this won't matter, but for PvP and WvW Necro has a fair amount of corrupts available across several weapons and utilities that will turn stab into fear and thus benefit from Dread.

Yeah but its not reliable like at all. If you pick a offensive based GM trait you want a reliable, frequent benefit, not a lucky random corrupt. Some classes also dont have stab in the first place or simply can decide not to use the skill. Look at Elementalist fire GM traits for example. The benefit of every GM is there on every weapon while attuned to fire, and across other skills as well. You only pick what kind of reliable advantage you want. Thats good design, its a benefit, not limiting the class.. If you want a "reliable and frequent" use of this trait you are forced to pick staff and maybe fear ring which is limiting you by quite a lot.

I take it that you have never ping ponged a warrior with boon corrupts huh? Yeah, this does rely on stability access on your foe, but unless you have fighting a ranger or necro the odds are that there is some stab somewhere to corrupt and Anet has to take that into account.

Warrior is the exception here, but even then warrior gets free stab via traits to counter it, as well as some resistance here and there. Corrupts are the most reliable when fighting warriors anywho. Fact is, most classes dont have access to stability on a regular basis, ranger, thief, necromancer, mesmer. And those classes that do have good access usually also have a lot of boon access in general, which makes the % chance you corrupt stability of all things even lower.

They could account for corrupts by simply reducing the duration of boons, or increasing the internal cooldown. If they have better fear access across the weapon skills and utility skills that would be the best solution, really.

[Brujeria.7536]

@jiggle puff.9347 said:

@Brujeria.7536 said:

@"Lan Deathrider.5910" said:For PvE this won't matter, but for PvP and WvW Necro has a fair amount of corrupts available across several weapons and utilities that will turn stab into fear and thus benefit from Dread.

Yeah but its not reliable like at all. If you pick a offensive based GM trait you want a reliable, frequent benefit, not a lucky random corrupt. Some classes also dont have stab in the first place or simply can decide not to use the skill. Look at Elementalist fire GM traits for example. The benefit of every GM is there on every weapon while attuned to fire, and across other skills as well. You only pick what kind of reliable advantage you want. Thats good design, its a benefit, not limiting the class.. If you want a "reliable and frequent" use of this trait you are forced to pick staff and maybe fear ring which is limiting you by quite a lot.

From my testing fear ring is absolutely horrendous in terms of reliability. It’s skill meant for applying protection and area denial, it has absolutely no offensive play, even in pve. Staff skill 5 is pretty good though

Thats actually not true, if you spec for condi and terror you can use it to get some good fear chains, using Shroud 3, fear ring and staff 5 but in that regard you "waste" your very limited fear skill cooldowns because you hit the ICD of the trait. But in case of builds that dont spec into condi duration and condi damage spectral ring is also not the best skill.

Whats also a big factor is that spite has no synergy with this GM whatsover. Usually, if a grandmaster or master trait resolves around a condition or boon, the rest of the line provides said boon or condition, see protection for deathmagic, or to some extend the synergy between crit and condi on crit with curses. Spite does not do anything in that regard. Now if one trait category would have dread, terror and fear of death there would be at least some conceptual sense.

[KrHome.1920]

Whats also a big factor is that spite has no synergy with this GM whatsover.That's intended. One fear is part of the mechanic of every necro spec (shroud3, F4). That's the baseline for this trait. That's the reason why it is so strong and can extremely boost your direct damage output.

Adding more fears (=more triggers) is meant to have drawbacks. You either have to pick staff, which is weak in direct damage. Or you have to pick some corrupts for stability corruptions, which also lowers your direct damage potential.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

@Brujeria.7536 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@Brujeria.7536 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:For PvE this won't matter, but for PvP and WvW Necro has a fair amount of corrupts available across several weapons and utilities that will turn stab into fear and thus benefit from Dread.

Yeah but its not reliable like at all. If you pick a offensive based GM trait you want a reliable, frequent benefit, not a lucky random corrupt. Some classes also dont have stab in the first place or simply can decide not to use the skill. Look at Elementalist fire GM traits for example. The benefit of every GM is there on every weapon while attuned to fire, and across other skills as well. You only pick what kind of reliable advantage you want. Thats good design, its a benefit, not limiting the class.. If you want a "reliable and frequent" use of this trait you are forced to pick staff and maybe fear ring which is limiting you by quite a lot.

I take it that you have never ping ponged a warrior with boon corrupts huh? Yeah, this does rely on stability access on your foe, but unless you have fighting a ranger or necro the odds are that there is some stab somewhere to corrupt and Anet has to take that into account.

Warrior is the exception here, but even then warrior gets free stab via traits to counter it, as well as some resistance here and there. Corrupts are the most reliable when fighting warriors anywho. Fact is, most classes dont have access to stability on a regular basis, ranger, thief, necromancer, mesmer. And those classes that do have good access usually also have a lot of boon access in general, which makes the % chance you corrupt stability of all things even lower.

They could account for corrupts by simply reducing the duration of boons, or increasing the internal cooldown. If they have better fear access across the weapon skills and utility skills that would be the best solution, really.

Which you then corrupt into fear again hence the ping pong. Not that I wouldn't complain about having more fears to play with on my necro, wail of doom not being a fear always surprised me.

[Lily.1935]

I've been using an open world dread reaper condi build and the ability to get those short bursts of quickness is rather good.

What I'll say though is that I would prefer if the warhorn had a trait that converted wail of doom into a fear as opposed to it being baseline. I would fuse it with fear if death with Banshee's wail in soul reaping and replace Banshee's wail in Blood with the missing Well trait.

In this case reaper and scourge couldn't take full advantage of a terror build due to the elite spec but Core necromancer could.

I'd also make Dread replace Doom with Wave of Fear for core necromancer only to futher incentives the terrormancer as a core build.

[Pooh.6897]

@Lily.1935 said:I've been using an open world dread reaper condi build and the ability to get those short bursts of quickness is rather good.

What I'll say though is that I would prefer if the warhorn had a trait that converted wail of doom into a fear as opposed to it being baseline. I would fuse it with fear if death with Banshee's wail in soul reaping and replace Banshee's wail in Blood with the missing Well trait.

In this case reaper and scourge couldn't take full advantage of a terror build due to the elite spec but Core necromancer could.

I'd also make Dread replace Doom with Wave of Fear for core necromancer only to futher incentives the terrormancer as a core build.

Good to see that more people are testing with dread. I fully agree with the changes you propose, they seem appropriate and not terribly overpowered. Do you use staff? I am very curious what your build would be, considering I would assume that you want curses for the extra condition damage. One thing I found out is that signet of spite is actually rather good when you pop it right before you go into shroud. I don’t know if it’s a bug but I have noticed that with signets of suffering, the passive effect stays in shroud, even when you activate it. This could be good for a condi build I imagine.

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

@jiggle puff.9347 said:

@Lily.1935 said:I've been using an open world dread reaper condi build and the ability to get those short bursts of quickness is rather good.

What I'll say though is that I would prefer if the warhorn had a trait that converted wail of doom into a fear as opposed to it being baseline. I would fuse it with fear if death with Banshee's wail in soul reaping and replace Banshee's wail in Blood with the missing Well trait.

In this case reaper and scourge couldn't take full advantage of a terror build due to the elite spec but Core necromancer could.

I'd also make Dread replace Doom with Wave of Fear for core necromancer only to futher incentives the terrormancer as a core build.

Good to see that more people are testing with dread. I fully agree with the changes you propose, they seem appropriate and not terribly overpowered. Do you use staff? I am very curious what your build would be, considering I would assume that you want curses for the extra condition damage. One thing I found out is that signet of spite is actually rather good when you pop it right before you go into shroud. I don’t know if it’s a bug but I have noticed that with signets of suffering, the passive effect stays in shroud, even when you activate it. This could be good for a condi build I imagine.

Signet passives in shroud is exactly what Signets of Suffering does. That and arguably being the strongest skill recharge trait in the game.

[Pooh.6897]

As for my testing so far: I spent some time in the special forces area and eventually I landed on a rather odd build. I call it the perma quickness shroudmancer. It utilizes staff/gs and it’s about staying in shroud as long as you can, frequently popping fear and distributing a lot of might and vulnerability. With fear of death, signets of suffering and signet of the undead (I believe) it’s kinda insane how long you can stay in shroud, building up quickness and storing it thanks to reapers onslaught. Then when shroud finally do end you can get a ton of life force quickly with staff and then switch to gs to burn the seconds of quickness you’ve build up over time.

[Pooh.6897]

@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

@jiggle puff.9347 said:

@Lily.1935 said:I've been using an open world dread reaper condi build and the ability to get those short bursts of quickness is rather good.

What I'll say though is that I would prefer if the warhorn had a trait that converted wail of doom into a fear as opposed to it being baseline. I would fuse it with fear if death with Banshee's wail in soul reaping and replace Banshee's wail in Blood with the missing Well trait.

In this case reaper and scourge couldn't take full advantage of a terror build due to the elite spec but Core necromancer could.

I'd also make Dread replace Doom with Wave of Fear for core necromancer only to futher incentives the terrormancer as a core build.

Good to see that more people are testing with dread. I fully agree with the changes you propose, they seem appropriate and not terribly overpowered. Do you use staff? I am very curious what your build would be, considering I would assume that you want curses for the extra condition damage. One thing I found out is that signet of spite is actually rather good when you pop it right before you go into shroud. I don’t know if it’s a bug but I have noticed that with signets of suffering, the passive effect stays in shroud, even when you activate it. This could be good for a condi build I imagine.

Signet passives in shroud is exactly what Signets of Suffering does. That and arguably being the strongest skill recharge trait in the game.

Good to know it is not a bug then. This makes the entire trait more interesting for me because before, I hated signet skills for the same reason I hate minion skills: it’s an effectively dead skill slot when you equip these skills because you can’t actively use them. It removes a lot of choice for the necro and it makes you passively slightly better. But if you’re telling me that I can now use these skills anyway without losing the passive, even if it’s just in shroud, that would be quite strong.

[Lily.1935]

@jiggle puff.9347 said:

@Lily.1935 said:I've been using an open world dread reaper condi build and the ability to get those short bursts of quickness is rather good.

What I'll say though is that I would prefer if the warhorn had a trait that converted wail of doom into a fear as opposed to it being baseline. I would fuse it with fear if death with Banshee's wail in soul reaping and replace Banshee's wail in Blood with the missing Well trait.

In this case reaper and scourge couldn't take full advantage of a terror build due to the elite spec but Core necromancer could.

I'd also make Dread replace Doom with Wave of Fear for core necromancer only to futher incentives the terrormancer as a core build.

Good to see that more people are testing with dread. I fully agree with the changes you propose, they seem appropriate and not terribly overpowered. Do you use staff? I am very curious what your build would be, considering I would assume that you want curses for the extra condition damage. One thing I found out is that signet of spite is actually rather good when you pop it right before you go into shroud. I don’t know if it’s a bug but I have noticed that with signets of suffering, the passive effect stays in shroud, even when you activate it. This could be good for a condi build I imagine.

There isn't room on my bar for Signet of suffering. I have well of darkness, epidemic(when applicable), and suffer. So I just take chill of death for the extra chill proc.

I do run staff in open world since it's quite effective for crowd control anyway and generated a lot of life force since the build lacks it currently. If I was going to take a signet it would be Undeath which I wouldn't use the trait still since you don't want to stick in reaper's shroud for too long. I've been running it in the new map btw which is quite a bit more difficult than most other maps so I imagine the Dread reaper would work well in dungeons as well.

I run Spite, Curses and Reaper, opting out of soul reaping which does cause some issues with life force but that can be alleviated pretty easily in open world.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

With Dread (Fury) and Decimate Defenses, you can now walk around on Reaper with 100% Critical Chance in Reaper's Shroud and deal Berserker's level damage on Soldier's gear with free Toughness and Vitality. Plus the Quickness, and all solo.

This is with 200%+ Critical Damage on food, as well.

Just switch Dread out for Close to Death in groups with high Fury uptime and you're good to go.

(Current status: Killing lv80 Veterans in 5seconds with 29k HP and 2.9k armor)

[KrHome.1920]

@"jiggle puff.9347" said:As for my testing so far: I spent some time in the special forces area and eventually I landed on a rather odd build. I call it the perma quickness shroudmancer. It utilizes staff/gs and it’s about staying in shroud as long as you can, frequently popping fear and distributing a lot of might and vulnerability. With fear of death, signets of suffering and signet of the undead (I believe) it’s kinda insane how long you can stay in shroud, building up quickness and storing it thanks to reapers onslaught. Then when shroud finally do end you can get a ton of life force quickly with staff and then switch to gs to burn the seconds of quickness you’ve build up over time.That's what I was talking about here:https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/1287020/#Comment_1287020

The competitive version:http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSgAYFlRw0YcMPWJO+WnNbA-zRJYiR1fZkZq2bVZ3JJMG/PA-e

The PvE version:http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSgAYFlRw0YYsLWJO+WmNbA-zRIYRU9XG1mqVUV2eSCj/A-e

[Pooh.6897]

@KrHome.1920 said:

@"jiggle puff.9347" said:As for my testing so far: I spent some time in the special forces area and eventually I landed on a rather odd build. I call it the perma quickness shroudmancer. It utilizes staff/gs and it’s about staying in shroud as long as you can, frequently popping fear and distributing a lot of might and vulnerability. With fear of death, signets of suffering and signet of the undead (I believe) it’s kinda insane how long you can stay in shroud, building up quickness and storing it thanks to reapers onslaught. Then when shroud finally do end you can get a ton of life force quickly with staff and then switch to gs to burn the seconds of quickness you’ve build up over time.That's what I was talking about here:

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/1287020/#Comment_1287020

The competitive version:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSgAYFlRw0YcMPWJO+WnNbA-zRJYiR1fZkZq2bVZ3JJMG/PA-e

The PvE version:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSgAYFlRw0YYsLWJO+WmNbA-zRIYRU9XG1mqVUV2eSCj/A-e

Thanks a lot for sharing these builds! I'll try them out :)

[Hawkeye.5318]

I know this is kinda an old thread, I just noticed the new Dread (missed the change on that patch and had been using Close to Death).

@Brujeria.7536 said:

@jiggle puff.9347 said:

@Brujeria.7536 said:

@"Lan Deathrider.5910" said:For PvE this won't matter, but for PvP and WvW Necro has a fair amount of corrupts available across several weapons and utilities that will turn stab into fear and thus benefit from Dread.

Yeah but its not reliable like at all. If you pick a offensive based GM trait you want a reliable, frequent benefit, not a lucky random corrupt. Some classes also dont have stab in the first place or simply can decide not to use the skill. Look at Elementalist fire GM traits for example. The benefit of every GM is there on every weapon while attuned to fire, and across other skills as well. You only pick what kind of reliable advantage you want. Thats good design, its a benefit, not limiting the class.. If you want a "reliable and frequent" use of this trait you are forced to pick staff and maybe fear ring which is limiting you by quite a lot.

From my testing fear ring is absolutely horrendous in terms of reliability. It’s skill meant for applying protection and area denial, it has absolutely no offensive play, even in pve. Staff skill 5 is pretty good though

Whats also a big factor is that spite has no synergy with this GM whatsover. Usually, if a grandmaster or master trait resolves around a condition or boon, the rest of the line provides said boon or condition, see protection for deathmagic, or to some extend the synergy between crit and condi on crit with curses. Spite does not do anything in that regard. Now if one trait category would have dread, terror and fear of death there would be at least some conceptual sense.

This is where I agree that Focus 4 getting a fear would make a lot of sense, it makes the top line of Spite the "Focus line", since its a focus trait, an auto-cast focus skill, and then the fear trait.

Remove the Ammo and the Vuln, up the cooldown to like 25 seconds, and give it a 1 second fear. Now its big, slow moving animation makes sense (its actually worth trying to dodge) and it is centralized as a ranged utility/CC offhand. The 4 can't crit, only does a small mount of lifesteal and a CC, and the 5 is mostly for boonrip. Could even bring the range of the weapon down to 900 if it ends up too strong.

[Teratus.2859]

@Hawkeye.5318 said:I know this is kinda an old thread, I just noticed the new Dread (missed the change on that patch and had been using Close to Death).

@Brujeria.7536 said:

@jiggle puff.9347 said:

@Brujeria.7536 said:

@"Lan Deathrider.5910" said:For PvE this won't matter, but for PvP and WvW Necro has a fair amount of corrupts available across several weapons and utilities that will turn stab into fear and thus benefit from Dread.

Yeah but its not reliable like at all. If you pick a offensive based GM trait you want a reliable, frequent benefit, not a lucky random corrupt. Some classes also dont have stab in the first place or simply can decide not to use the skill. Look at Elementalist fire GM traits for example. The benefit of every GM is there on every weapon while attuned to fire, and across other skills as well. You only pick what kind of reliable advantage you want. Thats good design, its a benefit, not limiting the class.. If you want a "reliable and frequent" use of this trait you are forced to pick staff and maybe fear ring which is limiting you by quite a lot.

From my testing fear ring is absolutely horrendous in terms of reliability. It’s skill meant for applying protection and area denial, it has absolutely no offensive play, even in pve. Staff skill 5 is pretty good though

Whats also a big factor is that spite has no synergy with this GM whatsover. Usually, if a grandmaster or master trait resolves around a condition or boon, the rest of the line provides said boon or condition, see protection for deathmagic, or to some extend the synergy between crit and condi on crit with curses. Spite does not do anything in that regard. Now if one trait category would have dread, terror and fear of death there would be at least some conceptual sense.

This is where I agree that Focus 4 getting a fear would make a lot of sense, it makes the top line of Spite the "Focus line", since its a focus trait, an auto-cast focus skill, and then the fear trait.

Remove the Ammo and the Vuln, up the cooldown to like 25 seconds, and give it a 1 second fear. Now its big, slow moving animation makes sense (its actually worth trying to dodge) and it is centralized as a ranged utility/CC offhand. The 4 can't crit, only does a small mount of lifesteal and a CC, and the 5 is mostly for boonrip. Could even bring the range of the weapon down to 900 if it ends up too strong.

I wouldn't be against this, the vun on focus is kind of useless anyway since you already have tons of vun access through Wells and Axe auto.Replacing that with a fear makes sense to me and would up the use of Focus as an offhand.It's definitely more preferable to adding fear on Warhorn which already has a great CC on it anyway.

[KrHome.1920]

@Teratus.2859 said:I wouldn't be against this, the vun on focus is kind of useless anyway since you already have tons of vun access through Wells and Axe auto.No it's not. Quick on demand vulnerability stacking is important for viable reaper smallscale and 1v1 builds, which sacrifice precision for vitality and toughness to be able to survive a 2v1 focus or a ranger or deadeye that are 50% of the fight at 1200 range. You need every vulnerability source you can get to maximize the beneft from decimate defenses.

The basic reaper spec design is:

• power, vita, toughness from from gear + rune
• critical hit chance from vulnerability
• ferocity from traits

And your argument is building up vulnerability with wells and axe autos? In the competitive modes? Seriously?

Replacing that with a fear makes sense to me and would up the use of Focus as an offhand.It doesn't make sense from a balancing and design perspective. Core and scourge have enough fear sources (due to low cooldown in shroud / on F4) and reaper doesn't benefit from fear that much like the ranged necro specs do, as it wants to be close to the target.

It's definitely more preferable to adding fear on Warhorn which already has a great CC on it anyway.This would mean for core necro:

• 17s cd fear on shroud3
• 30s cd fear on warhorn
• 30s cd fear on staff
• 40s cd fear on spectral ring
• random fears on corruptions

And you think core necro (the spec everyone already hates for its fear chains) could get away with that?

[Teratus.2859]

@KrHome.1920 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:I wouldn't be against this, the vun on focus is kind of useless anyway since you already have tons of vun access through Wells and Axe auto.No it's not. Quick on demand vulnerability stacking is important for viable reaper smallscale and 1v1 builds, which sacrifice precision for vitality and toughness to be able to survive a 2v1 focus or a ranger or deadeye that are 50% of the fight at 1200 range. You need every vulnerability source you can get to maximize the beneft from decimate defenses.

The basic reaper spec design is:

• power, vita, toughness from from gear + rune
• critical hit chance from vulnerability
• ferocity from traits

And your argument is building up vulnerability with wells and axe autos? In the competitive modes? Seriously?

I wasn't specifically talking about competitive, this is a general Necro thread not a PvP/WvW thread.In competitive Focus is extremely slow and has very obvious tells, I wouldn't run in in competitive due to how easy it is to avoid most of the time.Warhorn is much better if you ask me thanks to the stun and the swiftness which helps cover necros biggest weakness, mobility.

Replacing that with a fear makes sense to me and would up the use of Focus as an offhand.It doesn't make sense from a balancing and design perspective. Core and scourge have enough fear sources (due to low cooldown in shroud / on F4) and reaper doesn't benefit from fear that much like the ranged necro specs do, as it wants to be close to the target.

Fear can be used to disengage, force someone away from you and try to create more distance to break combat, useful when combined with Reaper shroud 2 to flee, specially against ranged targets which give them the most trouble.

In PvE Fear is more used for additional damage and conditions and has longer duration's to take advantage of, The more fear you can get the better.With suggested Focus changes Soul Grasp would get an additional 444 damage per every second of fear it applies from Terror and it would apply Torment if running Insidious Disruption giving Necro's more access to torment which is a good thing for condi damage builds which are a bit lacking in PvE on Necro.The combination of Sceptor Focus would also give condi Necro's more anti boon play, giving more freedom for utility selection.

It's definitely more preferable to adding fear on Warhorn which already has a great CC on it anyway.This would mean for core necro:

• 17s cd fear on shroud3
• 30s cd fear on warhorn
• 30s cd fear on staff
• 40s cd fear on spectral ring
• random fears on corruptions

And you think core necro (the spec everyone already hates for its fear chains) could get away with that?

Spectral ring as the OP of the thread said is awkward and unreliable, you're better off using that for self protect or a combo field than trying to offensively nail a 1 sec fear off it.. it's not worth using in that way imo, specially with a 40 sec CD.

You made a little mistake with Warhorn there dude, it inflicts Daze not fear.

Shroud 3 and Staff are the only two reliable methods of fear you listed which isn't all that much.Random fears on corrupt are not so random either, you have to corrupt stability specifically to get extra fears.Fear can also be hard countered with walk toggle, significantly decreasing the viability of fear chaining specially if cripple and/or chill are active.That alone makes fear far more viable in PvE as an additional source of damage to buff up condition builds, least that's my opinion anyway.

[killfil.3472]

I did always find it strange that Wail of Doom dazes rather than fear.

[Lily.1935]

@killfil.3472 said:I did always find it strange that Wail of Doom dazes rather than fear.

In the Demo of the game at PAX the Warhorn did fear. Why they changed it to daze I'll never know.

[Teratus.2859]

@Lily.1935 said:

@killfil.3472 said:I did always find it strange that Wail of Doom dazes rather than fear.

In the Demo of the game at PAX the Warhorn did fear. Why they changed it to daze I'll never know.

Probably for lockdown..Necro's are pretty sucky in the mobility department so having a 2 second daze rather than a 2 second fear is more useful to pin a target down and deal damage.

Back in Gw1 Wail of Doom was an Elite Hex spell that reduced all of an enemy's attributes to 0 for a few seconds, that would have been fun in Gw2.. though obviously way too OP lol