ZeftheWicked.3076

Stunbreak on shroud should be baseline, stab not (corrupts from other necros or boon theft are a thing).

Since in pvp i play core necro i know full well how foot in the grave is a mandatory trait.

Core could reallly use additional sources of stab, though ones necro has great control over, and something he can't avoid casting when traited such as stab on shroud

Now that we finally got over 30k dps on our benchmarks, is reaper a spec i can take to high fractals and not be kicked for being a necro?

To be fair - as for recent patch dps reaper is stronger then scourge, and as for guard it's meta build is dragon hunter when it comes to raids.

PvP wise...yeah, there's nothing "hot" going on there, least in terms of meta efficiency..

Just a quickie:

Shadow Fiend's Haunt should inflict fear, i mean it's supposed to be a jumpscare is it not?

To be honest - to hell with support! Let guardians have that role.

Necro is by default selfish, and bent on doing things the non-standard way.

I say let next espec be a bit like reaper in purpose (though not execution) - a highly self reliant dps machine that needs a team far less then other professions to reach their peak dps (that will be raid worthy).

> @"Avoid.2807" said:

> This skill (thus) suffers from the following problems:

> * This radius around the target is larger than that of enhanced shade radius (300; [sand Savant](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sand_Savant#WvW "https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sand_Savant#WvW"))

So? Is there a law that core necro skill cannot ever come halfway close to a scourge skill? I say it's high time elites ate a nerfbat and core necro got buffed, no other profession has such huge gaping chasms between core and elites performance.

> * The attack occurs around the target regardless of the target's state (Blocking, Invulnerable, Evading); The attack will still hit the players around the target and thus convert their boons unless they are mitigating the attack themselves.

But guardians are just fine sharing aegis like free candy, no to mention distorition mesmers. Things are already hard to hit as is.

> * The low recharge time combined with the amount of boons converted to conditions results in a skill with an extreme amount of boon conversion power (corrupts/strips), if not effectively the highest in-game.

Spvp has 2 condies cleansed and it feels fine. Trust me i main a necro - corrupts aren't as easy to get as you think they are, many a profession can still overspam boons despite necro giving it his A-game in terms of corrupts. Not to mention in zergs guards run in packs, providing absurd condi cleanse, boon spam and aegis share.

> * There is no clear animation/tell for this **ranged** skill

Ok, fair enough. I don't mind a bigger tell, as long as cast time is the same.

> Taking all of this into consideration; This **weapon skill** is currently arguably stronger than any of the utility & profession (shade) skills.

**As it should be**. Scourge is such an absurd spec, everyone thinks necro = scourge. No other profession has such gaping chasm between core and elite spec. Scourge is **support** spec, whose main takes are barriers, might generation and ability to cover large ground with shades. Nowhere does it say it's supposed to monopolize all good things when it comes to boonhate.

A-net is doing the right thing - sap power from elites and give it to core.

> My personal recommendation to bring this skill into line with other abilities is to at least increase the recharge time to 20 seconds & to reduce the amount of boons converted to conditions to 1.

My personal recommendation is to not listen to yours. In WvW zergs "1200 range or go home" is a thing, and scepter's is 900...

Cooldown being 20s is unacceptable. Before this scepter was a huge underpermer among necro weapons, something non payed heed too **cause scourge**. But not everyone is or wants to be a scourge and there the issues are real.

I'm fine with condi corrupt being lowered from 2 to3, but if we're going there, can someone nerfbat condi mirage and firebrand cleanses while we're there? Everyone's up in arms cause necro has a strong boonhate tool, while somehow noone minds firebrands being even stronger condi cleansers with heals, and boonspam..

> Also The (AoE) attack should not occur if the actual target is not hit.

Firebrands and their aegis spam approve this.

I'm simply extending helping hand to ranked players. You want serious, rank driven teammates that play meta and are doing their best to improve.

I want fun with my own builds and rewards, prestige and meta be damned. Now, do you want me on your team? No? then support the idea for league rewards to be earned in unranked as well.

The system will put you/me at 50% winrate anyway, no matter where you are. Low or high there is little difference how fast you earn "gold". Real gold for being skilled is at ATs, not regular league matches. And those are not affected by my proposal.

You get yours (serious ranked experience and rewards) i get mine (fun unranked experience and rewards).

Ranger is quite speedy, especially with shortbow. I wont' say it's the fastest but i will say it feels most fluid of all professions i played while being on the speedy/reaction oriented side of things, and he is given quickness in quite a few places, more so with soulbeast.

> @"Rhyse.8179" said:

> As for Lingering Curse, it's a bit ham fisted IMO. I'll take the buff - the AOE Sc 3 is VERY nice - but it's just piling even more power into an already required trait. I really hope this is just a stopgap measure while they do a mesmer-phantasm-level rework, because there's a lot of potential in the class and buffing what was already strong is just going to make it stagnate more.

Strongly disagree. There were voices before asking "What the hell is that trait doing in grandmaster tier?" For most part justified. Sure, reaper has access to condi gs, so he's not bothered by scepter's lackluster performance but core necro suffered. Two main offenders for scepter being slow and no aoe save grasping hands (nothing to scream about).

With this rework now PvE necro has a two proper aoe condi skills on scepter, devouring darkness being more potent one, since with preparation it's 5 stacks of torment vs 3 stacks for bleed. This also has great synergy with grasphing hands (cripple).

Competitive necros get a great aoe boon corrupt and again some nice torment.

This is an **excellent decision** by a-net, and it needs following up. Give more power to core necro, take some away from elites. That way elite specs will still remain roughly where they are since 2/3 of them is still core necro, while core necro will finally see some good, engaging and competitive gameplay vs other professions, be it PvE or PvP.

In all honesty reaper's onslaught is a PvE trait. Just grab chrono runes, some wells (which often we do anyway) and you have your quickness for a quick soul spiral + few autos combo, while still having access to blighter's boon or Chill of Death...

Ranked players want to win at all costs.

PvE farmers and chilled offmeta players (me) are there for gold & fun.

Needless to say the first type scores loss after loss after being matched up with me, since i'm the second type, and hell will freeze over before i surrender my offmeta fun for harrowing, soul-draining experience of being 1,000,834th scourge winning using the same build, same patterns and same tactics as every other meta scourge out there.

So being a good neighbour i ask you kindly: Embrace unranked in league season rewards as well. Let the rank-oriented maniacs feel godly at playing their 10yo meta builds, and let us farmers and offmeta whackjobs have our own fun and gold without screwing over theirs.

I most certainly did not suggest that. Well of Power is great as it is, and there's no need to mess around with it.

Quite the opposite - the amount of love it received is good grounds to ask for Well of Darkness to get some too.

I want viable options, not gutting one for the sake of other.

Also to shut down the "but well of Darkness can do damage!" argument preventing it from getting buffed - Well of Power can also be used offensively. With traited Blood is Power you can produce some major extra might stacks off converted torment. In that way it too is an offensive tool, just in a different capacity.

Flat out scrapping the might generation attached to this trait would make it better. Might is a dangerous boon to have in competitive as it gets corrupted into weakness. One, lonesome, short lasting hungry might stack is hardly worth the risk.

This so-called buff is actually a nerf.

Do it right, or not at all, is what i say here.

Given it's natural role (damage mitigation via blinds), the huge utility that other wells get, but darkness doesn't, and the fact not every necro needs a condi cleanse attached to their stubbreak, i think it's high time Well of Darkness got some anti-cc love.

Tbh i think the only issue is with quickness pulsing, which in pvp makes it really hard to counterplay. if reaper has assisistance from allies he'll have a wall of boons to cover it and even if you do corrupt it, in max 3s it's back again.

I suspect they'll probably go the stability way and change pulsing quickness into a single, but long lasting stack.

I think the main point quickness is strapped to reaper's onslaught is that it can't be gotten by bligher's boon builds. That would really skyrocket both sustain and damage.

Master of Corruption - strong cd reduction on extremely valuable corruption skills and the extra self condies work wonders when converted to boons. Really good trait!

> @"NaiveBayes.2587" said:

> It was between necro and ranger for me but jfc necro mains are soooo whiny I want them to get their reworks and stop crying already.

Excuse you? Just so happens i'm currently doing map completion on a condi ranger. Words cannot describe how fast paced and fluid the experiece is. Why again would you want rework for core ranger?

Condi reaper is a thing (same dps as condi scourge) and reaper shroud does have strong place there - pulsing ice field = at least 10 bleed stacks from one skill. Then you spin 2 win, and there's quickness+dhuumfire, which on reaper actually work (*cough* core necro *cough*).

I generally think this is a first step a-net made with necro + quickness combo, and it does not need to be last. There is definitely a big room for improvements for the future in this regard:

* making quickness available to core necro and maybe scourge. But core definitely.

* letting condi builds also benefit from it

* better player control over it (so he can choose to NOT use it, even when traited, when in fear of being target of boon corrupt/theft)

> @"Rym.1469" said:

> Pulsing Quickness on a specialization that is meant to be the slower bruiser with meaty hits is actually one of the dumbest changes I've seen happen to this game, ever, since release.

>

> Power levels aside, that goes against everything Reaper was supposed to be.

Fair enough. But then again we never had said meaty bruiser delivered to us. At first power hits were not meaty enough compared to their slow speed. Later on stab was nerfed and we could forget about slow movie monster, unless we meant knocked down would-be-jason-voorhees getting shredded by a warrior.

Also in pvp it's pretty obvious necro is too slow in his casts vs the rest of the crew. Now if he had access to **slow** that would be fair. Bring them down to your speed and then have some fun 1v1. So did he? Nope. Guess who gets the most badass aoe slow in the whole game? The speedy ranger....

And so here we are. I would be perfectly fine with losing quickness if we got some good slow instead, and no i'm not talking scourge elite, only reaper. Core btw could use some of that too. Better even if we had some self-slow source and at least another condi-2-boon converter skill on core necro asides well of power.

That could give us access to quickness the necro way!

Core necro. I don't think there is another profession in the game where the core version is so far apart in performance from elites. Especially since we recently see buffs to elite (reaper) while none for core.

Frankly I'm shocked at a-net's lack of interest in core necro. Core profession is the posterchild for elite specs that may make an xpansion sale. If you're puking outta boredom or dissapoitment with core necro, chances are you won't just switch to another profession, but to another game. You can make a good impression without any hitches only once. After failing at the very start, it becomes dicey and can cost you players.

And forums, reddit and ingame chats are very clear about which profession sucks till lvl 80. Hell a few core professions **can join a raid**. Necro struggles with that on **any spec really**, and core? Don't make me laugh...

And yes, i know you need xpac to raid, but how would you feel knowing your core profession and abilities you learned playing it can get you into raid, vs knowing you'd have to bribe a shitton of ppl to not be kicked in first 10s of joining a raid group?

@"Zero.3871" incorrect. You can exit shroud right after receiving a stack to let's say realistic 2.5 quickness outside RS with 0 boon duration. Couple that with 33% you mentioned and let's see.

1. I enter shroud, getting first stack the moment i do.

2. I stay shrouded till 9th second, by then i already go 3s saved up due to boon duration

3. at 9th second i exit shroud after receving 4th quickness stack. Half second for exit, so 3.5s of this stack left + 3 s of quickness saved up from earlier. 6.5s quickness for my base form!

Bear in mind this is a rather realistic/tame scenario. I can stay in rs often up to 12s in my fights unless i'm getting severaly beaten from all sides. Simply casting traited spectral armor will almost always ensure 9s uptime. And I'm using 33% boon duration you suggested, without any other quickness sources. While there are things like chronomancer runes, sigil of agility and sigil of rage for the willing. Or boon duration runes such as rune of leadership.

Correct. Quickness for RS means damage. Quickness outside RS means many more things. Getting a cc off faster, or healing skill faster are no small things when fighting under pressure. Also after you blow all that load (and with quickness it'll happen faster then normal), you will be down to auto attacking, where having quickness on is literal 50% damage boost for the duration of auto attack chaining.

If quickness offers next to nothing to raids and generally end game organized group content, then that's all the more good news. Means it can be kept, since it does not break the meta and make swarms of ppl jump ship to necro. And leaves room for further improvements.

Meanwhile down below in not-so-well organized groups reapers can enjoy much more responsive gameplay to stay on pair with rest of the pack, use new builds (concentration gear), and be much more reliable dpsers, without being so much at mercy of quickness casts from allies.

One thing though: **That quickness must go to core necro**. It's not funny how much behind core nec is compared to elites. But if you look futher into it, you'll also notice how core necro is far more auto attack reliant compared to reaper. Deathshroud damage is all about life blast spam. Base form - dagger auto + life siphon spam. Only axe has ghastly claws but that's it. And as we know, quickness is a real dps increase only for auto attacks, as they don't suffer from cooldowns. Anything with a cooldown will only see faster cast, but not faster availability for another use due to quickness.

Core is the necro that would benefit the most and he needs that benefit really, really badly. Also scourge getting access to quickness wouldn't be half as horrible as some might think, since shades have no cast times, so quickness does nothing for them. As for rest of scourge's kit - well his own shroud uptime is pretty damn low, so that again curbstomps any quickness that he gets from being shrouded.

Pre PoF core necro was still smelling reaper's dust. Power reaper was weak...but core necro even weaker. Condi reaper was worlds above power in dps and actually raid viable, condi core necro didn't exist (hello lack of bleeds from chills). Core nec was always boned in PvE.