DeceiverX.8361

Hot Take: Minis are extra unnecessary visual clutter and shouldn't be allowed in the PvP modes at all.

Outside of learning the game and skills as they change, I've never used a minion in a serious context and have absolutely no regrets whatsoever.

The only useful minion is Flesh wurm, and it's to immediately blow it up for the free shadowstep. Even then, it's not a required pick on Reaper.

DA is only good for condi or Improv

CS is kinda bad and has been since Valk HK stopped being valuable with marauder phasing it out, and with its relative damage increases sucking.

Acro was carried by a few OP traits and passives which were wildly nerfed.

Tr is mandatory on most builds.

SA now provides boon denial, damage reduction, initiative regeneration, extended stealth, in-stealth massive mobility, and a plethora of other options to sub in and out depending on the build which can outweigh the benefits of most of the other traitlines.

It's always been on the cusp of being strong in past metas even without the rework it endured, but the other lines are just so underwhelming and it works so well with thief's primary play kits that it's mostly an obvious choice.

On anything power it never is.

The heal is insubstantial and the scaling is worse.

> @"Caedmon.6798" said:

> > @"DeceiverX.8361" said:

> > > @"Caedmon.6798" said:

> > > > @"TinkTinkPOOF.9201" said:

> > > > > @"Caedmon.6798" said:

> > > > > Lmao,stop blaming this on stealth. Hackers can stealth whenever. Useless thread.

> > > >

> > > > Not blaming it on stealth, rather it is and always has been a thing to run classes with stealth to cover given hacks, it was even one of the suggestions on how to use the program by the developer. As the main risk of being caught was that of being reported, as there seems to be no automatic system in place for tracking location hacks.

> > > >

> > > > Also, having stealth whenever etc has not and is not a feature of any cheating program I have ever seen.

> > >

> > > What ? If you check on what certain programs are able to do. They do not need to run on a stealth spec because they can instantly stealth Forever on a non stealth spec too. Making this about thief stealth is completely irrelevant to the actual issue.

> >

> > On some programs, sure, but not all of them Sustained stealth and the thief's mobility do make it something that gives knowledgeable players a bit more pause about whether or not it's hacking because we know it's possible but not sure if it's possible in that moment and how they ended up positionally, especially with stuff like initiative being something that can fluctuate so much with traits etc.

> > As an example, I've fought against an obviously-hacking revenant in very open field which acted like a sort of spawn-point portal with no animation/cast. He'd engage with a few skills, burn cooldowns, start getting hit, and poof, totally out of combat and not even a nameplate in sight, so not being cheeky with a Shiro disengage or anything. He'd then poof into existence again in the same exact location and do the same thing. Over and over and over. This same thing happened when an ally ganked him from stealth and he went down. The corpse proceeded to magically teleport, and no bloodlust stacks were gained on my end. And again, he was back - as if from nowhere - within five seconds despite the spawn point being on the opposite side of the map.

> >

> > A thief using high stealth uptime builds can pretty safely play the same way, but by virtue of having OOC stealth and so much disengage potential, can't be easily-identified as hacking or as easily-reported if it does get the down/kill since you can't report stealthed players. That's what I think the real incentive is. The stealth doesn't seem to be the hack; it's to hide the hack by making it so they can't get reported in the first place.

>

> If you google around,i can link but my post will obv be removed. Most of them include a stealth hack too. They have noclip/fly hack/stealth hack/port hack/speed hack,which are mostly used in wvw,ive even seen a complete invuln to all dmg hack a long time ago where the guy was being hit by a blob jumping about but not taking damage. But saying all of this is somehow being hidden cus you run on thief is just nonsense when you have a invis hack ready to use on the fly.

Again, I don't think you're misreading what I'm saying.

Using actual skills to gain stealth makes the determination of using hacks a lot more difficult and makes the play seem legit enough where most people will just complain about thief being OP rather than thinking it's hacking. Instead of poofing out of existence, it's a lot more believable if you see something like Shadowstep and BP+HS get casted.

When you see people using hacks on other non-stealth classes, it's way more obvious.

People who hack and try to not get banned intentionally make it subtle. Even if there are tools to do so, they'll still try and make it *look* like they aren't so they don't get caught.

> @"Caedmon.6798" said:

> > @"TinkTinkPOOF.9201" said:

> > > @"Caedmon.6798" said:

> > > Lmao,stop blaming this on stealth. Hackers can stealth whenever. Useless thread.

> >

> > Not blaming it on stealth, rather it is and always has been a thing to run classes with stealth to cover given hacks, it was even one of the suggestions on how to use the program by the developer. As the main risk of being caught was that of being reported, as there seems to be no automatic system in place for tracking location hacks.

> >

> > Also, having stealth whenever etc has not and is not a feature of any cheating program I have ever seen.

>

> What ? If you check on what certain programs are able to do. They do not need to run on a stealth spec because they can instantly stealth Forever on a non stealth spec too. Making this about thief stealth is completely irrelevant to the actual issue.

On some programs, sure, but not all of them Sustained stealth and the thief's mobility do make it something that gives knowledgeable players a bit more pause about whether or not it's hacking because we know it's possible but not sure if it's possible in that moment and how they ended up positionally, especially with stuff like initiative being something that can fluctuate so much with traits etc.

As an example, I've fought against an obviously-hacking revenant in very open field which acted like a sort of spawn-point portal with no animation/cast. He'd engage with a few skills, burn cooldowns, start getting hit, and poof, totally out of combat and not even a nameplate in sight, so not being cheeky with a Shiro disengage or anything. He'd then poof into existence again in the same exact location and do the same thing. Over and over and over. This same thing happened when an ally ganked him from stealth and he went down. The corpse proceeded to magically teleport, and no bloodlust stacks were gained on my end. And again, he was back - as if from nowhere - within five seconds despite the spawn point being on the opposite side of the map.

A thief using high stealth uptime builds can pretty safely play the same way, but by virtue of having OOC stealth and so much disengage potential, can't be easily-identified as hacking or as easily-reported if it does get the down/kill since you can't report stealthed players. That's what I think the real incentive is. The stealth doesn't seem to be the hack; it's to hide the hack by making it so they can't get reported in the first place.

> @"Swagger.1459" said:

> > @"Fueki.4753" said:

> > > @"Thornwolf.9721" said:

> > > I can see it but rather than nerf the pet... NERF THE PERMA-ROOT BUILD. Im not even sure why that build is allowed to exist....

> >

> > That's Arenanet loves the over-abundance of CC.

> > That's also the reason why they their idea of nerfing CC is taking away the damage, rather than actually nerfing CC.

> >

>

> Immobilize is not a “hard CC” effect that “disable all skills for the effect's duration.”.

>

> https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Control_effect

>

>

>

Depends on the profession, but you might as well be when you can't dodge and are being hit by a number of some of the hardest-hitting skills in the PvP formats through RF/Maul/WI/SA and when condition cleanse sources were deliberately nerfed with the 'Major "balance" patch.'

> @"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:

> > @"DeceiverX.8361" said:

> > > @"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:

> > > Tbh some classes are just a mess right now. What I mean is that mechanically, their designs have tipped way too much into random AoE effects that are either completely passive, or once actively used they last way too long. Eles are the worst offender right now. They currently spit out a completely inordinate amount of animation stacked effects that last way way too long, half of them completely passive, with no real telegraphs until AFTER the skills are used.

> > >

> > > I mean, imagine that vs. what it looks like when a Spellbreaker fights a SD Thief as example. <- The animations on these classes make sense and the combat still flows like a game with mechanics that is worth playing.

> >

> > Best moments I recall playing GW2 were in 2013 playing D/D thief into hammer warriors.

> > Absolutely everything was telegraphed with clear visibility and almost no studying effects bars for random auras/abilities/minor trait passives/etc. such that **the wins felt like you properly outplayed your opponent.**

> >

> > We have so much ability bloat and combat effect obfuscation today it's just crazy. Tack on the insane armor/infusion particle effects disco and it's hard to tell sometimes whether or not people are casting skills at all.

>

> Exactly.

>

> Imagine what the game would feel like today if only these classes/builds were permissible and in play:

>

> 1. Warrior Berserker Spellbreaker

> 2. Guardian DH - Power variants only, with burns as small attrition

> 3. Herald Power Shiro only

> 4. Scrapper & Holos with no Flashbang - Power variants only

> 5. Thief Daredevil Deadeye - Power variants only

> 6. Ranger Druid Soulbeast - Power variants only

> 7. Mesmer Chrono Mirage - Power variants only

> 8. Ele Tempest Weaver - Condi amulets can be allowed here, but Shocking Aura Share and Lightning Rod need to go or be seriously nerfed

> 9. Necro Reaper Scourge - Condi is of course fine here because that's what the class mainly revolves around

>

> ^ When you really consider that, and look over that list. It's apparent that the problems of why the game feels bad right now is almost entirely inside of 2x things: 1) Too much passive CC. 2) The way condi was implemented in this game, condi dominant metas ALWAYS make for terrible play dynamic in any patching.

Most of these power builds are just as problematic as other prominent condition builds. Particularly Soulbeast, Engineer, Thief, and historically, Mesmer's elite specs. Most of these issues are in bad design of the entire classes and weapon skills as the game has progressed more than anything specific to conditions.

Condition builds themselves were handled poorly, but the weak ones are particularly weak even when carried by their relatively OP gear. Look to S/S warrior for no better example of how an OG condi build can suck when the rest of the game is so massively powercreeped with instantaneous and sustained power and animations are so fast with so little in the way of prioritization of active defenses.

> @"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:

> Tbh some classes are just a mess right now. What I mean is that mechanically, their designs have tipped way too much into random AoE effects that are either completely passive, or once actively used they last way too long. Eles are the worst offender right now. They currently spit out a completely inordinate amount of animation stacked effects that last way way too long, half of them completely passive, with no real telegraphs until AFTER the skills are used.

>

> I mean, imagine that vs. what it looks like when a Spellbreaker fights a SD Thief as example. <- The animations on these classes make sense and the combat still flows like a game with mechanics that is worth playing.

Best moments I recall playing GW2 were in 2013 playing D/D thief into hammer warriors.

Absolutely everything was telegraphed with clear visibility and almost no studying effects bars for random auras/abilities/minor trait passives/etc. such that the wins felt like you properly outplayed your opponent.

We have so much ability bloat and combat effect obfuscation today it's just crazy. Tack on the insane armor/infusion particle effects disco and it's hard to tell sometimes whether or not people are casting skills at all.

> @"Svarty.8019" said:

> 1. SKILL is not necessarily desirable.

> 2. I would prefer it if people didn't justify everything with "this/that should be deleted because it doesn't promote skilled play".

> 3. If you demand that everybody who pays RL money to the gem store be skilled to play the game, the company may very well go bust.

Why the hell would anyone play a competitive game/mode with skilled play being rewarded as not being a, if not THE primary concern? At the very least, why should there ever be mechanics that actively work against promoting people to do better and being rewarded for it?

That's like saying pro sports should solely be based on a raffle of random civilians and not athletic accomplishments. That makes absolutely no sense lol.

If you don't want to win by being better at the game than your opponent, why are you playing player versus player games/formats at all?...

> @"Hannelore.8153" said:

> > @"Psycoprophet.8107" said:

> > > @"Hannelore.8153" said:

> > > > @"Psycoprophet.8107" said:

> > > > Lmao cuz teef jumps soooooo different than EVERY other class. U do realized they jump the same? If they're glitching thru walls it's a map design issue not a teef issue. These forums get funnier as time goes on lol.

> > >

> > > This is incorrect, Daredevil has access to some mechanics that aren't universally accessible due to Vault, etc.

> > >

> > > And yes, this has happened many times. There's several classes that can find their way into forts due to oversights by the devs when designing the skills. Warclaw had the same problem at first and they had to add some invisible walls.

> > >

> > > I remember at one time you could even glide into several forts where the border was too close to it.

> >

> > Lol other classes have leaps the basically achieve same thing, regardless not a class or skill issue but a terrain design issue/glitch.

>

> Vertically-inclined leaps are extremely rare in the game, most are almost completely horizontal.

If you're referring to Vault, it's a GTAoE and follows the same rule as every other pathing skill. It cannot be used for vertical mobility out of bounds of a normal jump.

As for the OP, honestly, it sounds like they're just hacking more than anything else. Most hackers I've observed are thieves just because they're harder to right click/report when they run stealth builds and the likes.

Edit: Commenting as someone who was formerly a former fulltime roamer, with a huge number of hours roaming on reaper. I have three reapers and have tried a plethora of builds for power/condi since its release.

The TL;DR is that power is the superior build sheerly because Damage In : Damage Out is better than condi. As condi you're either glass or dealing substantially less damage. Necro loves a big health pool and for the reaper builds out there, condi just doesn't like a huge health pool. Sad truth.

You need Relentless Pursuit if you're taking Unyielding Blast. There's really no way around it.

Power:

VP is better on the power build if you're running both GS and A+F.

Marauder with some zerk/valk trinkets is the only viable set for roaming power reaper. Your health is just too low for having next to no condition cleansing, and concentration is a useless stat in roaming because most roaming builds run boon denial on some level. Might is a bonus extra, not something to build around. Onslaught already gives you permanent quickness and GS is better for utility via skills 4/5 and LF/vuln stacking than anything else.

Spiteful Renewal is much stronger than Bitter Chill if you're planning on roaming.

Soul Eater > CV and are both better than DD if you are running sigils of accuracy. with marauder and Soul Reaping, as you'll already have capped crit chance in shroud. Again, the GS crits do not matter.

You cannot afford to run any utility except CttB or *MAYBE* Lich Form, but Lich Form will probably get nerfed and most of your hard matchups are made much easier by CttB's icicles tracking stealth letting you know enemy positions.

Power needs to run Your Soul is Mine + Suffer + Spectral Armor bare minimum. You have no stunbreaks which means you're dead instantly in most roaming scenarios.

Signet of Spite is bad and you absolutely need to run sigils of cleansing on at least one weapon, if not both.

Runes should be Scholar, Wurm, Exuberance, or Speed if using Speed of Shadows, though I disagree with the SoS pick personally, and most people prefer it and wurm versus SA + SotL.

--------------------

Condi:

Generally a bad pick because it's harder to play and generally weaker as a whole due to Reaper's bad LF sustain/mobility and lack of synergy in the Reaper traitline. It's better to just go Onslaught for a faster AA for more Dhuumfire than to try for bleeding DPS because your primary methods of damage are just too high cooldown and too difficult to consistently land. Deathly Chill only applies 1 stack per chill application, and per tooltip, even if never cleansed, it's the same damage as an AA with Dhuumfire. All of your gains from chill are negated by an AA, which can be made into having permanent quickness and ferocity with RO. DChill is just straight bad, especially in a condi meta like now where everyone is going full cleanse.

You're too slow without SoS or Signet of the Locust or Flesh Wurm for Reaper to be even worth taking, and YaaW is just a bad shout into most matchups. Do not fixate on one type of utility. I still recommend the exact same utils as above, especially Spectral Armor, because a single longbow soulbeast will kill you before you can even get into scepter range on this build.

Nothing Can Save You is really mediocre at best due to its very limited matchup scope. Might be nice if you can swap it OOC before engaging a warrior or guardian, but generally speaking, against thief/mes/ranger, it's quickly outclassed by mobility-oriented utilities or ones with hard sustain or condition management, which is going to be a substantial portion of your matchups being that you're looking to roam.

ID is kinda bad. You have like 3 stacks of torment per engage. Your mileage on Plague Sending is much, much stronger over the course of a fight in the current meta. Sure, it's a cover condition, but so are blind/chill/fear/vuln/poison and even your bleeds (see below).

Path of Corruption will probably give you more mileage than Terror. 2k isn't a lot when you only have one source of fear per engage.

Again, Relentless Pursuit. You need it against Seeds Druid and several other builds fixating on immob and cripple to kite. Augury of Death is kinda meh, and every facet of roaming is about mobility. If you don't keep pace/don't build to do so, you might as well not bother trying to roam.

You don't need Decimate Defenses if running Curses. Barbed Precision is already only 33% chance and only lasts 2 seconds, so there's no sense in building around it. Hoenstly, better to just ignore the crits and go full Dire/TB because they're irrelevant and the hard sustain matters more.

Sinister/Viper gear is too glassy. Look into at least mixing in some Rabid or similarly adding defenses so you don't get oneshot by rangers. Suffer can negate the thief threat entirely on its own if you are fast to react/predict the burst correctly since instant-cast transfer of weakness or blind will negate their entire burst combo and hit their dodges upon engage. I'd opt for Balthazar runes instead of Nightmare because CttB has too long a cooldown for a reliable cleanse, and the extra burning will vastly outdamage the aforementioned. Cleansing/Smoldering is much better on sigils and fixes your cleanse problems, too. Chill duration is negated too much by permanent superspeed or just mobility-impairment-cleansing effects by most prominent roaming builds.

At the very least, drop the chill duration investment and opt into cleansing while assigning your utils to for into your weak matchups. Your kit is really assigned to deal tons of damage, but that just doesn't work on roaming builds without built-in mobility and sustain like you see from Thief and ranger, respectively. Your enemies will disengage immediately and just bait your entire LF bar over and over while you can't really do much but stand and hope they come to fight.

If you want reaper to be best when left alone in a teamfight, all you're doing is making it a vault spam thief with less mobility and lack of +1 capability.

I know you're a thief main Shiyo. I play both thief and reaper, and in almost all contexts, it's a skill matchup. I've posted extensively about this very subject before.

Nerf speed runes because they're OP on everything.

The reason people take RO and not BB is because the BB heal is too weak to justify, the shroud degen rate is too fast without it, and the RShroud animations are too slow to bother with given the game's powercreep on the other professions.

Drill it into your head that the reaper's health pool doesn't matter but rather its LF pool is everything. Counter it and weave the 10s downtime windows and it'll die without much of a fight unless it outplays you with GS.

The rest is necro 101 and just screams you don't know how to deal with it. It literally counters conditions and diving in as an entire class. That's the entire premise of Shroud.

I made a personal variant, but it's brilliant and amazing.

> @"BeepBoopBop.5403" said:

> > @"subversiontwo.7501" said:

> > **Uncomfortable truth:** These threads filled with people saying "get good" and calling others "rallybots" are purported by people who are not good enough to convert downs to kills under the normal ruleset and wants things to be easier for themselves. The people who are better than them are not saying anything about it or are trying to steer the conversation toward the merit of the mechanics at hand with little success due to all the thumping and bleeting.

> >

> > Carry on B)

>

> Makes so much sense bro, the people I downed should have a second chance. You're right, my skill was just so TERRIBLE I got his HP to 0, potentially in a 1vX.

>

> Do you even read this stuff before posting? Why should an outnumbered group, ALREADY disadvantaged by the fact they are outnumbered, have to jump MORE hurdles like saving cleave CDs and stomp CDs that larger groups have free reign to use without worrying? VIVA LA BLOB where everyone can do open heart surgery to resurrect dead men.

If you're getting killed by downedstate players, you're not the skilled one.

If you're 1vX and can't convert, you got outplayed because someone is sitting there rubbing his hands on a corpse while you sat there and let him.

If you're XvX+ your group has a weak link if you can't convert if that's the sole reason you're dying.

If you claim it's good for XvX, you are either just a stealth ganker or lying.

Odds are, the miniscule amount of time for XvX you're talking about where one or two people are dissuaded from attacking you in order to res a down is having absolutely no impact on the result of the fight regardless, because if they weren't ressing a down they'd just be focusing you.

If your tactic is to burst people down so fast they instadie while running invulns to stabilize the post-res response or simply reset the fight via stealth, that's a terrible tactic and you've burned resources excessively.

Also if you have no cooldowns left like you say you do after just generating a down in an outnumbered fight, and can't cope with it, you're not as good as you think you are and your build is probably some level of cheese. Coming from an ex-full-signet D/D thief. If you can't win solely because of downed state and burned cooldowns, you're winning only from the cheese you're condemning. When you start winning and surviving 1vX without the cooldowns, that's when you know you're doing well. In which case it doesn't matter. I'm a 1HKO player and STILL recognize the concept of removing downed state is HORRIBLE for the game.

To be completely honest, the fact they paired this event with an increased EXP weekend is asinine because it brings in non-WvW core players to get their WXP for mounts/legendaries and throws off the metrics for the event. The same people who already run the gank builds are getting even easier pickings from players who don't know the format well in it of itself.

Number of resurrections and res speeds, especially through skills, can be problems with valuable discussion, but the whole no-downedstate-altogether thing is a meme and isn't good for the mode.

> @"Shiyo.3578" said:

> > @"Black Storm.6974" said:

> > I doubt it is really 75%.

> >

> > Anyway, in 2vs2 Necromancer can’t be focused and CC to death in instants, so it is more enjoyable there. Lichform could get a rework, just nerfing its damage would take away all it has to offer (high damage for few seconds on 150 seconds cooldown, and only if the opponents don’t have any way to reflect or block projectiles for few seconds).

> >

> > Anyway, ArenaNet can’t balance Necromancer for 2vs2 (not without reworking it from the ground or splitting balance between Conquest and 2vs2). Anyway I wonder if there is really something to balance here, since I’m sure there are far stronger duellers out there. Probably in high divisions where there are those who knows how to play their professions it can be noticed.

> >

> > They can not just take away from it the strength that is supposed to be a compensation for the great weaknesses Necromancer has in Conquest. In conquest it is a poor dueller. It is also slow and very vulnerable to CCs and damage bursts. Its damage is highly dependent on Reaper Shroud, so it is not even really reliable. Necromancer starts every match without Life Force, that means that it is initially both very vulnerable and poor at doing damage.

>

> Reaper is actually a good duelist an why it's currently overperforming in conquest.

It's only a good duelist when played better than the opponent and/or when people let it just attack them.

Reaper and necros as a whole are busted in the 2v2 right now solely due to arena layout. It's an AoE class and the field is tiny. It's the same reason why they're so strong in WvW blobs. Your enemies are all in one place and are easy to just cleave into, and 2v2 + sPvP low offensive stats allow for necro's LF to act as a big enough barrier to just tank the fight early on while also not letting enemies reset out of shrouded engages.

And I'll continue to echo that permanent and sustained stealth is a problem more than the ability to burst without being visible in that time of strike.

If there's an animation for the stealth itself, and you know:

- How long it'll last/be a short duration, and;

- That it'll come at the cost of the player having predictable behavior when stealthed (no major chain CC combos etc.), and;

- That the player is likely within threat/melee range when initiating damage again, or;

- Will limit the player to be running away and acts as a source of combat resetting, applicable to both players

Then stealth really does not prove problematic at all and is just a fine mechanic. Like what you see on x/D thief with CnD and core mesmer for the most part. Getting confouded by these stealth abilities - especially x/D thief - generally means you got outplayed.

The problem is these rules have been HEAVILY broken by the classes which have it, ranging from permanent sustained uptimes on ranged classes to hiding massive cast-time unblockable AoE's and CC chains to classes which otherwise feature heavy defenses which do not already need the stealth to survive to reset fights.

If stealth were made so that it couldn't be used OOC or stack in duration, and they actually made it come at a cost like it does in the case of some builds, it wouldn't be a problem mechanic at all, as then it solely boils down to class knowledge.

Thus why relinks should happen every single week and we revert from the 1U1D system that creates BS matches except for blue side where they're either too easy or too difficult, so red and green just trade biweekly.

This way your server MMRs can be calculated correctly with servers calculated independently of one another, and you don't have constant bandwagoning.

But who am I kidding, an age-old suggestion that runs contrary to the tons of gems ANet makes from transfers isn't gonna happen.

For a mechanic which actively works against pirate shipping, and given how much complaining against the pirate ship meta there was, I'm a bit perplexed why people complain so much about it. Downed state lets your guy get back up after getting sniped by 1200 range or being really unlucky by getting hit with all the skills from the player-capped AOEs. We've all had it happen before, and it sure isn't fun.

All it does is help gankers and small groups that pour focused damage into stragglers. Zerg play is more boring and small groups can't showcase much in terms of aggressive playstyles, while being even further forced into safe DPS with pocket healers and boonballs.

Which is probably the only demographic which supports it. It makes their already-annoying-and-dfficult styles to deal with just better than the rest.

> @"LetoII.3782" said:

> 19 people attacking the ground in front of their feet and one OP wondering how they're doing less damage than him.

>

> Get shadowplay, record a fight. People doing absolutely nothing is abysmally common in this game.

>

> Its so common that Anet made scourge so people could win by standing next to an opponent.

It's why I surf zergs and rarely get punished once breaching the commander. The small groups are almost always much deadlier because the focus fire happens instantly.

I don't think there's an issue with the healing so much as how difficult it is these days to actually kill a healer, between kits like Minstrel's and the expansion content providing what feels like an endless supply of sustain and burst resistance to builds which were originally supposed to be good at dealing with them.

> @"Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582" said:

> > @"DeceiverX.8361" said:

> > > @"Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582" said:

> > > > @"DeceiverX.8361" said:

> > > > > @"Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582" said:

> > > > > > @"Sigmoid.7082" said:

> > > > > > > @"Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582" said:

> > > > > > > The problem with Reaper comes from its seemingly ever-increasing mobility.

> > > > > >

> > > > > > What have been the increases in mobility?

> > > > >

> > > > > Just the use of core skills and traits that had not been a thing previously along with PvP runes that provide +25% movement speed.

> > > >

> > > > Sounds to me like it has nothing to do with reaper itself and more to do with PvP runes and the fact that necros never ran their mobility skills before because they incorrectly used to think they weren't worth taking. Mobility creep is a real problem game-wide.

> > > >

> > > > The only real mobility advantage the reaper brings is RS2 just in terms of disengage, which is admittedly strong, but that's a far cry from the class being nearly as mobile as the rest.

> > > >

> > > > The whole permanent quickness and glass cannon damage at the expense of the SR trait line and life force bruiser build path the class used to have makes the spec a lot more binary than it used to be and takes a lot less skill to just destroy weaker players while making it more difficult to beat more skilled ones.

> > > >

> > > > If you decap against the reaper or immediately reset when it enters shroud, it'll have to deshroud or leave point because the RShroud degen rate is 4x that of core necro.

> > > > Dodge GS3, strafe from GS5 (only good reapers will combo this skill to reliably have it land), don't attack it during Spectral Armor, and it usually dies without much trouble when you can deny its LF gen.

> > >

> > > And what do you do in Halls of the Mists which is only as wide as the Reapers Scythe? Dealing with Reaper in normal maps is not hard because you can range and kite easily. The 2v2 arenas are what I'm talking about.

> >

> > Then it's wholly a map problem.

> > If they made the 2v2 arena as large and open as the guild hall arena, you'd only ever see soulbeasts winning fights and people would be just as justified in demanding them being nerfed, and arguably moreso since they're harder to outplay without a lot of LoS objects than reaper is, since you can forward dodge RS2 and it won't track, allowing you to corner the reaper into a small subsection of the area and disengage. Either way, I'm not seeing justification here that's really at all pertinent to the reaper, and more about the environment of sPvP and your teams.

> >

> > It's a combination of the map is designed to favor reaper innately, you probably not playing against it properly (which exacerbates any advantages the class has), and that your teammate can also fail to play against it properly, allowing it to leverage its gains because it's strong when AoE'ing and that there's another teammate.

> >

> > So yeah, /thread? The problem isn't anything about necro or reaper in particular, considering it's not at all the only class which leverages the confined space as well as it does.

>

> Ahhh, yeah. This is exactly my point, which everyone seems to be missing, likely my own fault.

>

> Reaper is only FoTM because of the small 2v2 maps. Nothing needs to be changed. Nothing needs to be nerfed. It's just that the mode favors it due to smaller areas. It's not impossible to beat, even on the smallest of maps, it just isn't fun.

>

> Reaper is probably one of the easiest classes to put down because I play inherently mobile and kiting oriented builds. I have been making points on the OPs side.

>

> I have just been stating the obvious, not making a complaint.

I mistook you for the OP due to the comment you originally made about "ever-increasing mobility" contrasting the slow design you quoted as if it's failing that design goal since the mobility claim is not really true (the reaper was arguably more mobile in the past metas compared to other classes), so my bad. Doesn't sound like you have an issue playing against it personally, and based on the last sentence of your first post, you already knew what was going on.

So basically reaper with blood magic traited lol.

> @"KrHome.1920" said:

> Effects like superspeed would be overpowered.

Let's be real here, superspeed already is OP.

To be totally honest if you're not able to recover after losing only 60% of your HP you're probably not gonna win a fight with slower speeds unless your build is literally just better at being a stat stick with higher sustain. Fights are generally won and lost on such combos coming in fast and hard, even if not at the onset of the fight.

The current potent roaming meta is heavy sustain more than anything else, and really, roaming builds haven't been cheese-free since the patch before HoT when they relatively fixed the game. If you're getting bursted, most of the time the enemy's build is just as weak and you're just slower on the draw or running a weak build. Which if it's celestial core ele or power core engineer as indicated, is not exactly a pillar of strength.

WvW's always been fast-paced. That's a huge part of the appeal given how slow sPvP has historically been.

> @"Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582" said:

> > @"DeceiverX.8361" said:

> > > @"Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582" said:

> > > > @"Sigmoid.7082" said:

> > > > > @"Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582" said:

> > > > > The problem with Reaper comes from its seemingly ever-increasing mobility.

> > > >

> > > > What have been the increases in mobility?

> > >

> > > Just the use of core skills and traits that had not been a thing previously along with PvP runes that provide +25% movement speed.

> >

> > Sounds to me like it has nothing to do with reaper itself and more to do with PvP runes and the fact that necros never ran their mobility skills before because they incorrectly used to think they weren't worth taking. Mobility creep is a real problem game-wide.

> >

> > The only real mobility advantage the reaper brings is RS2 just in terms of disengage, which is admittedly strong, but that's a far cry from the class being nearly as mobile as the rest.

> >

> > The whole permanent quickness and glass cannon damage at the expense of the SR trait line and life force bruiser build path the class used to have makes the spec a lot more binary than it used to be and takes a lot less skill to just destroy weaker players while making it more difficult to beat more skilled ones.

> >

> > If you decap against the reaper or immediately reset when it enters shroud, it'll have to deshroud or leave point because the RShroud degen rate is 4x that of core necro.

> > Dodge GS3, strafe from GS5 (only good reapers will combo this skill to reliably have it land), don't attack it during Spectral Armor, and it usually dies without much trouble when you can deny its LF gen.

>

> And what do you do in Halls of the Mists which is only as wide as the Reapers Scythe? Dealing with Reaper in normal maps is not hard because you can range and kite easily. The 2v2 arenas are what I'm talking about.

Then it's wholly a map problem.

If they made the 2v2 arena as large and open as the guild hall arena, you'd only ever see soulbeasts winning fights and people would be just as justified in demanding them being nerfed, and arguably moreso since they're harder to outplay without a lot of LoS objects than reaper is, since you can forward dodge RS2 and it won't track, allowing you to corner the reaper into a small subsection of the area and disengage. Either way, I'm not seeing justification here that's really at all pertinent to the reaper, and more about the environment of sPvP and your teams.

It's a combination of the map is designed to favor reaper innately, you probably not playing against it properly (which exacerbates any advantages the class has), and that your teammate can also fail to play against it properly, allowing it to leverage its gains because it's strong when AoE'ing and that there's another teammate.

So yeah, /thread? The problem isn't anything about necro or reaper in particular, considering it's not at all the only class which leverages the confined space as well as it does.