Since Scourge is Support (healer), How can Reaper be made more viable?

[Meetshield.1756]

Lets be honest.

F1 - Clears Conditions, Places Barrier on players (Support)

F2 - Converts Conditions into Boons x 2 (Support)

F3 - Places a Larger Barrier on Players (Support)

F4 - Fears enemies off of players and then Heals them for 9k over 3 seconds (Support)

F5 - Okay thats basically our entire shroud rotation on a Single button, and its dmg is lackluster, Cooldown is too long. (Damage)

So now that we cleared that up and understand the Purpose of Scourge is to be a Sustain Healer with the new Barrier Mechanic for Spike Damage, we can come to terms with the fact that since Necro is now the best Healer in the entire game, with the best access to the most overpowered Barrier Mechanic, we are not going to be getting our Damage back. The Damage "bugs" which were intentionally there to help ease us into this new role, prevented all the Necros from QQ and quitting the game on Day 1 of patch release.

 

So, lets see what can we do about Reaper to make it able to Survive in the new world? Reaper is a DPS monster in PVE content, but for Raiders its a little low, because of Single Target DPS vs aoe DPS.

 

First suggestion : Increase Life Rend power scale, and target cap. Why does core necro get 1.4 Power scale, while Reaper has only .7 power scale for its profession auto-attack.

Core Necro : 1.4 on Life blast, (1200 Range piercing 5 target!!!)

Firebrand : 1.1 on Chapter 1 Searing Spell.

Holosmith : 1.0 on Light Strike

 

Second Suggestion : Power reaper has Life Force generation issues. He can't stay in Shroud, to take advantage of the Death Perception and Reaper's Onslaught combo, since the last Balance Patch. Increase Life Force Generation from Soul Eater so that with proper skill rotation this is possible, or reduce the cool-down on Chilling Victory's ICD, so that when paired with Spite he can keep Chill up and striking it will generate his life force back. Or Some combination of these changes along with increased Life force generation from Shouts, so that he can pop out of shroud and quickly regenerate it and go back into shroud.

 

Third suggestion : The problem with Reaper at this point in WvW is that he is Mele, and going into Mele causes him to lose all boons from Warrior and get chain CC'd. Change Reaper 3 to Reflect all Boon removal for 3 seconds, or to work like Balance Stance re-applying Stability on a pulse, or make it cost life force but have a 3 second cooldown, so that Reaper can use it repeatedly as long as he has life force.

[Aetatis.5418]

shroud time and generation is not an issue - not on power - (in pve, in wvw zergs. it might be an issue in 1v1 tbf)

play with wepaon swaps and some 1h/horn. use horn just before using shroud. gives an extra 7-10sec in reaper shroud, melee.

AA in reaper shroud generates enoough LF to stay for ~30sec in it (which is maybe not even wanted, if there is a nice rotation with axe 2 and GS skills).

getting it up again is also not a big problem - the 10sec cd on shroud caps you anyway.

 

the scaling however. the issue with arenanet is, that shroud is super op defensive and shouldnt do both - dmg and op sustain. we all know, that shroud is not the effective defense anet wants us to believe ofc - so i doubt anything will change drastically.

edit: i forgot... the AA in reaper shroud sustains aswell, right? one more reason for anet to not give it better scaling.

 

wvw: be careful what you wish. pulsing stab? we had it already in the past. with the current rate of boon conversion in wvw it would mean a chain-fear once you get caught by 1-25 skills that convert boons. a change on how stability gets converted would be needed for that (e.g. 10 stacks stab - one gets converted into fear, strips a second one, 8 left... which is better as the way it functions now: 10 stacks of stab get converted into 1sec of fear.... yay. now imagine pulsing stab).

and if you are talking about warrior boon-strips... pulsing doesnt help if you get caught in a bubble, because reapplying boons is not a thing in the bubble - the code says: no!

 

 

[Eddy.7051]

Scourge is more like a protection monk in GW1 than it is like a healer monk in GW1. When you title this post as "SUPPORT (HEALER)" I recommend deleting the "(HEALER)" portion.

[Meetshield.1756]

Okay I haven't played Power Reaper since the nerf, I had friends who said shroud Sustain was a problem. I know previous power reaper would simply stay in shroud and auto-attack. I'm not really much of a Power reaper player. I do know 2 handed weapons are better due to Shroud mechanic scaling off of weapon damage, so having an Axe would put you in a strange rotation if you had to go into shroud you would lose 10-15% of your damage if you had axe.

 

So you did point out one issue as it relates to mele classes in WvW. There is so much condi spam, from Firebrand, and Scourge, that ranged classes are preferred for DPS, staying away from Scourge and Firebrand and doing damage is the currently preferred solution by most. I am aware of Warrior bubble, this is a problem for everyone, and the solution is to get out of the bubble as fast as possible and re-apply your stability / leap back to your team. So if stab application is not a good idea then how about this

 

Reaper 2 is a stunbreak, and removes Imob. To balance it now only does 1 strike damage and doesn't leave reaper hanging in mid air for 1 second channel. This would allow reaper to dive in on bombs, pump out condi or power damage and then escape. He would only need to survive for the 6 seconds between his Charges.

[Anchoku.8142]

I keep thinking core Necromancer's Death Magic should have an AoE boon duration trait with a radius similar to Vampiric Presence.

 

Being able to support the boon meta might allow a raid slot and Death Magic needs some serious buffing. I would add a boon duration buff to a minor trait, to be honest. Necromancer has very little reason to build for boons as it is so a trait like that would not change Necromancer dps.

[Meetshield.1756]

Thats an interesting Idea. I once Tried to make a Terrormancer Scourge and found that unfortunately all the Fear Traits are spread out between 3 different Lines, Death magic, curses, Soul reaping. If you run an Elite specialization you can't be a good Terrormancer, so I would like all the Fear traits to be reduced to two lines like Curses and Soul Reaping. I think i'll make a Trait re-organization thread.

[Aetatis.5418]

> @Meetshield.1756 said:

> Okay I haven't played Power Reaper since the nerf, I had friends who said shroud Sustain was a problem. I know previous power reaper would simply stay in shroud and auto-attack. I'm not really much of a Power reaper player. I do know 2 handed weapons are better due to Shroud mechanic scaling off of weapon damage, so having an Axe would put you in a strange rotation if you had to go into shroud you would lose 10-15% of your damage if you had axe.

>

nope dude, no difference AT ALL if you use different weapons. not a single damage per second.

just a week ago i was standing there with different traits (+10% on axe AND without the trait) and different weapons (axe+horn and GS) and the numbers were exactly the same. did it a couple of times, just to be sure.

 

[Meetshield.1756]

Yeah if the +10% in axe is applied to Shroud as it should be then I could see there being no difference. Staff is 10% more dmg than any 1 handed weapon, so That would explain why the 1 Handed Axe with a 10% buff would be the same. Kinda forces you to select a few traits to get something that you don't need if you just put Staff on your build. Wouldn't really be using Weapons for Dmg generally, and Staff gives you a lot more sustain and utility as well as Range, but I get that the PVE dudes are funky about how they see things. Generally their ideas do not involve math, and are more like superstitions...

[Aetatis.5418]

> @Meetshield.1756 said:

> Yeah if the +10% in axe is applied to Shroud as it should be then I could see there being no difference. Staff is 10% more dmg than any 1 handed weapon, so That would explain why the 1 Handed Axe with a 10% buff would be the same. Kinda forces you to select a few traits to get something that you don't need if you just put Staff on your build. Wouldn't really be using Weapons for Dmg generally, and Staff gives you a lot more sustain and utility as well as Range, but I get that the PVE dudes are funky about how they see things. Generally their ideas do not involve math, and are more like superstitions...

 

you dont get what i am saying. or i didnt say it explicit enough.

axe traited with 10% AND also axe WITHOUT 10% trait does exact same numbers as greasword does when using shroud. exactly the same numbers. nothing influences the shroud dmg (except the stats on the gear you choose). not the weapon, not the trait.

gonna check it with staff again. just for you

 

edit:

average reaper shroud dmg with axe/dagger:

10200dps. time to kill 1mio hp golem: 1min 32sec. max hit of life reap 7750. avg hit of life reap 7360

 

average reaper shroud dmg with axe/dagger and 10% trait:

10200 dps. time to kill 1mio hp golem 1min32sec. max hit of life reap 7740. avg hit of life reap 7360

 

average reaper shroud dmg with staff:

10200 dps. time to kill 1mio hp golem: 1min 32sec. max hit of life reap 7750. avg hit of life reap 7350

 

except for the 10% trait on axe and the change to staff (with the same stats as axe/dagger) in the last try, the circumstances are exactly the same.

instead of "unholy fervor" (10% trait) i used "rending shroud" (vuln-apply in shroud, could have not used a trait at all - but didnt think of it). i gave the golem 25 stacks of vuln and chill in the options.

i also used quickness and traited signets to be able to stay in shroud for the entire fight.

executed 3 times per setup. (more samples always appreciated... just too lazy and no deviation visible anyway) - time rounded to full seconds and dps rounded to the closest number divisible by 10.

spite/blood magic/reaper. blood magic because soul reaping gives 5% extra dmg above 50% shroud. i didnt want the numbers to change during AA while falling below 50% shroud.

 

edit2: this is not max-dps power reaper (!). its a setup to be able to see if the "traits on weapons" or "weapons" influence reaper shroud power dmg. which they dont.

 

[Slayer.7318]

redesign reapers grandmaster trait . as it stands atm reaper's onslaught (the trait i would of thought would be power based) there just is no competition with deathly chill. i feel changes to this move more so for a grandmaster trait of all things needs to happen. these are some ways they could go around it

 

1. Grant a minor attack speed boost to the reapers weapons. Warrior has a simular thing with Dual Wielding but even they have a better speed boost (granted the requirement is a main hand in a secondary slot but that is not too hard with how many offhands they have that are main hands) in their attack speed than a reapers 15%. i feel maybe boosting the speed to 20% with warriors in shroud and a much lower (5-10% something like that) with any other weapon a reaper is using. this would in turn boost DPS and would have more use to power reapers as they would be able to execute attacks faster in base form

 

2. Grant a damage boost in shroud. just a universal damage boost in shroud would increase damage and work well with that boost in attack speed. would really benefit those who are in the soul reaping sector or spite which is the most power based traits outside curses conditions

 

3. Grant some sort of additional effect. i mean a 15% attack speed shroud that only activates when you are in shroud is really bland. it needs something else. anything. even if you gained might or you cause foes to feared on a cooldown on entry or made greatsword attacks deal more damage, what about additional effects on the reaper shroud moves? . something anything is better than a attack speed boost that you can only use for like a few seconds compared to again warriors 20% duel wielding which gives much longer (or infinite time if they are duel wielding with both weapon sets)

 

if they added some sort of trait change to this trait i feel it would be a worthy power option to reaper than it currently is

 

 

[Meetshield.1756]

> @Aetatis.5418 said:

> edit2: this is not max-dps power reaper (!). its a setup to be able to see if the "traits on weapons" or "weapons" influence reaper shroud power dmg. which they dont.

>

See my post Below, I assumed Life Rend was the same as Life Blast and Scourge Strike, but apparently you have discovered something on Life Rend that is wrong. how is this not a Major complaint on these forums?

[Meetshield.1756]

Completely Naked Necro on Build Editor with Staff, and Axe/Dagger ... no traits selected.

 

Life blast does 547 dmg, while wielding Staff.

 

Life blast does 497 dmg while wielding Axe / Dagger.

 

547 / 497 = 1.1006

 

I am noticing however that Life Rend doesn't seem to do the same thing. Axe / Staff / Greatsword all show same numbers. If you say they are also the same IN-Game, then you have found a Stealth Nerf to Reaper Power Dmg we were un-aware of. Life Rend scales based on Weapon. Scourge Power Dmg also Scales based on Weapon. Reaper scales based on What? Reaper does get condi duration benefit from Scepter so why not Power dmg scale benefit from Staff? Hrm... Sounds like Reaper is Officially a Condi Class... Another thing I have been saying..

 

Copied from the Official GW2 Wiki. A Note on Life Rend :

Damage value is calculated with the weapon strength of the active weapon before shroud is activated. Wiki value assumes unequipped value of 690.5

 

And according to the History of Life Rend it was never in the Patch Notes that this had Ever changed, it was only Buffed in February 2017 with a 17% dmg Increase, but still no scale on Weapon notes.

[Dadnir.5038]

meetshield, I invit you to go look at these pages:

 

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Death_Shroud

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Reaper%27s_Shroud

 

Last line in "trivia". It will greatly help you I believe. It should help you to understand why weapon skill effect only traits do not affect the shroud despite what you think (and on a side note, why you are wrong regarding shroud damages).

 

 

[Meetshield.1756]

Aha!! That explains why Reaper dmg doesn't scale properly. Because its a Hammer LOL!

 

So that means any Axe / Scepter traits in the Trait lines wouldn't apply to Reaper at All. What a HUGE Stealth Nerf.

[Dadnir.5038]

Glad that I help you understand what you were missing. Most of the long time lurker on the necromancer subforum are aware of these fact to the point that it's supposed to be common knowledge for them.

[Meetshield.1756]

I was away from the game during HOT release I came back about 6 months ago, and Reaper Meta in WvW was well established. I never really tried to Min/Max the build we had. Min/Maxing Scourge taught me the key concept of 10% more power dmg while wielding staff on Scourge. And with the intended "Bug" of stacking achieved great results with a power slanted Cele build on Scourge wield staff mainhand. But now that Scourge is back from top DPS heaven, other classes are much stronger damage.

 

What Reaper needs for WvW is some way to get out of the Imob and CC, but Necro has always had issues with mobility, those issues were solved with Guardian Stability, and now we have Warrior taking this away. It makes any Mele class vulnerable and keeps them out of the fight. Reaper's issue isn't that it can't do damage in WvW its that it isn't allowed to sacrifice itself and Rally other Players. I honestly think Core Necro would be a better option. Unless there is some way Reaper can push in with Mele like a warrior and not die to imobility due to lack of invulns.

[Dadnir.5038]

Honnestly, what you are looking for for the reaper is already here. If you want a melee build that allow the reaper to go frontline and stay alive, this is pretty easy.

Here are the basis you need:

 

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQFhQFqtxibssMYxzQosEMJAA-jZgRAAw+DAA

 

You can take everything else based on your own taste.

 

This is old trick but, as long as you have Wh#5 and one of the 2 spectral skills running along your shroud, you'll be able to survive the frontline long enough to either pass through the opposing zerg or find enough room to retreat. The trick worked as a regular necromancer and still work as a reaper. As for stability, or stunbreak in shroud, well anet don't like that.

[Justine.6351]

Right now in wvw scourge is choking out reaper because instead of sub 600 range pbaoe type stuff, people are playing scourge with 900+ range 300 radius aoe. It's safer to play scourge which unfortunately wrecks what little stab reaper has before gap close.

[Aetatis.5418]

> @Meetshield.1756 said:

> Aha!! That explains why Reaper dmg doesn't scale properly. Because its a Hammer LOL!

>

> So that means any Axe / Scepter traits in the Trait lines wouldn't apply to Reaper at All. What a HUGE Stealth Nerf.

 

it doesnt apply to normal shroud either. has been fixed a long time ago. comparing wiki/konstruktor-numbers wont help. but somebody else covered it already as far as i can tell.

 

to the main suggestions in the thread. there is not much we can do for reapers at the moment. unless stability changes again to be more suitable to push in wvw instead of being another fear - scourges will shine. like i said in my first post.

thats not a reaper problem btw. its a bruiser/melee issue with the current meta, that doesnt allow big pushes... pretty much