Keep the quickness!

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

I believe there's some ninja dev reading these forums after last patch. So long story short:

 

**The quickness on necro is a good, from game design perspective**.

 

Necro is many things others are not, in a good way. One of these is his buttload of free stats that let him gear up using unconventional stat sets, such as Valkyrie, Crusader, Cavalier, Shaman, Apothecary. This is good. This is how it should be. A profession should have reasons to "go with the flow" of game's horizontal gear progression and have traits/skills that make non-meta gear sets viable and meaningful.

 

Quickness (and ferocity buff on Death Perception) opens another such path for necro - concentration gear. Up till now necro didn't have any major reasons to pursue boon duration gear. But now with mentioned changes not only is there a solid reason to, but also a 300 extra ferocity compensation for using it (since no gear with concentration has ferocity on it), making it a viable option for unorganized group/solo content. Things like Wanderer stats (Power/Vitality main, Toughness/Concentration minor) or Commander's stats (Power/Precision main, Toughness/Concentration minor) will now appeal to some reapers.

 

How the quickness should be applied, should it be chained to Reaper's Onslaught (or reaper in general), in what amounts should necro get it - I guess that will be confirmed or be subject to change as time passes. But the addition of solid uptime quickness to necro does do a lot of good for it. Balancing questions should be "how" and "when" but not "if".

[Dadnir.5038]

Well I'm sorry but quickness just make the necromancer (reaper) a bit more selfish/selfsufficient. Revenant's shiro used to be in the same situation and for the same reason it was arguable for shiro, the quickness existence is arguable for reaper.

 

The necromancer don't lack soloplay efficiency and never lacked it, quickness just make it stronger in soloplay. Whereas the necromancer always lacked synergy with other profession and selfquickness don't help with that at all.

 

The quickness addition just made things easier in areas where the necromancer didn't need help while the areas that needed help isn't impacted at all by it.

 

Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't like it but the value of this quickness in the grand scheme of things is abysmal and in the end it's still another effect that make the necromancer stronger in PvP/WvW while leaving it in it's mediocre state in high end PvE. This is just another arguable choice of balance that might stir the highly vocal PvP community into another plea for a nerf. If the necromancer end up losing the quickness he will have lost nothing, however if he end up losing something else to compensate the quickness (like ANet love to do when they implement something arguable) then the necromancer would have effectively lost something.

[Catchyfx.5768]

Im for lets keep quickness in shroud. Its more smooth to play Reaper right now. More then ever.

[EremiteAngel.9765]

> @"Catchyfx.5768" said:

> Im for lets keep quickness in shroud. Its more smooth to play Reaper right now. More then ever.

 

Would be even better if they returned our 7 seconds shroud cooldown!

[ZDragon.3046]

> @"Dadnir.5038" said:

> Well I'm sorry but quickness just make the necromancer (reaper) a bit more selfish/selfsufficient. Revenant's shiro used to be in the same situation and for the same reason it was arguable for shiro, the quickness existence is arguable for reaper.

>

> The necromancer don't lack soloplay efficiency and never lacked it, quickness just make it stronger in soloplay. Whereas the necromancer always lacked synergy with other profession and selfquickness don't help with that at all.

>

> The quickness addition just made things easier in areas where the necromancer didn't need help while the areas that needed help isn't impacted at all by it.

>

> Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't like it but the value of this quickness in the grand scheme of things is abysmal and in the end it's still another effect that make the necromancer stronger in PvP/WvW while leaving it in it's mediocre state in high end PvE. This is just another arguable choice of balance that might stir the highly vocal PvP community into another plea for a nerf. If the necromancer end up losing the quickness he will have lost nothing, however if he end up losing something else to compensate the quickness (like ANet love to do when they implement something arguable) then the necromancer would have effectively lost something.

 

Well reaper was never mean to be share and care mind you. I really dislike how people desperately want to throw support into every single part of necro even in the parts where it shouldnt be just so it can have something to give others and by having that they assume it will make it 100% better.

 

Imo, Necro didnt lack synergy with other professions but perhaps you can look at it that way in pve if you want but in pvp its one of the most if not the most synergetic professions in the game and thats its reason for being targeted first. IT can sway a team fight and save people in a pinch. Yes its not a boon spam bot, or a heal bot but it does have offensive support and strong area control and boon counter play. 3 of the biggest over looked support tool most people dont consider how the work and sync with others.

 

People often feel this way because in pve because AI enemies dont care about zone control, People dont go down as easy in pve, and foes dont often have boon spam out the butt so you dont see the synergy and nothing change wise on necro is gonna fix that without making it into something totally different **ie, scourge**. To get more synergy in necro overall in pve you need to redo to how pve foes work to make necro shine or look at scourge and ideally make it a off brand copy of old herald, current firebrand, or tempest with different visuals and through barrier pretty boring imo but you know what i mean. Just give it something other professions already have and people like.

 

The quickness makes RO worth wild and when stacked with the new crit damage from death perception and as much as you dislike people asking for a deathly chill rework reaper has finally been given something to help its power boosting trait stand out and be worth wild. In general pve even in meta events reaper didnt have perma quickness or damage people were not happy with. People crying about the 15% stack on quickness or that this change was not as good are likely people who always play with a set group or raid group which implies they have quickness all the time anyways so its not a real change to them. This patch also some what solved the grave digger spam issue but not completely it gave us more options. I often dont always want to play with others in pve events and any time ive ever done any kind of group content i dont exactly spend time looking for the best of the best meta to clear it in the most optimal way.

 

I think scourge is going to be necros best before for synergizing with other professions in pve and we should leave it to that rework and allow reaper to continue on its path and stop hoping to see support synergy be slapped into it. Let reaper be with its with moderate offensive support via cc, soft condi, minor boon corrupt and minor zone control.

 

As far as pvp reaper is not all that different right now it just kills other professions about as fast as they were able to kill it pre patch **if** it catches them which is ideally fair. It some what makes the increased lf drain worth it the damage you can do in the time frame now vs previously. People have to respect the damage reaper can do with that speed but its certainly not **Scourge** at its release with ranged 1 shot shades.

 

I honestly think we saw no direct scourge changes because its likely in plan for a rework/design change and whats the point in doing a bandaid change if its currently under secret rework.

 

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

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.

 

[Dadnir.5038]

> @"ZDragon.3046" said:

> _snip_

 

Like I said, quickness is good where the reaper was already good and irrelevant where reaper needed help. Which mean that whether quickness is kept or not, the reaper will still retain it's efficiency where he was efficient and still be mediocre where he was mediocre.

 

You can put it however you want, what I said wasn't that the necromancer lacked synergy with other profession in pvp and WvW. What I said is that this quickness isn't something worth clinging onto since it doesn't help the necromancer where he need help and strengthen the necromancer where he was already strong. It's impossible to achieve balance if you give all the candy to PvP/WvW. All you'll achieve by doing so is stiring complaints from other professions which will deduce that the necromancer don't need "buff" because it's already to strong. While in fact the necromancer stay mediocre in a whole part of the game.

 

Buffs are always welcome, objectively bad buff are disappointing, it just so happen that this quickness is the later. I love hard caramels, but I know that if I eat them I got a huge probability that I'll destroy some of my teeth. The quickness is one of the caramel of the necromancer and PvP/WvW are necromancer's teeth (and those teeth are extremly fragile).

[Obtena.7952]

Just going from memory here ... quickness proc on RS auto with a 3 second duration? If so, is concentration really beneficial to extend it? Is the idea that you would build quickness stacks to benefit outside of RS? Can you in theory perma-buff quickness this way? I guess you would choose Commanders for that build?

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

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.

[Zero.3871]

> @"Obtena.7952" said:

> Just going from memory here ... quickness proc on RS auto with a 3 second duration? If so, is concentration really beneficial to extend it? Is the idea that you would build quickness stacks to benefit outside of RS? Can you in theory perma-buff quickness this way? I guess you would choose Commanders for that build?

 

even if you take 33% boonduration in to your build you would just stack 4 sec every 3 secs. thats +1 sec every 3 secs. to stack enough quickness that way to stack the 10 sec quickness you need until next shroud entry you would need 30 seconds in shroud to stack this +10 seconds quickness. because of 1k lf decay every seconds thats impossible. so to stack it permanently you need around 90-100% boonduration. and with that you have to spend a lot of your stats to concentration, but that would be a completely waste. so it is not possible to stack it in a useful way.

[Aetatis.5418]

> @"Obtena.7952" said:

> Just going from memory here ... quickness proc on RS auto with a 3 second duration? If so, is concentration really beneficial to extend it? Is the idea that you would build quickness stacks to benefit outside of RS? Can you in theory perma-buff quickness this way? I guess you would choose Commanders for that build?

 

its not a proc on AA. its pulsing in shroud - by entering shroud and every 3 sec staying in shroud you gain 3sec of quickness.

therefore as zero mentioned, it is almost impossible to stack quickness for the time outside of shroud (and maintain the ferocity/power needed to keep your dps similar to full zerker)

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

@"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.

[Zero.3871]

> @"ZeftheWicked.3076" said:

> @"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.

 

true but You would still dont have perma quickness. using any of the runes that give boonduration due to a big lose in offensive power because you are loosing power, precision or ferocity for that.so you give up a lot of dmg for boonduration on a class that has barely Access to boons. and still no mobility, barely stability, no Sustain. further mechanics like spectral armor has 40 seconds cooldown while you have to rotate into shroud every 10-15seconds to hold the quickness up. you will finally reach the Point very fastly in a real fight where your shroudptime will not be great enough for that quicknesscast you mentioned. so it is simply not worth to be taken.

[DragonFury.6243]

> @"EremiteAngel.9765" said:

> > @"Catchyfx.5768" said:

> > Im for lets keep quickness in shroud. Its more smooth to play Reaper right now. More then ever.

>

> Would be even better if they returned our 7 seconds shroud cooldown!

7 seconds shroud cooldown

this is the true buff to necro in PvP and WvW

[Atticus.7194]

> @"DragonFury.6243" said:

> > @"EremiteAngel.9765" said:

> > > @"Catchyfx.5768" said:

> > > Im for lets keep quickness in shroud. Its more smooth to play Reaper right now. More then ever.

> >

> > Would be even better if they returned our 7 seconds shroud cooldown!

> 7 seconds shroud cooldown

> this is the true buff to necro in PvP and WvW

 

I'll be honest the quickness is a bit out of control for pvp and wvw, it fundamentally removes the aspects of skills such as shroud 4 that used to keep them balanced. Doing 15-30k in 1.5 sec is a pretty small window to consider it balanced. Just had one shroud two into a team fight, shroud 4 and despite all of us dodging hitting us enough to down 2 players from 50% and make another run at about 10%.

 

Leave the quickness for PvE but it's gotta change for pvp and wvw, either that or they need to redesign the shroud skills.

[Lexan.5930]

The quickness is awesome and makes taking reapers onslaught feel like a real change in the class because it really makes you want to be in shroud.

[Lexan.5930]

> @"Atticus.7194" said:

> > @"DragonFury.6243" said:

> > > @"EremiteAngel.9765" said:

> > > > @"Catchyfx.5768" said:

> > > > Im for lets keep quickness in shroud. Its more smooth to play Reaper right now. More then ever.

> > >

> > > Would be even better if they returned our 7 seconds shroud cooldown!

> > 7 seconds shroud cooldown

> > this is the true buff to necro in PvP and WvW

>

> I'll be honest the quickness is a bit out of control for pvp and wvw, it fundamentally removes the aspects of skills such as shroud 4 that used to keep them balanced. Doing 15-30k in 1.5 sec is a pretty small window to consider it balanced. Just had one shroud two into a team fight, shroud 4 and despite all of us dodging hitting us enough to down 2 players from 50% and make another run at about 10%.

>

> Leave the quickness for PvE but it's gotta change for pvp and wvw, either that or they need to redesign the shroud skills.

 

Do you know that mesmers can do 30k in .5 seconds?

[Dadnir.5038]

> @"Zero.3871" said:

> > @"Obtena.7952" said:

> > Just going from memory here ... quickness proc on RS auto with a 3 second duration? If so, is concentration really beneficial to extend it? Is the idea that you would build quickness stacks to benefit outside of RS? Can you in theory perma-buff quickness this way? I guess you would choose Commanders for that build?

>

> even if you take 33% boonduration in to your build you would just stack 4 sec every 3 secs. thats +1 sec every 3 secs. to stack enough quickness that way to stack the 10 sec quickness you need until next shroud entry you would need 30 seconds in shroud to stack this +10 seconds quickness. because of 1k lf decay every seconds thats impossible. so to stack it permanently you need around 90-100% boonduration. and with that you have to spend a lot of your stats to concentration, but that would be a completely waste. so it is not possible to stack it in a useful way.

 

Never forget that boons and conditions that stack in duration, only stack up to 5 time. So you'll reach the maximum potential duration at 15 seconds (well 12s if you gain the first stack of quickness when entering shroud).

[EremiteAngel.9765]

> @"Lexan.5930" said:

> > @"Atticus.7194" said:

> > > @"DragonFury.6243" said:

> > > > @"EremiteAngel.9765" said:

> > > > > @"Catchyfx.5768" said:

> > > > > Im for lets keep quickness in shroud. Its more smooth to play Reaper right now. More then ever.

> > > >

> > > > Would be even better if they returned our 7 seconds shroud cooldown!

> > > 7 seconds shroud cooldown

> > > this is the true buff to necro in PvP and WvW

> >

> > I'll be honest the quickness is a bit out of control for pvp and wvw, it fundamentally removes the aspects of skills such as shroud 4 that used to keep them balanced. Doing 15-30k in 1.5 sec is a pretty small window to consider it balanced. Just had one shroud two into a team fight, shroud 4 and despite all of us dodging hitting us enough to down 2 players from 50% and make another run at about 10%.

> >

> > Leave the quickness for PvE but it's gotta change for pvp and wvw, either that or they need to redesign the shroud skills.

>

> Do you know that mesmers can do 30k in .5 seconds?

 

And from stealth.

And lets not forget thieves.

Or rangers.

[dceptaconroy.7928]

> @"Atticus.7194" said:

> > @"DragonFury.6243" said:

> > > @"EremiteAngel.9765" said:

> > > > @"Catchyfx.5768" said:

> > > > Im for lets keep quickness in shroud. Its more smooth to play Reaper right now. More then ever.

> > >

> > > Would be even better if they returned our 7 seconds shroud cooldown!

> > 7 seconds shroud cooldown

> > this is the true buff to necro in PvP and WvW

>

> I'll be honest the quickness is a bit out of control for pvp and wvw, it fundamentally removes the aspects of skills such as shroud 4 that used to keep them balanced. Doing 15-30k in 1.5 sec is a pretty small window to consider it balanced. Just had one shroud two into a team fight, shroud 4 and despite all of us dodging hitting us enough to down 2 players from 50% and make another run at about 10%.

>

> Leave the quickness for PvE but it's gotta change for pvp and wvw, either that or they need to redesign the shroud skills.

 

Youve dropped blighters you're probably demo amulet you've got stuff all defense. You're a dead duck prior to being in shroud I think it's fair considering you're a thief style banger minus all the evades and escapes.

[Rym.1469]

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.

 

 

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

> @"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!

[Zero.3871]

> @"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.

>

>

 

reaper was also supposed to be a tanky spec. but now its the most glassy class in the game. and his slow hits were so easy to counter that really no one feared the reaper. the counterplay against reaper is also the easiest in the game. and since every class is 10 times faster than reaper it is impossible to attack your enemy while in shroud longer than a few seconds until the enemy is out of melee range. to give reaper the quickness that he can more effectively use his skills on the opponents in the few seconds they are in range is a needed improvement. still dont now why People flame reaper when there are still Sb that are unkillable for 20 seconds even for a 60 man zerg. or unkillable mirages that oneshot you while invul out of nowhere and then escaping with their massive mobility. or perma invis deadeyes, or soulbeast that destroy you with 30k dmg on LB2 skill on 2000+ range, or…

there is enough counterplay to the slowliest,glassiest melee class in the game.

 

[Rhyse.8179]

I don't like it solely because it only benefits power specs. It's getting to the point where Necro* isn't going to have a condi spec at all. Chill Of Death should just be given up on and moved to Curses. If Reaper's not gonna have a condi spec, then Core needs to take it's place.

 

*-Scourge doesn't count. It's not a Necro™ if it doesn't have shroud.

[Lahmia.2193]

> @"Rhyse.8179" said:

> I don't like it solely because it only benefits power specs. It's getting to the point where Necro* isn't going to have a condi spec at all. Chill Of Death should just be given up on and moved to Curses. If Reaper's not gonna have a condi spec, then Core needs to take it's place.

>

> *-Scourge doesn't count. It's not a Necro™ if it doesn't have shroud.

 

Desert Shroud is going to have its heart broken when it is told it isn't a real shroud. :'(