Guild wars 2 the legacy of balance

[DragonFury.6243]

Reaper

The original design of reaper was a very interesting concept of a class that use condition (chill) to deal power damage kind of hybrid build that need power damage with expertise to maintain chill up-time that design has it's draw back as in PvE because chill stack in duration resulting in limitation on damage when there are multiple reaper in the party when chill up-time is 100% any additional reaper is only damage loss .

And also in PvP where it was very annoying because chill not only increase skills cold down and decrease movement speed now it apply damage .

But that changed fast into chill apply bleed and that changed the class from focusing on chill up-time to chill application .

That solved the PvE problem of stacking reapers .

And in PvP resulted in reaper changing stat from power to condi making it less bursty class .

Both designs maintain reaper mechanics and it's interaction with chill .

But shortly before POF expansion anet pushed reaper into power damage elite by nerfing condi application and the push was just a flat increase in power of shroud skills and and increase in ferocity and modifiers and quickness to reach the minimal acceptable damage for a power spec to be used in the current meta .

Reaper now has next to nothing class mechanics and very limited interaction within reaper trait line and core necro trait line it's just picking up as much as damage modifiers as you can .

Now reaper apply a ton of chill ( Executioner's Scythe,Chilling Scythe,Grasping Darkness,"Suffer!","Chilled to the Bone!",Chilling Nova,Shivers of Dread.) for no good reason other than 15% damage modifier .

The transition into power for reaper should have come with trait line rework for reaper to introduce a class mechanic rather that just pure damage buff and stat increase .

Other than awesome visuals and cool death knight theme carrying the elite reaper is an empty class mechanically .

[Dadnir.5038]

You make quite a few mistake and forget quite a few points in your tale of that "legacy". As an example, _deathly chill_ damages were never fueled by power damages and e-specs aren't meant to be pigeonholed into a single kind of damage, while reaper's condition damages have been nerfed, they are still pretty close to what a scourge can do. On the broader picture, the reaper is infinitely better than what it was at HoT release.

[KrHome.1920]

The chill is still important as a slow down condition for the competitive game modes. As cleanses increased there is a need of frequent application.

 

There is not much to say about PvE besides the fact that reaper is too durable for top tier damage numbers. Pop your spectral armor, enter shroud and deal your 30k dps (even AOE!) without having to worry about dying for 8 seconds.

 

Side note: condi reaper has been one of the most bursty specs in the game when deathly chill applied 3 bleeds. You could apply a stack of about 20 bleeds (covered by at least 5 cover conditions) in 1 second. That was incredibly broken on dire gear. The moment that reaper was at melee range you were as good as dead.

 

Example: reaper rune, deathly chill, chilling nova, hydro+geo sigils, suffer, yaaw -> 18 bleeds + 15 vulnerability + chill + weakness, all instant, 2 low cd skills used

 

> @"Dadnir.5038" said:

> On the broader picture, the reaper is infinitely better than what it was at HoT release.

True.

[LucianDK.8615]

Imho, anet wanted to push scourge as the condition class and pushed reaper pure power

[DragonFury.6243]

This post is about reaper mechanics how it got chopped one piece at a time in the name of balance

> @"Dadnir.5038" said:

> On the broader picture, the reaper is infinitely better than what it was at HoT release.

 

This may be true but to me the current version of reaper is the worst mechanically

every elite got its own mechanic different for the main class mechanics ( druid got celestial avatar, Berserker got Berserk mode, tempest overload ,etc ) take a look on reaper trait line what its mechanics collect life force and go into shroud that is general necro mechanics it was chill and its nothing now .

The transition into power for reaper should have come with trait line rework for reaper to introduce a class mechanic rather that just pure damage buff and stat increase .

[Anchoku.8142]

Reaper got 4 things, from my PoV: an enormous amount of cleave (GS, shroud, and shouts), lots of chill (too much for a while), a hybrid power/condi build, and regularly available combat mechanics (finisher, leap, stun, pull.)

 

Edit: These were all things core Necro was deficient. If you really think about it, Reaper is a complete profession where core still suffers from being hard-nerfed at its release.

[KrHome.1920]

> @"DragonFury.6243" said:

> This post is about reaper mechanics how it got chopped one piece at a time in the name of balance

> > @"Dadnir.5038" said:

> > On the broader picture, the reaper is infinitely better than what it was at HoT release.

>

> This may be true but to me the current version of reaper is the worst mechanically

> every elite got its own mechanic different for the main class mechanics ( druid got celestial avatar, Berserker got Berserk mode, tempest overload ,etc ) take a look on reaper trait line what its mechanics collect life force and go into shroud that is general necro mechanics it was chill and its nothing now .

> The transition into power for reaper should have come with trait line rework for reaper to introduce a class mechanic rather that just pure damage buff and stat increase .

Not really, reaper was a one trick pony that relied on shroud proc bursts because the damage of its skills was poor. It transformed from extremely one dimensional (when your F1 proc was dodged/blocked/evaded/blinded, it was basically gg) to a true bruiser spec with plenty of options to adapt to your opponent.

 

Just look at the patch history. All one-button-press-procs und auto-procs nerfed (damage cut in half and on top of that removed the ability to crit) but a lot of damage buffs to weapons and shroud. You can actually play reaper now and not just get into melee range and press F1 to kill before your target kills you first.