Meet the Reaper: Necromancer’s Elite Specialization

[Deleted]

Axe + focus has great synergy but, as much as I love that weapon combo, there's too many 'ifs' happening to make it all happen. You have to actually land the focus hits and stack the vuln on a moving, dodging target - bare in mind these can be cleansed etc even when they do hit. It also offers almost no defence compared to the staff and the offensive payoff just isn't really there.

Staff is a lot less conditional as the marks can be triggered by pets etc to cleanse yourself and apply aoe dmg into stealth, plus it gives the aoe fear to interrupt stealthstomp and kite/chase from range. I'd pretty much settled that it'd be staff, it's really the trusty backbone of any necro build in pvp.

[zito]

Chilling darkness has an icd now making it garbage. Combined with the fact that staff offers way more support in general and well of darkness is garbage in general you are better of going staff and not wasting a utility slot

[RH92]

*post*

I did not say it is a PvP build, the guy just asked for a AoE Chill.

Chilling darkness has an icd now making it garbage. Combined with the fact that staff offers way more support in general and well of darkness is garbage in general you are better of going staff and not wasting a utility slot

What kind of internal cooldown? I see it applying Chill lasting as long as the duration of each Blind pulse. Again, it isn't meant to be a PvP build.

[Deleted]

I did not say it is a PvP build, the guy just asked for a AoE Chill..

Yes, in relation to a string of posts that was born from me asking about off hands for pvp.

[zito]

What kind of internal cooldown? I see it applying Chill lasting as long as the duration of each Blind pulse. Again, it isn't meant to be a PvP build.

It has a 5 or 10 sec ICD now. For whatever the fuck reason, because a 5 sec pulsing aoe blind field was so OP with chill that they had to nerf the ICD (because necros only have 2 other sources of blind otherwise....)

[RH92]

Yes, in relation to a string of posts that was born from me asking about off hands for pvp.

Sorry, I missed that for some reason.

It has a 5 or 10 sec ICD now. For whatever the fuck reason, because a 5 sec pulsing aoe blind field was so OP with chill that they had to nerf the ICD (because necros only have 2 other sources of blind otherwise....)

Thanks, I am not that much in touch with GW2 changes. I play it only very casually.

[zito]

It was a recent change, I'm assuming they nerfed it for the incoming reaper who has a lot of chill access.

[Deleted]

Reading about the Reaper on https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Reaper I realise that there doesn't seem to be anything there to fix the issue of Necromancers giving any kind of group buffs. Having recently returned to the game to find about this thing called "Meta" and that as a Necromancer I'm not part of it, I'm finding less than enthusiastic responses when I join a pug, given also that my achievement value is quite low too. Has there been any word about adding anything to Necro's in the expansion beyond the Reaper?

[nevermore]

From what I've seen from the new trait lines, Necros have a lot of group healing/siphon, defensive support, condition removal etc. If ANet delivers on the challenging group content part, I assume Necro support will be a lot more sought-after.

[zito]

Reading about the Reaper on https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Reaper I realise that there doesn't seem to be anything there to fix the issue of Necromancers giving any kind of group buffs. Having recently returned to the game to find about this thing called "Meta" and that as a Necromancer I'm not part of it, I'm finding less than enthusiastic responses when I join a pug, given also that my achievement value is quite low too. Has there been any word about adding anything to Necro's in the expansion beyond the Reaper?

Reaper didn't get much support but the other lines did. More in the form of healing. You can now give a leech aura to your allies for example.

The meta is only for elitest in guilds, in a random pug it really doesn't matter.

[Arlee]

The meta is only for elitest in guilds, in a random pug it really doesn't matter.

Though you'll still run across people in pugs who only want people who are part of the meta -_-

[zito]

Though you'll still run across people in pugs who only want people who are part of the meta -_-

Than those people should be doing guild runs with skype and everything

[Deleted]

What about vulnerability stacking? How common is that? Is there a cap?

There is a build I like a lot, where you use Unholy Martyr to draw conditions from allies, Plague Sending to push those conditions on your enemy on each crit and a combination of Death Perception and Target the weak to keep your chance to crit really high. Using Sigil of earth in weapon and Barbed precision, you keep a quite high stack of bleed on your target in and out of shroud and with liberal use of Epidemic, spread the love around.

However, this requires Blood Magic, Curses and Soul Reaping traits, while Spite is typically much more common in PvE, as it helps stacking vulnerability which benefits everyone.

[Arlee]

Than those people should be doing guild runs with skype and everything

Obviously. My point was, despite them being wrong for demanding it in pugs some people will do it and will continue to do it no matter how much you point out to them their efforts would be better spent not pugging.

What about vulnerability stacking? How common is that? Is there a cap?

IIRC vulnerability still can only stack up to 25, that said although there are a bunch of classes which can apply it not many people really make a point of maximizing their ability to stack vulnerability so hitting the max shouldn't be too much of an issue.

[Deleted]

What about vulnerability stacking? How common is that? Is there a cap?

There is a build I like a lot, where you use Unholy Martyr to draw conditions from allies, Plague Sending to push those conditions on your enemy on each crit and a combination of Death Perception and Target the weak to keep your chance to crit really high. Using Sigil of earth in weapon and Barbed precision, you keep a quite high stack of bleed on your target in and out of shroud and with liberal use of Epidemic, spread the love around.

However, this requires Blood Magic, Curses and Soul Reaping traits, while Spite is typically much more common in PvE, as it helps stacking vulnerability which benefits everyone.

In a random group you'd probably hit 25 vuln anyway. Unless you want to be part of a 4 warrior X group which ppl use for speed runs then your own vuln stacking ability wont need to be that high. For the big encounters vuln is always at max stacks without even trying.

[Deleted]

Yeah, that's really the crux of the problem for Necros, any utility they bring, or a speciality they can provide (like vulnerability in the spite traits) is already brought by virtue of everyone brining just enough of it by themselves for the group as a whole to hit the cap. Even "Blood is Power" which brings Might, is 8 stacks on a 20 second (traited) cooldown. While not bad the problem arises in it's short range. As a scholar, you don't stand with the melee pack often, so you can't apply it to them, and they don't apply theirs to you.

While most people frown on it, I don't see why they don't borrow somewhat from WoW in that friendly buffs don't really care for range, or their range is sufficiently large that you have to be doing something really odd for it not to reach. It would help somewhat.

[Arlee]

Honestly in dungeons/fractals I rarely ever see vulnerability get capped. Maybe I'm just getting weird draws or something, but it doesn't seem like a huge issue.

[Deleted]

If only there was something the class could do, something unique to them and that it was really useful, that would be awesome. It would be cool if they were capable of generating sufficient group healing to counter out the effects of Agony for example.

[zito]

They do have something unique to them, but nobody thinks its worth it so nobody has tested it.

Necros have a strong group down recovery system atm. Extremely strong. They have 2 traits which heal downed players extra and teleports them to safety. Now if nobody dies then this will never see the light of day, but in high level fractals I can see it being a thing. I'll try and make a mock build.

- - - Updated - - -

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQBoobomPwGHAA-e

With blood magic alone, shroud skill 4 teleports allies to safety and heals them 18%, leaving shroud afterwards heals another 5% and then you get a 10% boost to revive speed with well of blood which heals you for 4k and nearby allies for 340 per pulse.

With this just this you have a unique strong down aoe down healing mechanic. This will truely shine in a setting where the necro is the only one not downed.

And people over look last rites. When it says allies will not bleed to death, it doesn't mean the condition. It means they won't lose health by default per second they are in downed. So as long as they don't get hit they won't die naturally from downed.

[Deleted]

Yeah, I was looking at that myself too once, however the problem is the opportunity cost. One might say that by bringing along a Necro who has specced this way, you are doing without some other group buff or personal DPS that may have potentially prevented the need for that in the first place. Also you kinda always have to keep shroud skill 4 in reserve, and almost never use it, so that you have it for it's utility.

Blood Bond instead of Ritual of Life might prevent people getting downed in the first place, Same with Vampiric Presence. Vampiric Rituals provide Protection along with the healing. These 3 swaps together (I feel) would negate the need for recovering from downs, by hopefully preventing the situation in the first place. That's assuming you take the Blood traits at all in the first place. One might argue that taking Spite in place of it would increase your damage, the damage of the whole group (through vulnerability from Death's Embrace) and thus shorten the fight overall.

They have hinted at, but we don't know how they will follow through with it, making dungeons/fractals 'harder' and bringing back the need for support characters and some elements of the holy trinity of gaming. Many have just surmised that that will simply mean one-shot mechanics. IF that is the case, then a player that can assist in down recovery might become useful...

That doesn't affect the Reaper (even though all the traits that affect Life Transfer will also affect Soul Spiral) per sé. It's just going to be something that everyone will complain of until it's changed back.