Reaper Changes Requested.

First of all, i like reaper, fighting with a Scythe is a pretty cool concept for us edgelords. But there are a few things that really annoy me about the job and why i currently play Viper as my Main DPS.

Nevertheless, every time i get a Reaper in my Party and i see it, i get really really mad, but also know WHY that is the case.


The Nr.1 Problem With the jobs is "Shadow of Death" and "Whorl of Death"

Both these skills feel terrible in in their mechanic and application.
They feel slow and clunky and here is why:

The Animation time of "Shadow of Death" is roughly 1.5 seconds, but it has a 2.5 seconds global cooldown, that means every time you use it, your character just stands there for a second staring at the enemy giving you this awkward moment and making you not wanting to use this skill at all.

There is also the problem of fight duration, if you fight an enemy that dies faster than 30 seconds(doing fates?), using "Shadow of Death" is a dps loss, but you also feel like you are missing the 10% damage buff.

My suggestion to this problem is:

Make "Shadow of Death" and "Whorl of Death" an Ability, and make it Cost 3000 MP, just like Dark knights "Edge of Darkness"

This will obviously prevent spamming the skill, but also makes the flow of the job feel a lot better and less clunky.

In Addition make "Gallows" , "Gibbet" & "Guillotine" restore 1000 MP each.


Nr 2, the Button Bloat

Reaper has an overabundance of buttons that should be consolidated into one Combo.

"Hell's Ingress" & "Hell's Regress".

I never use the Backwards teleport, because like on every other job(dragoon, Redmage) it is a suicidal ability that brings you more harm than good.

After using "Hell's Ingress" , the button should turn into "Regress" to teleport back to your original position instead of using the other skills, maybe with a small delay to prevent fat fingering.

https://i.imgur.com/rqEgH8l.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/CUbhB6i.gif

"Arcane Circle" & "Plentiful Harvest" .

Should be consolidated into the same Hotkey.

https://i.imgur.com/0kmSyMQ.jpeg

"Enshroud" and "Communio"
Should be Consolidated into the same Hotkey

https://i.imgur.com/AEXYEsf.jpeg

The Cooldown of "Enshroud" must also be removed to make it possible to fit two combo chains during a 20 second buff window.

There is always this awkward moment when Enshroud ends and you have to wait to use it again, the timing is so bad because the Enshroud combo takes 8.5s (or 11s with Harvest)This is not in line with the usual 2.5 seconds global CD.

Viper does not have a cooldown on Reawaken(Ouroboros) which has a much better flow of combat, you can just use it again the moment you are done with the combo chain.

So these are not world moving changes but just my thoughts on reaper.

"There is always this awkward moment when Enshroud ends and you have to wait to use it again, the timing is so bad because the Enshroud combo takes 8.5s (or 11s with Harvest)This is not in line with the usual 2.5 seconds global CD."

Yea because it seems you dont follow any rotation suggestion or anything, if you play your double shroud burst window properly its not a issue at all, generally speaking the suggestion with SoD would kill double Shroud, so i really have to ask, do you actually play the Class in higher Content?

I mean most of your Suggestions are fine, the Plenti and AC Change would be quit nice, the Hells Ingress and Regress Change would be absolutly dogshit, its only for a people which cant think or have serious issues with "getting a feel for the distance it moves" because the backwards jump is an incredible good skill

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Originally Posted by AvoSturmfaust

the Hells Ingress and Regress Change would be absolutly dogshit, its only for a people which cant think or have serious issues with "getting a feel for the distance it moves" because the backwards jump is an incredible good skill

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The backwards jump distance is farther than you can see behind your character on max standard zoom.
, you are essentially teleporting to a location off screen, that's why this skill is suicidal. Dont tell me you have never seen anyone jump to their death by using these type of skills, this is why Dragoons got their reputation of "Floor Tanks"

i played reaper in savage on lvl 90, but now not anymore.

They can keep the skill in the game, but then also make the combo change to Regress so you only require one button instead of two to use it.

Also please elaborate how you fit 2x Enshroud into a buff window when it has a 15 second cooldown, i used to start it earlier to at least get 2x Communio in.

The total time for two Enshroud combos would be 26.5 seconds, if the cooldown was removed you could perfectly fit 2 Enshroud combos into 20 seconds buff windows

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Originally Posted by Arohk

The backwards jump distance is farther than you can see behind your character on max standard zoom.
, you are essentially teleporting to a location off screen, that's why this skill is suicidal. Dont tell me you have never seen anyone jump to their death by using these type of skills, this is why Dragoons got their reputation of "Floor Tanks"

i played reaper in savage on lvl 90, but now not anymore.

They can keep the skill in the game, but then also make the combo change to Regress so you only require one button instead of two to use it.

Also please elaborate how you fit 2x Enshroud into a buff window when it has a 15 second cooldown, i used to start it earlier to at least get 2x Communio in.

The total time for two Enshroud combos would be 26.5 seconds, if the cooldown was removed you could perfectly fit 2 Enshroud combos into 20 seconds buff windows

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Good you dont get 2 full Enshrouds into it, i should say it properly thats on me, you missing ONE shroud gcd everything else is in the buff, i mean if you say you played it on lvl 90 savage would mean you know the old Reap - SoD - Reap - SoD Arcane Rotation, with EW it changed you are only missing 1 shroud gcd in it https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...60d928815e33b& heres the standard burst you see the timings


Back to the "Backdash" its something which needs practice like everything else, ofc you shouldnt straight up yolo it, but take example M2S (Dont know if you raided the tier) if its out for Spread/Pairs if you pre posi yourself the Backdash from Reaper and Dragoon is enough to bring you straight in the save zone, M4S for the first Mechanic its the same, the backdash if used right is n absolutly busted movementskill especially in combination with the portal

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Originally Posted by AvoSturmfaust

Back to the "Backdash" its something which needs practice like everything else, ofc you shouldnt straight up yolo it, but take example M2S (Dont know if you raided the tier) if its out for Spread/Pairs if you pre posi yourself the Backdash from Reaper and Dragoon is enough to bring you straight in the save zone, M4S for the first Mechanic its the same, the backdash if used right is n absolutly busted movementskill especially in combination with the portal

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regardless of its niche usefulness,

this is what i want to change about it:

https://i.imgur.com/CUbhB6i.gif

and yes i raided this tier, i got my 10 clears of M4s, just not with reaper.

yea thats something im fine with it, that the skill which you use transforms to the backportal, that would be great just dont remove the backdash

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Originally Posted by AvoSturmfaust

yea thats something im fine with it, that the skill which you use transforms to the backportal, that would be great just dont remove the backdash

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Yes you can keep that in the game, but the problem is that the other ability changes into the Regress teleport instead of the same ability, so you must key bind both of them regardless if you want to use the backwards jump or not.
Maybe that is a better explanation of my problem with this mechanic.

Red Mage had kinda the same problem with "Engagement" & "Displacement"
Displacement had a higher Potency than Engagement, but now it is the same, so you can completely ignore the backwards jump and only use the melee attack instead.

Yea i know what you mean, and i agree with it, if we keep both then the skill you use should change to the teleport back,so you have the wanted skill and the teleport while not needing the different one, and i fully agree to it,would be a great change

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Originally Posted by Arohk

The backwards jump distance is farther than you can see behind your character on max standard zoom.

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Generally after 2-3 times doing a fight you perfectly know which position results in which one, same as say on Red Mage. There's however a different reason Red Mages generally don't backflip, and that is that they're naturally ranged with lots of weaving windows in which they can move.


I mean yes, definitely, combo each teleport into its respective return. That's how it ought to be. But if anything the backwards one is what is more useful. Like during M4S, do you really turn around to teleport forward to your EE2 position? I hope not, you already attack from the correct position so that all you have to do is hit Egress, depending on timing fire that one ranged, then return.

I will say that overall none of these suggestions except the Ingress/Egress->Return combo seems sensible:

* Removing Egress removes the more important skill, and also just removes another unique aspect of one melee DPS with no replacement in job identity.
* Death skills are the "alternative combo", but for this job it's just one skill (compare Warrior 1-2-3 and 1-2-4 or Dragoon 1-2-3-4-5 and 1-2-6-7-5) due to the overall extremely low amount of filler combo Reapers operate with. Removing it makes no sense unless, again, you plan to instead add in another GCD that meshes iwth the main 1-2-3 combo and/or conflicts with it. Plus if you want to remove it, you could just remove it and up every potency, there's no reason to replace it with "Alternative Button Bloat" if bloat is such an issue for you.
* The cooldown between shrouds is a non-issue like someone else said before. Any situation in which it conflicts is a damage loss on a level where whether you can enter shroud again or not really isn't going to be the big problem. Would it be a big problem if removed? Of course not, but it would also push new reapers more towards suboptimal play as Enshroud "feels" like the right thing to do. Forcing players to think about what to do between the double-shroud naturally leads to improving play as they realize how the burst window can or cannot fit.

Square Enix please do no listen to any of the suggestions the original poster made! They would make Reaper much, much worse!

Instead of trying to make the job worse because you consider some skills "inconvenient", what you should be talking about is improvements to Reaper's negative gauge economy.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

Instead of trying to make the job worse because you consider some skills "inconvenient", what you should be talking about is improvements to Reaper's negative gauge economy.

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Uh, as in, make it more negative again, like before? Because right now Reaper has been simplified too much, it's too easy to do your rotation tbh. Especially later-added jobs ideally would be somewhat advanced at least, and in general FFXIV design is woefully too simplistic and static in the gameplay it evokes, which of course is mostly to blame on the 120s burst cycle pushing every job to align with that in its design. But in any case, a base design of "I never have enough" is just as valid as "I'm overflowing" (which with some changes Dancer could for example be), they're both valid types of resource-based gameplay designs instead of the static-rotation we have now.

Of course, right now the design combines the bad parts of each. It's all static rotation but also resource-negative (or well, in as much as you can say that, the rotation is static so there is no resource to manage, it's all just a bit of visual fluff on a static rotation) while also offering none of the inherent gameplay challenges a static rotation should usually bring because both jobs and fights have been designed to make it all as painless as possible and ensure ~100%ish uptime and rotation.

The Resource Negativity has literally no impact at all if you press your button, since harpe and harvestmoon are giving gauge, ofc its different if you just ate the downtime without using harp but thats a skill issue

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Originally Posted by AvoSturmfaust

The Resource Negativity has literally no impact at all if you press your button, since harpe and harvestmoon are giving gauge, ofc its different if you just ate the downtime without using harp but thats a skill issue

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Your rotation does not give you enough Soul gauge for the 10 minute burst window even if you do not miss a single GCD, if you miss a single one it's the 8 minute window instead.
Now you could argue it's not a big deal, but "has literally no impact" is flat out false.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

Your rotation does not give you enough Soul gauge for the 10 minute burst window even if you do not miss a single GCD, if you miss a single one it's the 8 minute window instead.
Now you could argue it's not a big deal, but "has literally no impact" is flat out false.

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It's not that it's not a big deal, rather... yeah? It's designed that way? That's what being resource negative means, the bad part, or big deal, is how it only shows up that late, instead of constantly and the job being fully built around it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

Your rotation does not give you enough Soul gauge for the 10 minute burst window even if you do not miss a single GCD, if you miss a single one it's the 8 minute window instead.
Now you could argue it's not a big deal, but "has literally no impact" is flat out false.

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Keeping your 9min Shroud for your 10min burst, so no impact at all, i would call something a impact if the negativity would give me NO WAY to play my burst but you can still do it without issues

In fact come to think of it, my top-3 wishes for Reaper in order of realistic implementability would be:

1. Make Ingress/Egress auto-chain into the return, as per the OP's post.
2. Considering the limitations on Harvest Moon, buff it slightly: +10y radius, +10 soul gauge, +200 potency, fancier animation of a giaaaaant scythe sweeping through the target area.
3. Make more meaningful gameplay around a negative gauge economy. In an inverse of how resource-based gameplay for MMORPG classes works in other games, (marginally) unreliable expense via certain procs adding cost (but also potency) to things, thereby always starving us, a fitting element for a job called a Reaper. But the overall damage goes up the more starved we are, kinda.

and funny how my change to "Shadow of Death" would also fix the negative gauge problem, since it would be an oGCD then.

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Originally Posted by Arohk

and funny how my change to "Shadow of Death" would also fix the negative gauge problem, since it would be an oGCD then.

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Yes, another reason why it's just not a good idea.

Rpr plays fine, but I would fix 2 things.
1.) Applying wod/mod won't cancel gibbet, Gallows, guillotine.
2.) Soul sow just needs to be the 3rd combo action for aoe. As of right now soul sow just feels like it was thrown in last minute and they didn't even know what to do with it.

I would just give rpr's arcane circle a 5% buff instead of 3%. and SoD being oGCD would be nice.

The compromise of a 5% buff jobs are lower damage and with rpr having around average damage and average 3% buff, puts it in an awkward place.

Regarding the "rpr is easy" comments. Every job is easy if you're just full uptime doing standard against a dummy.
The difficulty is in the management of downtime and not building guage to line your buffs up with the raid putting you into non-standard.

I agree with plentiful harvest hopping into arcane circle button once available and communio into the enshroud button. I dont think it works with perfectio tho, there is a reason why the buff allowing you to perform it is 30s. Its insanely good as uptime tool and situations such as mentioned 10 minute negative gauge burst (which i dont think is that big of a deal anyway) you could want to perform another enshroud before using your perfectio.

My biggest issue with reaper (its not big, but biggest) is the aoe mess. It has mixed circle point blank with halfcircle targeted aoes. It would be less problematic if the halfcircles did not require target or had bigger range.