Reaper is a complete fail

[Asylumist]

I will first say I really enjoy reaper, because it encourages team play, slows down the game and brings back roles to the group. This is what made DDO enjoyable... to some. DDO eventually go to the point of a self heal, screw everyone else in the party- mentality. Now this is going to be a rant of a sort, specific only to Cannith server. I have played Khyber and found plenty of at level reaper groups for full xp. On Cannith all i see is -50% groups that still insist on reaper with bb xp. Seriously, rxp is so small, why on earth would you run at -50%. I have yet to see any at level groups posted. It seems like people are back to the same old DDO trope of soloing content. I was hoping reaper made grouping fun again, as at level full reaper groups ARE doable and ARE fun. The lfm is fractured as ever now, but I just cant figure out why you wouldnt want to do reaper at full xp. Is it that its too difficult? I have heard a lot of people have complained that they didnt match reaper with bb levels. Is this really that hard to figure out? It seems people just like to complain. This game is getting more frustrating but not because of standing stone, but because of narrow minded pessimists. I have posted for reaper 1 base level and left it for hours... and... its not because i have an enemy list or I suck, I am a legend toon, capable of reaper. Maybe its because people dont "recognize" my character, but that is some weak reasoning to not party. With a pug of 6 people, reaper one is completely doable. How do I know? I have done it on Khyber a ton of times. What is up Cannith?

... Isn't it obvious... Cannith is the first server newer players join. By their second or third life they usually don't have the numbers of quests necessary to compensate for the extra xp required, so they will gladly run reaper 1 or 2 levels higher to get a reaper completion and then run elite later. I do it because after 6 or so Reaper points you can manage to actually be of value in R1 on just about any well-built toon... thats assuming you have a few tomes under your stat belt. Join their runs so they can catch up for crying out loud if you have the gear and pl's to run R3 or R4 at level then get a static group to run with. I give no craps about reaper xp since I am more concerned with heroic xp. Reason being is I don't have the PL's to ever have a chance of being of any value in R5+ and have no interest in farming 25 million reaper xp for the reaper rewards with my current character power. I've rolled mythic weapon boosts +4 on R2 runs so as far as gear improvements thats not too high on my list either. Frankly i wish they would get rid of the level penalty in reaper entirely to encourage more grouping with pugs.

[Bertoz]

This game is dead.

Yup and reaper helped to kill it.

[fatherpirate]

Here is the irony of this thread.
Reapers are easy to plan for and at r-1 or 2 doable for solo
I like reapers because you get 1 and at the most 2 at a time.

Reapers should not kill you.

Champions kill you. why?

Because unlike reapers who are added (1 or 2) usually,
Champions are a percentage chance - meaning if there is a
mass of 10 trash kobalds in a spot, on reaper level your likely
to have HALF (5) spawn as champions and your party is dead in seconds.

If your in reaper levels, champions should be disabled

Having a random chance of instant kill is not a challenge, it is just punishment for playing.

[BlackheartAmbassador]

Having a random chance of instant kill is not a challenge, it is just punishment for playing.

But the "top" players think it is a challenge.

The same "top" players that already quit the game.

[BlackheartFiendBlood]

SSG, punishment for playing since turbine.

[BlackheartFiendBlood]

Are you fixing the fear reaper dots in this pacth today?

Fix is not priority?

[Turtlsdown]

Reaper is supposed to be a challenge but in less than a week some groups completed r10 raids.

Several r10 groups completed in the first day.

Absurd grind for the reaper enhancs.

Make us refarm and recraft slavers for new reaper items is unbelievable.

Groups excluding 1 playstyle(melee) because it's easier to kite it with ranged/casters.

Annoying fear reapers that gives a stack damage even if you are not close to the reaper.

Mobs can 1 shot you if they are champs even in r1 with spells that hits the target multiple times like magic missiles and meteor swarm.

Self heal reduce in reaper is specially punitive for melees and most of ppl don't play healers even if their class icon is cleric or fvs.

They are tanks or casters not healers, make us sit and wait for a healer is bad.

Require a cc caster is fine but sometimes it takes long to find a good one.

Re-apply the death timer when you move away from you stone is a huge fail.

Quests are getting locked out if the groups are full and someone leaves or dc nobody is able to get inside the quest.

I've been playing this game for 8 years, i had 2 raid healer(a cleric and a fvs) for 6 years but tr'ed then into warlocks because there's no point to have a raid healer if people are taking 24k damage in 1 hit.

I'm not quitting the game yet but every update makes me play less, it makes the game more annoying for me.

I'm playing mostly r1 because it's not really hard but the self heal reduce is really annoying if you solo.

Don't tell me that i should be grouping, i like to solo and i should be able to do so.

I'll never spend a dollar in this game again if melees continue to be treated as second class like this.

I'm not a native english speaker here sorry for typos and all.

Stop playing reaper. If you don't like it, that means it wasn't meant for you. It's an optional game mode. All other game modes (ie: challenges, raids, elite questing) are still there and still viable. Problem solved!

[Enoach]

It's not optional if it gives more xp and a new level of ret@rded power creep.

Well with the amount of XP in the game, the only difference between Elite and Reaper comes down to time. I had friends/guildmates that were waiting on the Reincarnation Timer since Reincarnation was implemented.

As for the power creep - While I'm not a fan of the Enhancements as what wanting this to be limited to cosmetic, my biggest issue is the cores that are usable outside of Reaper.

[Gratch]

I like Reaper. 1 skull is extra challenge for extra heroic xp. Many quests needed extra challenge. (this is from a solo viewpoint).
Get in a group and you can continue to increase the challenge.

The trees and items (I've only gotten a few +ReaperBonus and don't really hunt for them) are more just there... I guess. But that wouldn't make it a fail in my book.

If I had to quibble the worst part of reaper is splitting the vets running BB and those running 0 penalty reaper. If they merged those level limits (even if they subtracted one for BB and added one for Reaper) it would promote grouping and my quibble would be gone.

[Kza]

I like Reaper. 1 skull is extra challenge for extra heroic xp. Many quests needed extra challenge. (this is from a solo viewpoint).
Get in a group and you can continue to increase the challenge.

The trees and items (I've only gotten a few +ReaperBonus and don't really hunt for them) are more just there... I guess. But that wouldn't make it a fail in my book.

If I had to quibble the worst part of reaper is splitting the vets running BB and those running 0 penalty reaper. If they merged those level limits (even if they subtracted one for BB and added one for Reaper) it would promote grouping and my quibble would be gone.

This is Exactly My thoughts also! Reaper is fun and good But plz make it easier get groups. Plz do this!

[Chai]

It's not optional if it gives more xp and a new level of ret@rded power creep.

While this in and of itself is not necessarily entitlement based, this thought process is indeed where the entitlement mentality stems from. People will claim its not optional because it has something in it they cannot get unless they can complete the difficulty on their own terms, which is usually a set of very outlier terms, like solo 100% of the time, dont want any other tier gating (have to PL and gear to play in the setting) or have to have any level of system mastery to play in the highest difficulty setting(s). This eventually leads to the top difficulty settings becoming too easy for the top end, been there and done that, players. The issue with this is the top setting being too easy means top end players having no options, while if the top end is too hard for some, they have something to strive for, and have other options like playing on a lower setting until ready if they dont like the top end setting(s).

[Amundir]

Chai is Sev?

[Thrudh]

If I had to quibble the worst part of reaper is splitting the vets running BB and those running 0 penalty reaper. If they merged those level limits (even if they subtracted one for BB and added one for Reaper) it would promote grouping and my quibble would be gone.

I agree. They really need to change this.

[Bargol]

I like reaper...its an interesting challenge. It currently does seem to favor ranged over melee, but that does not mean a melee cant run it. Perhaps some tweaks should be made to benefit melee in reaper.

That said the comments saying Reaper being to hard, not hard enough, or any other argument isnt really the largest problem with repear.

The big issue is that the continuation of player segregation is a problem. I don't mean the good verses bad players. I mean we now have thirty levels (1 thru 20 heroic and 20 thru 30 epic) and since repear each of those thirty levels has an additional 10 levels of reaper possible. This makes grouping even more of a challenge because you not only have to be within a narrow level range to group together, but you also have to be ready/ or willing to run the same difficulty (normal,hard, elitc, R1 thru R10).

That is the big flaw of reaper. It wouldn't be a problem for a newer game with a very large population, but DDO is a very old game with a fairly low population.

To prevent further erosion of the player base grouping limitations need to be tweeked to encourage grouping more rather then the current direction of splintering the player base. It probably should have been a single difficulty that scales to the highest player entering, or there should have not been any enhancements or additional rewards. Then you would run it purely for the challenge and nothing else. Most people run it for the benefits or rewards, not the challenge.

[Aselrik]

Self heal reduce in reaper is specially punitive for melees and most of ppl don't play healers even if their class icon is cleric or fvs.

3 past lives of Paladin help a lot. For soloing, 3 past lives of Druid and a healer hireling help a lot.

I don't think you can be a very good melee without at least 5 levels of Paladin (Knight of the Chalice) or the Tier 3 Vistani, so that you can become immune to Negative Energy. Paladin also becomes immune to fear and disease.

I think your best bet for a solo reaper melee would be 18 levels Paladin and something like 2 rogue/artificer, or 1 rogue/artificer and 1 level FVS (double +mana). Don't raise Str, instead raise Int and take the Harper enhancements for Int damage/attack, as well as healing amp. I would also take augment summoning and the harper enhancements for better summonings. At epic levels, I'd twist the Dryad from Shiradai Champion. I might also twist some of the other Hireling boosts.

There might be other great builds out there, but I've done the above and it was by far my toughest character, and I could do traps.

[Dulk]

Chai is Sev?

Who else would blame the players for his stupid mistakes?

[Dulk]

I like reaper...its an interesting challenge. It currently does seem to favor ranged over melee, but that does not mean a melee cant run it. Perhaps some tweaks should be made to benefit melee in reaper.

That said the comments saying Reaper being to hard, not hard enough, or any other argument isnt really the largest problem with repear.

The big issue is that the continuation of player segregation is a problem. I don't mean the good verses bad players. I mean we now have thirty levels (1 thru 20 heroic and 20 thru 30 epic) and since repear each of those thirty levels has an additional 10 levels of reaper possible. This makes grouping even more of a challenge because you not only have to be within a narrow level range to group together, but you also have to be ready/ or willing to run the same difficulty (normal,hard, elitc, R1 thru R10).

That is the big flaw of reaper. It wouldn't be a problem for a newer game with a very large population, but DDO is a very old game with a fairly low population.

To prevent further erosion of the player base grouping limitations need to be tweeked to encourage grouping more rather then the current direction of splintering the player base. It probably should have been a single difficulty that scales to the highest player entering, or there should have not been any enhancements or additional rewards. Then you would run it purely for the challenge and nothing else. Most people run it for the benefits or rewards, not the challenge.

Yeah, it was supposed to be a challenge but it is nothing but more stupid melee nerfs.

[FiendishCrusher]

So was the play at normal level to get full reaper xp fixed yet?

Was charm fixed so it is not the only tatic for reaper?

Did SSG stop the absurd power creep?

[SirValentine]

So was the play at normal level to get full reaper xp fixed yet?

"Fixed" would imply SSG admitting it was a mistake in the first place. It hasn't changed.

Was charm fixed so it is not the only tatic for reaper?

Charm hasn't been "fixed" or changed; it's still a useful tactic in reaper. But it's not the only tactic, and often not even the best tactic.

Did SSG stop the absurd power creep?

Nope, they're rushing ahead with even more. It's like they're deliberately trying to destroy the game.

[mr420247]

When charms do more stupid dps then player characters on r10 that is a total fail

When epic casters have no decent lvl 28 epic spell feat at all let alone reaper that is a total fail

When all caster spells are still hard capped for 20 from 10 years ago and some have no slas

And no casters have any real regen options unlike monks doin 40k dps free w unlimited regen that is a total fail

Melees ranged have double shot strike melee ranged and full passes not the half assed caster passes so far

That is a total fail DPS casters deserve double cast for 1