Anet, how do you play your reapers?

I'm a longtime Reaper main and I'm a bit bored with my berserker/valk gear and wanted to see if some folks from the Anet team could recommend some new play styles/set ups for Reaper in general. I play a lot of Open World PvE, Fractals, and Dungeons.

I've tried Blood Magic, traiting for revives and minor heals through Vamp Presence. I don't feel like I can really do enough sometimes.
I've played around with Death Magic, "Rise!", and Summon Bone Minions, making sort of a tanky minion bomber. I enjoyed this a lot.Still, I can't seem to find a combination of stats that I really enjoy the feel of. Help me out? <3

"Good question! We don't :)"

Going zerk let you randomly swap to core if you want a fresh breather or scourge if you want to mess around with with something different. For most situations though I prefer Valk gear. Although this locks you in to certain traits to make up for the lack of precision It also is pretty pointless to use this gear for any other spec outside of reaper.

Ideally you can get zerker performance while having more hp and a higher LF point pool to soak damage taken given the situation is right. In most open world content that involves a group elite/boss foes will always have 25 vuln meaning free 50% crit chance at all times when you slot decimate defenses.In shroud thats a 100% crit chance if you take the soul reaping trait that gives you a free 50% while in it.Although you are not required to really have more vitality but it helps in some situations without losing too much damage when you take the right traits.

Granted power reaper wont do the most damage under the best situations for most content content and general and trash mobs are just found in open world you will kill pretty quickly. If your preference is to do damage and you dont care about benchmarks on test golems power reaper works just fine with zerk or valk options.

You could also try the condi variant of reaper (There are many options for this) Usually anything with high condi, moderate power, and moderate crit chance or expertise for condi duration will do. Usually go for maxing bleed duration if you can to make the biggest bang for you buck using Deathly chill instead of blighters boon. In soul reaping take dhummfire instead of Death perceptionCondi reaper will get you a bit more damage in longer extended fights but it does take more getting use to and might cost a bit more to fund.

@"Aarkeld.4671" said:"Good question! We don't :)"

Unhelpful.

@ZDragon.3046 said:Going zerk let you randomly swap to core if you want a fresh breather or scourge if you want to mess around with with something different. For most situations though I prefer Valk gear. Although this locks you in to certain traits to make up for the lack of precision It also is pretty pointless to use this gear for any other spec outside of reaper.

Ideally you can get zerker performance while having more hp and a higher LF point pool to soak damage taken given the situation is right. In most open world content that involves a group elite/boss foes will always have 25 vuln meaning free 50% crit chance at all times when you slot decimate defenses.In shroud thats a 100% crit chance if you take the soul reaping trait that gives you a free 50% while in it.Although you are not required to really have more vitality but it helps in some situations without losing too much damage when you take the right traits.

Granted power reaper wont do the most damage under the best situations for most content content and general and trash mobs are just found in open world you will kill pretty quickly. If your preference is to do damage and you dont care about benchmarks on test golems power reaper works just fine with zerk or valk options.

You could also try the condi variant of reaper (There are many options for this) Usually anything with high condi, moderate power, and moderate crit chance or expertise for condi duration will do. Usually go for maxing bleed duration if you can to make the biggest bang for you buck using Deathly chill instead of blighters boon. In soul reaping take dhummfire instead of Death perceptionCondi reaper will get you a bit more damage in longer extended fights but it does take more getting use to and might cost a bit more to fund.

Thanks for the input! I'm using Valk armor with Zerk weapons + trinkets which puts me at 30% crit chance. I take Decimate Defenses (DD) to reach 80%. My mesmer friend supplies me with decent fury uptime. All this let's me take either Soul Reaping's Death Perception or Reaper's DD, but I'm not locked into taking both.I switch out DD with Chilling Victory when taking Soul Reaping's DP.

I like Spite a lot for power reaper for the Vuln on Chill trait and Awaken the Pain, though I swap between Signets grandmaster and the 20% (below 50%) modifier.When not taking Soul Reaping, however, I'm stuck between Death Magic and Blood Magic.Blood = Minion Vamp and sick revives!Death = Minion Bomber and condi removal! With Rise!, Flesh Wurm, Bone Minion, and Flesh Golem I can have a pretty sweet minion army and dps doesn't seem terrible, especially with traited exploding minions.

@Saint Sated.2698 said:

Thanks for the input! I'm using Valk armor with Zerk weapons + trinkets which puts me at 30% crit chance. I take Decimate Defenses (DD) to reach 80%. My mesmer friend supplies me with decent fury uptime. All this let's me take either Soul Reaping's Death Perception or Reaper's DD, but I'm not locked into taking both.I switch out DD with Chilling Victory when taking Soul Reaping's DP.

I like Spite a lot for power reaper for the Vuln on Chill trait and Awaken the Pain, though I swap between Signets grandmaster and the 20% (below 50%) modifier.When not taking Soul Reaping, however, I'm stuck between Death Magic and Blood Magic.Blood = Minion Vamp and sick revives!Death = Minion Bomber and condi removal! With Rise!, Flesh Wurm, Bone Minion, and Flesh Golem I can have a pretty sweet minion army and dps doesn't seem terrible, especially with traited exploding minions.

Every once in a while ill swap out for blood magic just to change things up though its rare i need to do this. Also the the base 30% crit chance is also pretty good its nice being able to swap out a few traits. Chilling victory is good for getting extra life force when paired with blighters boon.

While necros trait lines are a bit lackluster in boosting the skills to their max they are rather interchangeable without being too punishing which is kind of nice.

come on now. if anet played reaper or necro in general they'd know the problems we face. but they are busy playing other classes.

@needbeer.1687 said:they are busy playing other games.

FTFY

@vicious.5683 said:

@needbeer.1687 said:they are busy applying for jobs on other

games

.

We can kind of answer this question based on the recent

Player: Mike Zadorojny - Game Director

Weapon Set: Scepter/Dagger and GreatswordGear stats: Difficult to tell, and I don't want to assume so I won't, but it only has 207 expertise for a start (which may or may not be affected by food)

Traits (That I can confirm from the video):

Curses: Chilling Darkness - Master of Corruption (Epidemic has a 13 second cooldown for them) - Lingering Curse (difficult to tell, I didn't find many instances of them popping shroud)Death Magic: Flesh of the Master - [not sure] - Corrupter's FervorReaper: Relentless Pursuit (based on how long cripples last) - Decimate Defenses (difficult to tell, but based on how little chill is being applies and how little they use Greatsword this is my guess) - Deathly Chill

Observation of build/style: It seems to be a survival focused build, dedicated tor educing damage taken as reducing the duration of control-based conditions to power through content, with the Greatsword there to potentially assist with pulling and stacking mobs. I could attempt to analyze further, but that would require working out rune/stats used, as well as having a trait set proper as opposed to the ones we can determine via observation.

@"Amerikajinn.4635" said:We can kind of answer this question based on the recent

video Anet put up on their YouTube channel:

Player: Mike Zadorojny - Game Director

Weapon Set: Scepter/Dagger and GreatswordGear stats: Difficult to tell, and I don't want to assume so I won't, but it only has 207 expertise for a start (which may or may not be affected by food)

Traits (That I can confirm from the video):

Curses: Chilling Darkness - Master of Corruption (Epidemic has a 13 second cooldown for them) - Lingering Curse (difficult to tell, I didn't find many instances of them popping shroud)Death Magic: Flesh of the Master - [not sure] - Corrupter's FervorReaper: Relentless Pursuit (based on how long cripples last) - Decimate Defenses (difficult to tell, but based on how little chill is being applies and how little they use Greatsword this is my guess) - Deathly Chill

Observation of build/style: It seems to be a survival focused build, dedicated tor educing damage taken as reducing the duration of control-based conditions to power through content, with the Greatsword there to potentially assist with pulling and stacking mobs. I could attempt to analyze further, but that would require working out rune/stats used, as well as having a trait set proper as opposed to the ones we can determine via observation.

That tells you right there that the Game Director doesn't agree with the speed clear META; I've suggested on Reddit many times with the negative Karma to prove it that Hard Core Raiders speed through encounters because they don't want to encounter mechanics and enjoy the encounter the way it's supposed to be.

@Amerikajinn.4635 said:

@Oldirtbeard.9834 said:

@Amerikajinn.4635 said:

@Oldirtbeard.9834 said:

@Amerikajinn.4635 said:We can kind of answer this question based on the recent

video Anet put up on their YouTube channel:

Player: Mike Zadorojny - Game Director

Weapon Set: Scepter/Dagger and GreatswordGear stats: Difficult to tell, and I don't want to assume so I won't, but it only has 207 expertise for a start (which may or may not be affected by food)

Traits (That I can confirm from the video):

Curses: Chilling Darkness - Master of Corruption (Epidemic has a 13 second cooldown for them) - Lingering Curse (difficult to tell, I didn't find many instances of them popping shroud)Death Magic: Flesh of the Master - [not sure] - Corrupter's FervorReaper: Relentless Pursuit (based on how long cripples last) - Decimate Defenses (difficult to tell, but based on how little chill is being applies and how little they use Greatsword this is my guess) - Deathly Chill

Observation of build/style: It seems to be a survival focused build, dedicated tor educing damage taken as reducing the duration of control-based conditions to power through content, with the Greatsword there to potentially assist with pulling and stacking mobs. I could attempt to analyze further, but that would require working out rune/stats used, as well as having a trait set proper as opposed to the ones we can determine via observation.

This is great reply, very well thought out and articulate; the previous reply you kind of came off as a jerk. That said I probably fail at reading moods and intent in text half the time.

I may have been playing this game for almost 5 years, thousands of hours, spent probably hundreds more than a same person would on the Gem Store, how ever that's the extent of my Hard Core behavior. I only do open world events and T1 Fractals (every once in awhile). I've just assumed people doing the high level content are the same people that rip into people on Reddit and the Forums if you're anything but META.

I always assumed the developers intended people to craft builds to play the content to beat it, not Zerg down like a dude chugging a can of beer (I get that's appealing to other players though).

I meant sane not same

Reposting my comment due to it being reported for quoting your comment which in turn quoted my comment that your report got removed.

Regardless, I will reiterate. Is a player that forces others to play to an "optimal" standard bad? I would think so. On the flip side, I would also imply that the kind of player that would force players to intentional clear content slowly to get the "intended" experience to be equally bad. Speed running is not considered a problem, and quite frankly your argument that speeding through an encounter somehow nullifies the intended experience is just as absurd as thinking the choice of a developers build indicates their vision of the game. The inevitable progression of skill levels of players is to initially struggle with a subset of the total mechanics (ie what one would experience in lower tier fractals), then slowly build up their familiarity with an encounter until they can then do it at t2 then 3 then finally 4. Once you have done that, you can then focus on dealing with the mechanics of the fight better.

Take MAMA for example. You can largely focus on dodging her attacks and just dealing dps sparingly when you start out, but as you improve you get a better feel for its attacks and can focus more on how you're damaging it as a result. That can also in turn lead to being able to do more to break its bar more frequently, which in turn leads to doing more damage. A player that plays elementalist can get to this stage, and then through improving their personal skill level can realize that if they use their most powerful abilities during the short period when MAMA's bar is broken they can magnify their damage output, and through changing how they build themselves can in turn run more offensive traits like Tempest's Defense to take advantage of this.

Speed running in all games, not just Guild Wars 2 is the follow through on the natural progression of improvement of one's skill, and it should be celebrated (and already is, look at Charity events like Games Done Quick which relies on the theatrical presentation of a highly skilled player playing the game they love to raise funds to help cure cancer!). On the other hand, demanding that either players should stop doing what they love because it goes against their perception of what the "intended experience" is disappointing indeed.

@Oldirtbeard.9834 said:

@"Amerikajinn.4635" said:Regardless, I will reiterate. Is a player that

forces

others to play to an "optimal" standard bad? I would think so. On the flip side, I would also imply that the kind of player that would force players to intentional clear content slowly to get the "intended" experience to be equally bad. Speed running is not considered a problem, and quite frankly your argument that speeding through an encounter somehow nullifies the intended experience is just as absurd as thinking the choice of a developers build indicates their vision of the game. The inevitable progression of skill levels of players is to initially struggle with a subset of the total mechanics (ie what one would experience in lower tier fractals), then slowly build up their familiarity with an encounter until they can then do it at t2 then 3 then finally 4. Once you have done that, you can then focus on dealing with the mechanics of the fight better.

Take MAMA for example. You can largely focus on dodging her attacks and just dealing dps sparingly when you start out, but as you improve you get a better feel for its attacks and can focus more on how you're damaging it as a result. That can also in turn lead to being able to do more to break its bar more frequently, which in turn leads to doing more damage. A player that plays elementalist can get to this stage, and then through improving their personal skill level can realize that if they use their most powerful abilities during the short period when MAMA's bar is broken they can magnify their damage output, and through changing how they build themselves can in turn run more offensive traits like Tempest's Defense to take advantage of this.

Speed running in all games, not just Guild Wars 2 is the follow through on the natural progression of improvement of one's skill, and it should be celebrated (and already is, look at Charity events like Games Done Quick which relies on the theatrical presentation of a highly skilled player playing the game they love to raise funds to help cure cancer!). On the other hand, demanding that either players should stop doing what they love because it goes against their perception of what the "intended experience" is disappointing indeed.

As someone that indulges in trying to do what I can with my chosen profession to mitigate/combat mechanics in a given fight as efficiently as possible on a build that is not widely considered "META" (ie Condi Reaper), the issue with presuming that everyone that pushes what their class can do to the limit is the kind of person that will rip into others is a similar kind of assumption that those kinds of negative players might make about someone that is not on a "META" class will perform badly. Dealing in absolutes will get one no-where, as will telling others how they should be playing.

Toxic Elitism and players desiring efficiency might not be mutually exclusive, but they most certainly do not automatically equal the same thing either.

I agree, especially with your last statement. I'm slowly coming to terms with that watching some recent TeaTimes, Mighty Teapots round table Streamcast.

Only time I play Reaper is rarely in pve, for casual t4s. Spite/Blood/Reaper, full zerker, gs, a/w. 2 damage wells and sig of spite + heal and elite minions.