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Looking for some feedback on a solo casual Reaper build I put together.


Aniketos.1450

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Hey guys!

The title says it all. I created a casual build I think is pretty good for light ranked play and mostly non-ranked. Seems to be pretty fun so far I just wanted to get some feed back on the build itself and information on other talents that may offer a better usefulness to the play style. I'm currently having a blast with this build and sometimes like to run the Vampirism runes instead.

Here is a link to the build.gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBhOD7kjGo2Gs4Gw1GgeTsgLYQXtAQLgqL0GeWxZxuYYE-jpRHQBkY/BAcBAY4BBIcHBAA+AAwXZAA

I did want to try to better understand Vitality vs. Toughness for Reaper. If I'm understanding this correctly more vitality = more life force pool but does that hp get affected by toughness and if so would marauder make more sense as an amulet or does demolisher? I guess what I'm asking is which stat offers more Effective HP overall?

Again any feedback is appreciated. Thanks!

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@"Aniketos.1450" said:Hey guys!

The title says it all. I created a casual build I think is pretty good for light ranked play and mostly non-ranked. Seems to be pretty fun so far I just wanted to get some feed back on the build itself and information on other talents that may offer a better usefulness to the play style. I'm currently having a blast with this build and sometimes like to run the Vampirism runes instead.

Here is a link to the build.gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBhOD7kjGo2Gs4Gw1GgeTsgLYQXtAQLgqL0GeWxZxuYYE-jpRHQBkY/BAcBAY4BBIcHBAA+AAwXZAA

I did want to try to better understand Vitality vs. Toughness for Reaper. If I'm understanding this correctly more vitality = more life force pool but does that hp get affected by toughness and if so would marauder make more sense as an amulet or does demolisher? I guess what I'm asking is which stat offers more Effective HP overall?

Again any feedback is appreciated. Thanks!

Don't bother with vamp runes, you won't kill enough people for it to matter.

First of all take my advice with grain of salt, I haven't played in a few seasons but I was plat, so my information is probably outdated but hopefully it can provide bit of thought.

Most people run reaper's onslaught. The whole deal with Reaper right now is that you are a squishy melee dps. You can wipe an entire team if they don't pay attention but that becomes more and more rare as you go higher up in the ranks.

Staff is an alternative to greatsword, it is used solely to provide a bit of condi cleanse, general annoyance and LF build up. If you do take it then you are going to use shroud for most of your damage and axe to complement.

Consider decimate defense if you do not take blighter's boon. Chilling nova is better IIRC on average, chill is a really strong condition.

Vital persistance is bad 99% of the time. Either take soul barbs or I saw some uses with spectral ring and fear of death. Provides some decent LF gain.

Holbrak is fine, I think there is an alternative but I don't know what people run these days. Demolisher vs marauder for me depends entirely on how many condi users I am facing as vitality is a bit better than toughness against condi. The extra HP does get affected by toughness but you also have to remember the more HP you have the more you have to heal too in order to reach max.

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@Warscythes.9307 said:Don't bother with vamp runes, you won't kill enough people for it to matter.

First of all take my advice with grain of salt, I haven't played in a few seasons but I was plat, so my information is probably outdated but hopefully it can provide bit of thought.

Most people run reaper's onslaught. The whole deal with Reaper right now is that you are a squishy melee dps. You can wipe an entire team if they don't pay attention but that becomes more and more rare as you go higher up in the ranks.

Staff is an alternative to greatsword, it is used solely to provide a bit of condi cleanse, general annoyance and LF build up. If you do take it then you are going to use shroud for most of your damage and axe to complement.

Consider decimate defense if you do not take blighter's boon. Chilling nova is better IIRC on average, chill is a really strong condition.

Vital persistance is bad 99% of the time. Either take soul barbs or I saw some uses with spectral ring and fear of death. Provides some decent LF gain.

Holbrak is fine, I think there is an alternative but I don't know what people run these days. Demolisher vs marauder for me depends entirely on how many condi users I am facing as vitality is a bit better than toughness against condi. The extra HP does get affected by toughness but you also have to remember the more HP you have the more you have to heal too in order to reach max.

Hey, I took your advice on a few things and I'm having a lot of fun with the build. I swapped over to Reaper's Onslaught but stuck with Chilling Victory over Decimate Defenses. I also started using Soul Barb for more burst so health management is pretty raw since I don't really have too great of healing outside of my Consume Conditions.Still trying to fill that as I like to have a way to heal in fights outside of teammates.

I decided against the staff and I'm enjoying the GS with this setup a lot more. Once I come out of Reaper form I actually still hit like a truck thanks to the Might duration from Hoelbrak and chilling enemy's. I'm usually 25 Might and they have 25 Vulnerability then I still get a 10% damage buff from leaving the form and my GS 2 ability his for upwards of 12k+ after already having to deal with me as a Reaper.

I started running Demolisher as well but kept the sigils.

Thanks for all the input it really changed the play style but allowed me to start winning in 1v2-3 fights.

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@Aniketos.1450 said:I did want to try to better understand Vitality vs. Toughness for Reaper. If I'm understanding this correctly more vitality = more life force pool but does that hp get affected by toughness and if so would marauder make more sense as an amulet or does demolisher? I guess what I'm asking is which stat offers more Effective HP overall?

Life force does in fact benefit from toughness. Similar to health points, toughness reduces the power damage you take. Choosing between demolisher and marauder depends on the team composition. If the enemy has more condition players, go with marauder. If it has more power players (which is very likely), go with demolisher. Or do what I do and use paladin's amulet. I know it slightly reduces your damage but it makes you very tanky, combining the increased life force with the toughness that reduces power damage is great.

As for my thoughts on the builds, it's solid. Hoelbrak runes are a fine choice if you're fighting condition professions. The sigils are fine for the most part, revocation is an odd choice but you're free to use it if you want. Since the build focuses a lot on applying chill and vulnerability, try using Spiteful Talistman instead of Bitter Chill in Spite and Unyielding Blast instead of Speed of Shadows in Reaper. Unyielding Blast applies 1 stack of vulnerability less than Bitter Chill, but it lasts longer and it's easier to stack vulnerability by auto attacking in reaper's shroud rather than having to apply chill of which your build only has 6 skills, the majority of them having long cooldowns: Chilling Scythe (greatsword's 3rd attack chain), Grasping Darkness (greatsword 5), Spectral Grasp, Chilled to the Bone, Terrify (reaper's shroud 3, but don't use it please) and Executioner's Scythe (reaper's shroud 5) .

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@"Aniketos.1450" said:Hey guys!

The title says it all. I created a casual build I think is pretty good for light ranked play and mostly non-ranked. Seems to be pretty fun so far I just wanted to get some feed back on the build itself and information on other talents that may offer a better usefulness to the play style. I'm currently having a blast with this build and sometimes like to run the Vampirism runes instead.

Here is a link to the build.gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBhOD7kjGo2Gs4Gw1GgeTsgLYQXtAQLgqL0GeWxZxuYYE-jpRHQBkY/BAcBAY4BBIcHBAA+AAwXZAA

I did want to try to better understand Vitality vs. Toughness for Reaper. If I'm understanding this correctly more vitality = more life force pool but does that hp get affected by toughness and if so would marauder make more sense as an amulet or does demolisher? I guess what I'm asking is which stat offers more Effective HP overall?

Again any feedback is appreciated. Thanks!

That's some solid silver division build. Reason: Its trait arrangement is outdated and you are ignoring some strong synergy options.

  • Onslaught outclasses Blighter's Boon currently. The game has become extremely fast paced overall. You are too slow in shroud without quickness to be a threat.
  • Reaper recently got some really nice condi cleanse options resulting in YSIM! outperforming Consume Conditions when you run Spectral Walk and Sigil of Cleansing.
  • Rentless Pursuit, Speed of Shadows and Spectral Walk are redundant for condi cleansing in shroud. Drop RP and take one of the other 2 traits (think about YSIM! when traiting Augury of Death).
  • Spectral Grasp is a very gimmicky utility skill and often useless (most builds have at least one passive sunbreak or stability source nullifying SG). I would replace it with a condi cleanse (Suffer!, Plague Signet) and go for YSIM! instead of Consume Conditions for more healing (YSIM! + Augury of Death is great on Demolisher!).
  • I would replace Sigil of Doom (more or less useless without cover conditions) with Sigil of Energy or Cleansing.
  • Chilling Victory is bad in PvP due to the 2s cooldown. It won't save the underpowered Blighter's Boon trait anyway. Better use one of the other two traits. I recommend Soul Eater as you don't run Focus.

These were some of the synergies you ignored, but which would raise your build to at least gold divison standards.

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@Aniketos.1450 said:

@Warscythes.9307 said:Don't bother with vamp runes, you won't kill enough people for it to matter.

First of all take my advice with grain of salt, I haven't played in a few seasons but I was plat, so my information is probably outdated but hopefully it can provide bit of thought.

Most people run reaper's onslaught. The whole deal with Reaper right now is that you are a squishy melee dps. You can wipe an entire team if they don't pay attention but that becomes more and more rare as you go higher up in the ranks.

Staff is an alternative to greatsword, it is used solely to provide a bit of condi cleanse, general annoyance and LF build up. If you do take it then you are going to use shroud for most of your damage and axe to complement.

Consider decimate defense if you do not take blighter's boon. Chilling nova is better IIRC on average, chill is a really strong condition.

Vital persistance is bad 99% of the time. Either take soul barbs or I saw some uses with spectral ring and fear of death. Provides some decent LF gain.

Holbrak is fine, I think there is an alternative but I don't know what people run these days. Demolisher vs marauder for me depends entirely on how many condi users I am facing as vitality is a bit better than toughness against condi. The extra HP does get affected by toughness but you also have to remember the more HP you have the more you have to heal too in order to reach max.

Hey, I took your advice on a few things and I'm having a lot of fun with the build. I swapped over to Reaper's Onslaught but stuck with Chilling Victory over Decimate Defenses. I also started using Soul Barb for more burst so health management is pretty raw since I don't really have too great of healing outside of my Consume Conditions.Still trying to fill that as I like to have a way to heal in fights outside of teammates.

I decided against the staff and I'm enjoying the GS with this setup a lot more. Once I come out of Reaper form I actually still hit like a truck thanks to the Might duration from Hoelbrak and chilling enemy's. I'm usually 25 Might and they have 25 Vulnerability then I still get a 10% damage buff from leaving the form and my GS 2 ability his for upwards of 12k+ after already having to deal with me as a Reaper.

I started running Demolisher as well but kept the sigils.

Thanks for all the input it really changed the play style but allowed me to start winning in 1v2-3 fights.

Sure thing.

I don't really feel too comfortable talking about builds since I am not too sure how behind I am. So here is a PvP tip that most new players probably don't know. Especially if you want to use greatsword instead of staff.

Weapon stowing, this is particularly good with reapers due to the slow cast time. You see in GW2 stowing weapon will interrupt your current action. For example if you are a Ranger using whirling defense, you can cancel it with stowing your weapon. If you stow the weapon before the skill is actually cast, it will go on a 3(might be 4?) second cooldown instead of the original cooldown. So for example if you are trying to cast gravedigger/chilled to the bone and the thief already ported out, you can stow to reduce the cd from 8 to 3 if the skill is not casted yet.

More importantly in this case is that stowing your weapon removes the aftercast. What I mean by this is that a lot of weapon skill have a cast, skill animation and aftercast time. Have you ever tried to use greatsword 5 and then follow up with a greatsword 3 but the combo is coming out slowly? Well if you stow your greatsword immediately after the claws come out and press 3, you will perform the combo much faster and thus easier to land those hits. This works with gravedigger as well, nightfall is bit of a special case where it somehow does it for you. If you ever notice that you can gs5-gs4 much more fluid than gs5-gs3, that is the reason.

This applies to many other different skills as well, so try those out and see what you can do.

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After the consideration of all the suggestions I came up with a revised build.I haven't gotten to test it yet as a I have friend in town currently but I wanted to see what you guys felt about the revision.

gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBhOD7kZTo2Gs4GwcTgeTsgLYQDgAQLg6MEHeWxVxtYZE-jpxHAB2XGw/HAAAHEAN2f47jAgyXAAA

Strength runes are just for burst. I don't mind changing em or running paly. Mostly I'm focused on Skills, Sigils, and Specializations.

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@"Aniketos.1450" said:After the consideration of all the suggestions I came up with a revised build.I haven't gotten to test it yet as a I have friend in town currently but I wanted to see what you guys felt about the revision.

gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBhOD7kZTo2Gs4GwcTgeTsgLYQDgAQLg6MEHeWxVxtYZE-jpxHAB2XGw/HAAAHEAN2f47jAgyXAAA

Strength runes are just for burst. I don't mind changing em or running paly. Mostly I'm focused on Skills, Sigils, and Specializations.

I haven't read it but I'd put it on hold. There's a patch coming next Tuesday which can potentially change a few things.

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@Warscythes.9307 said:

I haven't read it but I'd put it on hold. There's a patch coming next Tuesday which can potentially change a few things.

I just read over them right after I posted it and I think the changes actually just make my build even stronger. I still dont know if I'll go focus or warhorn but for the weekend I'm gonna run this while I do my prelims. :D

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