Marauder gear for PVE reaper?

[Wintermute.5408]

Returning player here. I've been running Valk gear on my power reaper, relying on Decimate Defenses to hit me up on missing crit chance. Now that Vampiric Rituals got gutted, I found myself using Soul Eater more, which made my crit chance utterly inadequate even in open world - yet alone in fractals. I'm also really low on gold at the moment, so I have to be careful with my reforging choice.

Are there any virtues in Mara gear over Zerker in fractals specifically in case of necro? Does extra lifeforce pool make up for loss in power from your experience?

[Dadnir.5038]

It would be better to have your full build in order to answer your question.

[Infusion.7149]

I would not run marauder gear on a reaper, doubly so in fractals where you have precision from potions.

The only time marauder gear makes sense is when the recommended fractal gear has assassin's and you have a miniscule health pool (read : tempest) versus instabilities. Couple that with the lower damage of reaper on average (when accounting for a quickness firebrand in party) to other classes and then it's a recipe for ineffectiveness.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

@"Wintermute.5408" said:Returning player here. I've been running Valk gear on my power reaper, relying on Decimate Defenses to hit me up on missing crit chance. Now that Vampiric Rituals got gutted, I found myself using Soul Eater more, which made my crit chance utterly inadequate even in open world - yet alone in fractals. I'm also really low on gold at the moment, so I have to be careful with my reforging choice.

Are there any virtues in Mara gear over Zerker in fractals specifically in case of necro? Does extra lifeforce pool make up for loss in power from your experience?

1) If you are running Power Reaper you should run Spite/ Soul Reaping/ Reaper2) Run something like this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSwAc2FlRw0YHMFWJO+WlNfA-zRIYT0xXINVAdGCVkB2eQCj9wbR/ZA-eSwap for Spiteful Talisman if you group has enough Vulnerability for you to not worry about it. Signets of Suffering will help you stay in shroud longer and gives you some sustain while in shroud. Use wells on cooldown. That setup puts 2 vuln per Shroud AA attack and gives you 1 might each time. Proccing Dread will give you fury, although if your group has fury access swap it out for Close to Death to increase DPS.

With fury, max vuln stacks and Death Perception you should be over crit cap while in Shroud. With banners and Spotter and max vuln stacks you should be around 84% crit chance out of shroud. At that point Marauder gear is a waste of money. You'll have more power and ferocity with Valkyrie gear and more HP/Lifeforce because of the extra vitality. The 4 stat gears in general offer more stat points overall, but a PvE Reaper can drop precision altogether leaving Valkyrie being the best gear choice.

If you don't like Spite, Curses offers even more crit chance out of Shroud: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSwAc2FlRw0YHMFWJW2WVNfA-zRIYT0xXINVAdGCVkB2eQCj9wbR/ZA-e

Depending on the condition output of your party you will crit cap outside of shroud when there are maximum vuln stacks. You could swap DP for Eternal Life for the extra protection at that point, or just keep DP for the ferocity boost.

TLDR; Buy Valkyrie gear, take Decimate Defenses + RO + DP and keep vuln maxed out.

[KrHome.1920]

For open world marauder is fine. The sustain is noticeably higher and the overall damage is only 12% lower than berserker, when you are playing without team support. In a team, where your crit chance is capped, you are wasting attributes (you overcap crit chance) when you use marauder gear, so that in these scenarios the damage of marauder is 20% lower than berserker.

But since you are taking about crit chance: even though your crit chance is lower, berserker deals still more damage than marauder. You critical hit 20% less, but when you crititical hit, then you deal 20% more damage.

[Anchoku.8142]

In PvE, I use berserker for all Reaper builds except hybrid condi Reaper where I use viper.In open world, killing things as fast as possible is also a form of sustain.

[KrHome.1920]

@Anchoku.8142 said:In open world, killing things as fast as possible is also a form of sustain.For trash mobs yes, but when you want to solo some champs then even marauder is too squishy for necro. It depends a bit on the mechanic of the specific champ, but generally speaking you will have a hard time with marauder gear and fail hard with berserker gear.

The best gear to solo champs is trailblazer (you can kite while having ~10k dps) and if you hate condi (like me) then wanderer (100% quickness uptime) or soldier (less quickness but more damage), as necro hugely benefits from toughness and vitality and has strong traits to improve critical hit chance and critical damage.

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

Seems i'm bit late to the party. Marauder gear is really nice for becoming independant from decimate defenses. And extra life force helps too. But in your case, you're asking the wrong question. The answer you seek is:

Death Magic

With it you can become insanely sustainable while sacrificing only a little damage. Cut out Soul reaping, and instead choose DM. Go corrupter's fervor grandmaster, as for major choose whichever you like. If you're missing the 20% free crit damage from Soul Reaping, 300 extra strength from Deadly Strength will compensate nicely, especially since it's shroud independant. And if condies are ruining your day, go corrupter's fervor or dark defiance.Obviously be sure to pick bitter chill in spite - your vulni application off chills will stack Carapace for you real fast.Lastly sprinkle some "Rise!" on top and you'll get very, very strong damage mitigation.

Now here's where marauder will really shine. You just lost a lotta crit. But with full marauder you'll have 60% of it out the gate. Add sigil of accuracy for 7% more. Fury from allies (or dread trait) for extra 20%. That's already 87% (actually bit more). Lastly rune of eagle and you're at whooping 96% crit. Last 4% is so small, that some cheap food, fractal pot or infusions can handle it.

That bit of extra crit chance over zerker gear, plus that bit of hp (but with iron wall defenses guarding it) really sells marauder for damaging, yet very sustainable reaper:)

[Yasai.3549]

I use Berserker + some mara.

Works perfectly and can solo champs.