Necromancer - Is There a Build I Don't Know About?

[Folana.9832]

I'm a returning player. So my knowledge might be a little rusty or perhaps it's iust that I don't have the right weapons/armor/slots/accessories. But I've been noticing that there's been a lot more necromancer - reapers around lately. Like mine.. however, unlike mine. They can take damage and deal damage very easily. I was wanting to reach out to the community and see if I could get any pointers of what I might be doing wrong?

[AliamRationem.5172]

Well, the dealing damage part is no secret.  Berserker gear, stack all the damage boosting traits you can, gain quickness in shroud, and spam auto attack for monster DPS in solo play.  I wouldn't say that kind of build is great at soaking damage, though.  They just chew through most open world enemies in a second or two by spamming 1, so they don't need to worry about it.

[Belisaria.8136]

This is my personal open world reaper: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSwAEd3lJkwcaaMhNuqWZjOyWptaA-zRRYBRNXOcQGjR4UoSFYaA-e

It has some quirks in it that are personal preference, like the bit of boon duration and quickness runes/traits just because I like the feel of the perma-quickness.

Really you just want to be in shroud as much as you can be so the life-force can eat all the damage for you. Shroud 3 is a big damage reduction buff, so activate and let it run its full time. You can vastly improve its cooldown time by then auto-attacking a lot in shroud, as autoattack reduces other shroud skill CDs so long as you are using the "Reaper's Onslaught" trait.

When you're not in shroud, the traits "Vital Persistence" and "Soul Eater" combine to give you solid self-heal, "Rise!" and Spectral Armor further mitigate damage, and "You Are All Weaklings!" weakens large groups of mobs.  (If you're dealing with condi-heavy mobs, you can replace Spectral Armor with Spectral Walk)

"Your Soul is Mine!", Spectral Armor, and Greatsword 3/Axe 2/Greatsword auto will quickly rebuild your life-force.

 

All the while, you're inflicting full vulnerability on enemies and critical hitting almost always, so you just shred.

 

For another opinion, here is Metabattle's open world reaper build: https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Reaper_-_Power_Greatsword
 

[Holykitten.3064]

I love my power Reaper for Open world combat, and have used pretty much the same build from HoT through to EoD. I've done strikes with it too.

One thing I hate about some classes/professions in MMO's is pets. So I made my Reaper not use them.

Here's my build. You can also swap out some berserker pieces for Diviner to add concentration, or use more Marauder items for more sustain, but I've found I've not needed it (I also have two stun breaks on my utilities for OW, but do feel free to swap them out for Well of Suffering and Well of Darkness for group content where you're comfy with avoiding stuns).

I use Warhorn as it's more swiftness and has CC on skill 4, again, feel free to use a focus instead of. As you can see, there's a beefy health pool of 21k (and a shroud pool of 19k).

[frareanselm.1925]

5 hours ago, Belisaria.8136 said:

This is my personal open world reaper: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSwAEd3lJkwcaaMhNuqWZjOyWptaA-zRRYBRNXOcQGjR4UoSFYaA-e

It has some quirks in it that are personal preference, like the bit of boon duration and quickness runes/traits just because I like the feel of the perma-quickness.

Really you just want to be in shroud as much as you can be so the life-force can eat all the damage for you. Shroud 3 is a big damage reduction buff, so activate and let it run its full time. You can vastly improve its cooldown time by then auto-attacking a lot in shroud, as autoattack reduces other shroud skill CDs so long as you are using the "Reaper's Onslaught" trait.

When you're not in shroud, the traits "Vital Persistence" and "Soul Eater" combine to give you solid self-heal, "Rise!" and Spectral Armor further mitigate damage, and "You Are All Weaklings!" weakens large groups of mobs.  (If you're dealing with condi-heavy mobs, you can replace Spectral Armor with Spectral Walk)

"Your Soul is Mine!", Spectral Armor, and Greatsword 3/Axe 2/Greatsword auto will quickly rebuild your life-force.

 

All the while, you're inflicting full vulnerability on enemies and critical hitting almost always, so you just shred.

 

For another opinion, here is Metabattle's open world reaper build: https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Reaper_-_Power_Greatsword
 

Does "chilled" from the elite skill counts as "disabling a foe" for the quickness bonus?

[Holykitten.3064]

8 hours ago, frareanselm.1925 said:

Does "chilled" from the elite skill counts as "disabling a foe" for the quickness bonus?

No. Chill is a non-disabling CC effect (also known as soft CC), "Chilled to the bone", stuns for 2 seconds which is where the sigil will (should) trigger.

[Belisaria.8136]

14 hours ago, frareanselm.1925 said:

Does "chilled" from the elite skill counts as "disabling a foe" for the quickness bonus?

As Haleydawn mentioned, the stun part of the elite does, but it can also be triggered by Greatsword 5 (pull) and by ending shroud 3's buff early (fear).

[Jukhy.2431]

I'm using the build Belisaria mentioned: https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Reaper_-_Power_Greatsword

In open world solo play I run the minion master variant. It's easy to play, doesn't get downed much and esp the flesh golem pulls aggro away quite nicely. In longer group events I might switch to the normal dps version since I have it saved on another build layout.

[Misterbrady.2167]

In a group where everyone is working together, I feel confident enough to run Reaper with Spite/Soul Reaping.  But if I need survivability, like in overworld/solo content I often switch replace Spite with Death Magic for the regeneration in Shroud. That is sufficient for most situations, and when it isn't enough it's because I accidentally walked into a group challenge (and that's a me thing).

Edit: I also use the shout 'Rise' in trash cleave situations because is spawns a bunch of little horrors and gives Protection while they're out.

Edited April 27, 2022 by Misterbrady.2167

[XECOR.2814]

maybe they are just taking less hits than you.

[Shadowmoon.7986]

Soul eater and pulsing blinds. 

When you know the dps rotation, you will do more damage and get more of the 4% healing you get. With two sources of pulsing aoe blind, you will take very little hits for around 5s, which is enough time to kill most trash mobs.

[Lily.1935]

I think it might have to do with people gaining access to more Ascended and legendary armor as time progresses. Reaper is actually less tanky now than it used to be due to a hit to the shroud's passive 50% damage reduction going down to 33%.

But reaper has quite a few nice damage reducers already, with a 20% damage reduction from infusing terror along with their high self healing from soul eater. But that's not their only benefits they've gotten over the years. Well of darkness has given them another powerful damage well which also pulses chill and blind making it ideal for the reaper in PvE.

This is my open world build. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSxEcEWoMB2BTh5xKxx2qsZD-zRIYR09XG1mCVUB2OA-e

Access to quickness outside of reaper's shroud is a blessing and bitter chill is actually far more efficient for stacking vuln on foes which has proven to me to result in better damage in open world than spiteful talisman (Most the time, but this is only true against trash mobs and boon spam enemies in later maps.)

Depending on how long you've been gone, reaper has actually got a lot of damage buffs too, although they're not great damage dealers, they are one of the best power damage classes in open world due to their superb access to self quickness.

Here's the other 2 builds I use for open world, since I don't typically run as a reaper. Depends on situation and mood. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSBFs81aYZEMQMNGJWsX1PTA-zRJYmxfh0SIkbF0RCI8A-e Pretty much identical to the raid build. I'm super comfortable on necromancer so I don't usually use stunbreaks, the reaper build being an exception . The second one is http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSBBoitjlhyAZpMWWLWsX1xVA-zRRYmxyQOc5FSlRQuFQHpg3DA-e My quickbringer build which I will more often run in open world than condi harbinger due to its high access to quickness. The other harbinger build doesn't stand up to the extremely strong burst potential of scourge due to several factors which most players might not consider. Of course most players don't run BiP in open world.

I don't have an issue running any type of necromancer in open world. Even harbinger. I think that players are just getting better at the game and have better gear.