Any tips for Reaper in open world?

[Zorbius.2706]

Hello,

I apologize in advance for my bad English.

Right now I'm focused on making open world content, so I'd appreciate reading opinions about it.

I'm playing Reaper with a berserker set and Spite and Soul Reaping traits, but I feel very weak (used to playing guardian). I've tried to change Spite for Blood Magic, but... the change doesn't make up for it.

I play with Greatsword, Axe/focus and I'm not thinking about changing the weapon set, I like them too much.

I've thought about a Marauder set, with this configuration http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PS0Ac2FlJw8YKsNWJeWXnNbA-DSJYiR3/ZkpUInVgZvFEgA2DvF9PjAA-e Lots of health and toughness stacks

I haven't tried it yet, I was just playing with the Build Editor.

Regarding elite skills, the one I find most expendable is Spectral Gasp due to its high cooldown, but I admit that it is useful. I would prefer not to change the rest, but I am open to it.

What do you think? What to change? Is it viable?

Greetings and thank you very much.

 

[Joxer.6024]

https://snowcrows.com/builds/open-world/necromancer

 

[Ryndor.2081]

Running this atm : http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSwEwkFtMB2Bzh5xKxR2qtpD-DSZYBh+eLEIxoDKjIShKqAb/PAAA-e

• Dread in spite allows you to provide fury to yourself (usefull when not with other players) by fearing. Fear is sword 5, shroud 3 flip skill. Dread also reduced the cooldown of shroud 3 when a mob is killed, so you can use shroud 3 damage reduction and shroud 3 flip skill for fear a lot.
• Fear of death in soulreaping gives you life force when fearing. This allows you to stay in shroud longer.
• Chilling victory in reaper gives you life  force when hitting a chilled enemy. And since fearing also chills (reaper shivers of dead), this can proc a lot.

Before spear, I was using GS. This build performs very well against multiple mobs (there have to be deaths around you), not so much for soloing champions, I use cele harbinger for that. Sword offhand is needed imo to be able to open the fight with sword 5 for fear (fury on self). Sword mainhand can be replaced by axe if you want.

Utilities are personal preference. The ones you have will work fine.

I used wayfinder relic for the movement speed, but you can use whatever you want. For gear, full marauder could works as well. Just make sure to have 75% crit without fury. With fury this becomes 100%.

 

Edited August 28 by Ryndor.2081

[Dharknite.7906]

This is build I am currently using.  http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSwEwkFtMCWGzhhxKxxbqrVB-DSJYiKZfeKQhHClIv+kCRoCM7bBWCeZDA-e     I was inspired by perforate to focus on a life steal build. While I don't using when I am facing champs, the sustain and damage is great for the open world.

1. The barrier generation from all the life steal using Blood Bank is great and allow me to take on multiple mobs at a time without to much worry. With Signets of Suffering,  Signet of Locus becomes  a really nice oh crap button in causes I get little over zealous.  This combined with with Signet of Vampirism and Augury of death makes fighting a crowd of npc kind of fun.

2. Despite the tooltip, both the healing and life force from Blighter's boon work in and out of shroud. Since the build has Reaper's Might from Spite, life force is generated in shroud. This means I can spend more time in shroud. ( How I weep for the old Signets of Suffering)  I could probably replace Soul Eater with Chilling Victory for even more  might, life force ,healing in shroud.  Blighter's boon also makes a " You are all weaklings" a decent heal because of the healing from might generation. 

 

 

 

[Asum.4960]

Don't go Blood Magic, it's a trap Traitline which sacrifices far too much DPS for far, far too little sustain - meaning longer fights, meaning more incoming damage, meaning even more need for even greater sustain, etc. Beyond that, Blood Bank is an incredibly flawed design which only provides decent value in Barrier when you are taking very low pressure and can remain at max health, hence when you don't need that sustain. Then as soon as you really need your sustain to actually kick in as you are getting pressured, that's exactly when Blood Bank fails as a sustain Trait. 

7 hours ago, Ryndor.2081 said:

Running this atm : http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSwEwkFtMB2Bzh5xKxR2qtpD-DSZYBh+eLEIxoDKjIShKqAb/PAAA-e

• Dread in spite allows you to provide fury to yourself (usefull when not with other players) by fearing. Fear is sword 5, shroud 3 flip skill. Dread also reduced the cooldown of shroud 3 when a mob is killed, so you can use shroud 3 damage reduction and shroud 3 flip skill for fear a lot.
• Fear of death in soulreaping gives you life force when fearing. This allows you to stay in shroud longer.
• Chilling victory in reaper gives you life  force when hitting a chilled enemy. And since fearing also chills (reaper shivers of dead), this can proc a lot.

Before spear, I was using GS. This build performs very well against multiple mobs (there have to be deaths around you), not so much for soloing champions, I use cele harbinger for that. Sword offhand is needed imo to be able to open the fight with sword 5 for fear (fury on self). Sword mainhand can be replaced by axe if you want.

Utilities are personal preference. The ones you have will work fine.

I used wayfinder relic for the movement speed, but you can use whatever you want. For gear, full marauder could works as well. Just make sure to have 75% crit without fury. With fury this becomes 100%.

 

Is pretty much on point - the only thing I'd change for solo/OW play is swapping out his Scholar Runes for Surging to get the base Movespeed QoL instead from there (Or use Locust Signet, or waste Spectral Walk proactively for Swiftness), and then use the Zakiros Relic for increased sustain, as well as Soul Eater in Reaper. 

If you need even more sustain, run Dagger/Sword + Spear - although I also prefer the Sword 3 mobility and optionally range of Sword MH myself, so I'd also recommend his setup first. 

Utilities I'd probably broadly recommend Well of Darkness/Spectral Armor (one is better trash defense and DPS, the other better against Defiant foes), Spectral Grasp for general trash pull and CC Utility and Spectral Walk for cleanse and traversal Utility.

As present in Ryndor's Build, Reaper's Might, Dread, Unyielding Blast, Death Perception and Reaper's Onslaught are pretty much mandatory for Power Reaper - that package allows you to Crit Cap, apply both Might and Vuln and gain Quickness. Everything else plummets your DPS far too much, and "alternatives" such as BM, as mentioned above, are just far too low value at far to great cost. You are better off scaling up your damage, reducing time to kill and with that need for sustain, as well as then scaling your sustain off of your damage with options such as Zakiros Relic and Soul  Eater.

[KrHome.1920]

15 hours ago, Asum.4960 said:

Don't go Blood Magic, it's a trap Traitline which sacrifices far too much DPS for far, far too little sustain - meaning longer fights, meaning more incoming damage, meaning even more need for even greater sustain, etc.

This is completely wrong. Vampiric and Vampiric presence scale with power and add about 10% of DPS while the rest of the traitline boosts your sustain. Death Magic is a useless traitline for the build the OP runs because he is applying and cleansing not enough conditions to benefit from the traits. Spite and Curses are out because they would lower his sustain even more.

@OP:

1. Marauder makes a huge difference because necro scales with vitality. The shroud professions get more life force which means more sustain and harbinger can handle blight better.

2. There is simply one single skill thats is missing in your build: Spectral Armor

Pop spectral armor, then enter shroud => 8 second invulnerablity

Then stay in shroud as long as possible (because your spectral armor cooldown resets in the background), after leaving shroud rebuild your life force quickly with spectral grasp, greatsword3, axe2, focus4, kite your target for the shroud cooldown if necessary (nightfall, spectral walk), then again spectral armor + shroud .... that's all

In marauder gear and this strategy you can farm most champs solo. Unlike Asum I'd highly recommend changing death magic to blood magic (traits: vampiric presence + blood bank) esp. when you don't have access to spear and mainhand sword, which both offer a lot of healing.

Edited August 29 by KrHome.1920

[Asum.4960]

35 minutes ago, KrHome.1920 said:

This is completely wrong. Vampiric and Vampiric presence scale with power and add about 10% of DPS while the rest of the traitline boosts your sustain. Death Magic is a useless traitline for the build the OP runs because he is applying and cleansing not enough conditions to benefit from the traits. Spite and Curses are out because they would lower his sustain even more.

@OP:

1. Marauder makes a huge difference because necro scales with vitality. The shroud professions get more life force which means more sustain and harbinger can handle blight better.

2. There is simply one single skill thats is missing in your build: Spectral Armor

Pop spectral armor, then enter shroud => 8 second invulnerablity

Then stay in shroud as long as possible (because your spectral armor cooldown resets in the background), after leaving shroud rebuild your life force quickly with spectral grasp, greatsword3, axe2, focus4, kite your target for the shroud cooldown if necessary (nightfall, spectral walk), then again spectral armor + shroud .... that's all

In marauder gear and this strategy you can farm most champs solo. Unlike Asum I'd highly recommend changing death magic to blood magic (traits: vampiric presence + blood bank) esp. when you don't have access to spear and mainhand sword, which both offer a lot of healing.

No it's not, Vampiric has a 0.003 Power Scaling and VP 0.0333, while due to being Life Siphons both being unable to Critical Strike, nor scaling with Damage Multipliers (so things like Soul Eater, Death Perception and Spiteful Talisman do not affect them at all).

Hence, Blood Magic, iirc, is about a 33% DPS loss over either of SR and Spite, with dropping Spite actually even being the slightly bigger loss unless you have another Fury source. BM does not provide anywhere near enough sustain to justify that. 

Besides, you literally get morse sustain by drastically increasing your damage with Spite+SR along with options such as Zakiros Relic and Soul Eater, sustain that scales with damage. On top of that, due to having more DPS, you have shorter fights and face less mechanics, aka lower your incoming damage and need for sustain.

It's a win win, where as BM is a loss loss. Taking Blood is straight up a massive DPS and minor sustain nerf (compared to available alternatives and factoring in increased ttk and therefor incoming damage).

Edited August 29 by Asum.4960

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

I don't find reaper frail compared to Guard/DH.
You spam A LOT of chill / blindness / cripple / fear, with GS, Chill to the bone, well of darkness etc. Even elites or with defiant bar, the blue bar vanishs so quickly. You just need to loop those skills to always cripple mobs and soul eater trait will regen the few hp you lost.
Switching Spite/SR to blood magic or death magic  is obviously a DPS loss, but often survivability too, precisely because of Soul Eater and all "crippling" skill on CD.

I think "Consume conditions" is a better healing too : LF isn't really an issue in OW (just grasp 2~3targets, kill ambients ...) but in Janthir you want Condi cleanse.

Otherwise I also play a Terror Reaper to farm pack of mobs; really impressive :
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSkAYFlVwUYbMPWJOuKvNVA-DSJYmREfhUZE0ZI4TEC3eSQmeEA-e
You can get perma quickness, 25 might/fury, lot of bleeding, lot of vulnerability; nice strike damage too.
Relic of nightmare with Dread  and "Chill to the bone"  give you 50% quickness uptime. It's less dps than relic of fractal against single-target, but it is aoe (+quickness).  Runes, because why not (trapper is good too ). But the SC "condi reaper" gear works too (mix of vipere/sinister + runes of Krait to get 100% bleeding duration) I just think it's nice to get a nice burst with fear in OW.
It destroy pack of mobs so fast; you just spam DS #3 and all skills with blindness/chill etc, but even against single target you have a huge burst to spread >80 stacks of bleeding.
 

[XECOR.2814]

Run raid build with zekiros relic. Also use speed of shadows. That should be more than enough.

[Sifolstour.3210]

At the moment i prefer playing condi reaper for open world. I would suggest you to start with this cheap build and if you like it later go for the expensive one.

Time properly your fears to gain quickness and fury and thats it. While out of shroud just auto for bleeds and in shroud perform the combo 2/5/4/2 and pop at the end 3 to proc the dread trait again.

Cheap alternative: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSAFwkFbYZCMOmHThVijryfTF-DSQUbwc0zGE2chKIeK47YALw8sBA-e

Expensive one: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSAFwkFbYZCMOmHThVijryfTF-DyIY1on/QiTF0pQoUJgSPGwCMPbAA-e

The expensive version requires you to swap to warhorn just before entering shroud so you proc the sigil of hydromancy, and leaving it past 9 seconds to proc it again.

Edited August 31 by Sifolstour.3210

[Antycypator.9874]

For power reaper, many builds will suggest you to use Close To Death trait in Spite, which is not the best choice for solo players. If you read traits, you will see that Dread can give you quickness and fury. Fury is something power necromancers don't have, it's literally the only source of fury besides using Relic of Midnight. What's better? 20% more damage against enemies with less than 50% health, or literally permanent quickness?

You can also drop Decimate Defenses for Soul Eater. It's damage increase and healing. You need 75% crit chance without fury, but it's easy to achieve, just mix some berserker and assassin/marauder stats or use runes with precision, sigil of accuracy. Many of these little things like sigils or relics don't have big impact on your gameplay. You won't notice 5% flat damage increase, but you will notice lack of boons, no healing or non-crit hits.

You don't need to use Blood Magic or Death Magic for survivability. Just get Relic of Zakiros.

There's one issue with you build. Your crit chance is overcaped by 6%. Sigil of nullification seems useless with your setup, you have 3 skills to remove boons from enemies. My personal choice is Celerity for even more quickness.

You can check my build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSwEQ7MrMCmDTh5xKxR26tZD-DSRYBRNWMszIMpQEqARegAgBA-e

It has everything. Designed to solo champs. Massive healing (about 8% of your strike damage), ranged, melee, blinds, permanent quickness, might, CC, stability, fury, condi cleanse, boon removal, movement speed boost, can do decent damage. You can spend really huge amount of time in Shroud.

[Asum.4960]

2 hours ago, Antycypator.9874 said:

For power reaper, many builds will suggest you to use Close To Death trait in Spite, which is not the best choice for solo players. If you read traits, you will see that Dread can give you quickness and fury. Fury is something power necromancers don't have, it's literally the only source of fury besides using Relic of Midnight. What's better? 20% more damage against enemies with less than 50% health, or literally permanent quickness?

You can also drop Decimate Defenses for Soul Eater. It's damage increase and healing. You need 75% crit chance without fury, but it's easy to achieve, just mix some berserker and assassin/marauder stats or use runes with precision, sigil of accuracy. Many of these little things like sigils or relics don't have big impact on your gameplay. You won't notice 5% flat damage increase, but you will notice lack of boons, no healing or non-crit hits.

You don't need to use Blood Magic or Death Magic for survivability. Just get Relic of Zakiros.

There's one issue with you build. Your crit chance is overcaped by 6%. Sigil of nullification seems useless with your setup, you have 3 skills to remove boons from enemies. My personal choice is Celerity for even more quickness.

You can check my build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSwEQ7MrMCmDTh5xKxR26tZD-DSRYBRNWMszIMpQEqARegAgBA-e

It has everything. Designed to solo champs. Massive healing (about 8% of your strike damage), ranged, melee, blinds, permanent quickness, might, CC, stability, fury, condi cleanse, boon removal, movement speed boost, can do decent damage. You can spend really huge amount of time in Shroud.

This - except for Speed of Shadows, idk why you would take that over a 25% damage increase from keeping up Vuln with Unyielding Blast. Between Dread, Reaper's Onslaught and Chilled to the Bone, you really don't need Celerity Sigils for Quickness. At least get Frailty Sigils then.

[KrHome.1920]

4 hours ago, Antycypator.9874 said:

You don't need to use Blood Magic or Death Magic for survivability. Just get Relic of Zakiros.

You can check my build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSwEQ7MrMCmDTh5xKxR26tZD-DSRYBRNWMszIMpQEqARegAgBA-e

It has everything. Designed to solo champs. Massive healing (about 8% of your strike damage), ranged, melee, blinds, permanent quickness, might, CC, stability, fury, condi cleanse, boon removal, movement speed boost, can do decent damage. You can spend really huge amount of time in Shroud.

Neither Zakiros nor Souleater work in Shroud, so that 8% statement is cherrypicking at best or nonsensical at worst. Shroud is where you want to resustain, when you can only heal via hitting your target and are fighting hard hitting mobs like champs.

Zakiros was the first relic I tested, when the addon launched cause I play WvW mostly and there it heals for 7%, which sounded too good to be true (it actually sounded completely overpowered - a lot better than GM traits like Blighter's Boon or Unholy Sanctuary).

Duelling in WvW comes pretty close to soloing champs in PvE. If you can only heal when hitting targets outside of shroud, then you run into sustain problems very quickly in a lot of encounters.

Edited September 1 by KrHome.1920

[Asum.4960]

1 hour ago, KrHome.1920 said:

Duelling in WvW comes pretty close to soloing champs in PvE. If you can only heal when hitting targets outside of shroud, then you run into sustain problems very quickly in a lot of encounters.

Mobs aren't smart enough to save up a burst for the second you drop Shroud. If you entered Shroud low on health, just time your exit well with mechanics and quickly re-sustain with Life Siphon/Perforate + Zakiros + Soul Eater + Heal Skill. 

If you intent to frequently solo content that's more difficult than that can handle (T3+ Fractals, Legendary Bounties, Strikes, what have you), Power builds just aren't designed for that.

That's when you go Celestial Condi/Hybrid Scourge or Harbinger, where you have Parasitic Contagion and perma Prot via Sandstorm Shroud (+ Barrier) for Scourge, or Death Magic with Corruptor's Fervor (+ Alchemic Vigor) for Harbinger. These builds do more damage, have more mechanical damage avoidance because they can kite better/have better DPS uptime and have far greater EHP and sustain than what Power builds can achieve. 

Where Strike Damage shines is in easier solo content such as general OW, as Power Burst's are far quicker there.

Forcing Blood into a non Transfusion support build (in PvE at least) is kind of getting the worst of both worlds. You are sacrificing the quick burst of a Power build for easier content, and you still don't get anywhere close to the staying power of a Cele Hybrid for more challenging encounters - while falling far, far behind in DPS in them too. 

But hey, at the end of the day, to each their own. /E: Personally, I wish Blood Magic was good (outside of Transfusion for Support in Group Play - I lobbied for a BM Trait consolidation and adding of a Rev Battle Scar like solo friendly line for Power Builds in BM for years), I adore it thematically - but as it stands, it just isn't.

Edited September 1 by Asum.4960

[Zorbius.2706]

Thank you all for your responses.

I finally bought all the expansions I was missing so I could have access to everything and try out your suggestions.

I liked the sword in main hand, but I think the focus is superior in off hand.

I need to change some jewelry, I equipped what I had and get the ascended focus.
So, I mixed berserker and marauder and with the sword in main hand and the offensive traits, I feel very comfortable.

This is how the build looks  http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSwAEx3lJw8YKsNWJOWXlNbA-DSZYBKhgKqKLxQqhWGUQZERFUaKI1BiAEkO4SeADA-e

Thanks again everyone.

Edited September 2 by Zorbius.2706

[MercurialKuroSludge.8974]

1 hour ago, Zorbius.2706 said:

Thank you all for your responses.

I finally bought all the expansions I was missing so I could have access to everything and try out your suggestions.

I liked the sword in main hand, but I think the focus is superior in off hand.

I need to change some jewelry, I equipped what I had and get the ascended focus.
So, I mixed berserker and marauder and with the sword in main hand and the offensive traits, I feel very comfortable.

This is how the build looks  http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSwAEx3lJw8YKsNWJOWXlNbA-DSZYBKhgKqKLxQqhWGUQZERFUaKI1BiAEkO4SeADA-e

Thanks again everyone.

TL;DR:
Focus is a VERY bad weapon for PvE, its only use is BoonStripping in Competitive, its better to use an Offhand Sword for extra Fear, or Torch for Might.
Replace "Close to Death" trait with "Dread" in the Spite line.
Replace "Bitter Chill" with "Spiteful Talisman" in the Spite line.
Replace "Well of Darkness" with "Well of Suffering".
Replace Sigils, Battle with Force, Accuracy with Frailty.

A standard Raid Build Power Reaper can easily maintain 25 Might/lots of Quick and 15-18+ stacks of Vulnerability on its own anyway, the only thing it lacks is Fury, which is what the "Dread" trait does, triggered by Shroud 3 (which reduces 50% CD upon killing something).
If you get Offhand Sword, Sword 5 FIRST cast also gives Fear, or Warhorn 4.
Torch is a little extra Might, when you use Torch 5.

GS 4 IS a Well of Darkness on its own, it applies Blind/Chill, AND Boonstrips enemies every pulse, so you don't need the actual Well of Darkness in utility skills.

Fury in PvE gives 25% Crit, not 20%, so you want 75% or slightly lower, since any extra Precision is wasting stats, that you could have put into Vitality or Toughness.
In fact, its ok to replace your Accuracy Sigils with "Sigil of Frailty" if you are worried about Vul uptime, 73.57%+25% is still 98.57% Crit.

Fireworks/Claw/Zakiros are all good Relics for PReaper, so Relic is good.
And if you WANT Zakiros Relic, you MUST use "Dread" trait, Elite skill alone is not enuf Fury.
Zakiros ONLY heals when you have Fury, and it heals based on your dmg dealt, same as "Soul Eater", so you want to push as much dmg as possible to get good lifesteal.

Edited September 2 by MercurialKuroSludge.8974