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Reaper - Power vs Condi


BlackLotus.2438

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Hey guys,

since I put most of my time in my Ele and I acutally wanted to go for another class since standing in the backline and throwing fireballs and spamming lava font for all eternity is quite fun but gets a bit dull ove the time.I always loved the Necro but have no really good Idea for builds since you find like 3k build variants for the Necro.I personally dont do much PvP or WvW so the necro will mostly be used for PvE (Fractals, Dungeons, Map clears etc. / Raiding maybe in future if I find a group that can explain me the thing^^)Id like to ask you (hopefully some expierienced necro players) what kind of Reaper (I cant play Scourge, dont have PoE yet) I should build?Ive seen that condi is quite strong and also seen some Bull Berserk Crit Reapers (also some with Valkyrie gear?).What do you guys think is good if it comes to survivability and decent dps?

Cheers :)

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Power zerk/valk is good for PvE and trash clear you will kill just as fast if not faster than alot of other professions with less risk of death due to shroud soaking some damage.Valk stats gives you the potential of zerker gear with more hp / lf pool to soak damage however this locks you in to some traits that you must take in order to deal critical hits. (Decimate defenses & Potentially Death Perception. Depending on if you have fury from allies or any base crit chance)Power works great for short fights but your damage falls off in longer fights.

Condi does higher dps in longer fights but has slightly more complexed rotations requires a bit more management. Focus on max bleed uptime for best results as it will be your main damaging condition.For high end fractals, and Raiding people would likely welcome condi reaper before power reaper depending on the group but thats not to say either could not do the content.

My advice if you have not spent a ton of money investing into one or the other yet would be to get some cheap exotics play both a power and condi build see which one you like more. Or if you really like necro in general.Continue from there with more investment.

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If you're gonna be a reaper, my advice is to stick to power. Condi can do more damage in the long run but you depend a lot on chill fields which may not always be accessible and are often overwritten. Furthermore, since Scourge was introduced, condi reaper has been getting steadily nerfed. It can still reach 30k under the most ideal (and perhaps unrealistic) settings, which is 3.4k more than power reaper but if the trend holds then condi reaper will be nerfed to the ground and power reaper will be buffed even more.

For T4 fractals, I always use my power reaper and it is loads of fun and I am often top dps while also maintaining good survivablity and minor group utility. However, I cannot deny the massive bonus the condi reaper brings via Epidemic. Pretty much the same case for dungeons.

For raids...well scourge is really the go to spec for raids. Truth be told you're gonna have a hell of a time finding pugs with a necro so you might be better off finding a group of friends that raid. I have raided with power reaper (the least desired spec for raiding) and it worked out fine but only because it was with friends who knew I could consistently maintain 20k+ damage. Thing is, even condi reaper does not bring anything that scourge already brings and scourge goes beyond: barriers, might generation, no dependency on fields which means you can do your damage without having your fields a) overwritten b) overwriting fire fields, and can convert condis to boons every 4 seconds (traited). Yes, its Achilles' heel is highly mobile foes, but again it is easier to summon shades than relying on a chill field (which highly mobile foes get out of anyways).

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@"Methuselah.4376" said:Thing is, even condi reaper does not bring anything that scourge already brings and scourge goes beyond: barriers, might generation, no dependency on fields which means you can do your damage without having your fields a) overwritten b) overwriting fire fields, and can convert condis to boons every 4 seconds (traited). Yes, its Achilles' heel is highly mobile foes, but again it is easier to summon shades than relying on a chill field (which highly mobile foes get out of anyways).

Aside from the dependency on fields being completely manageable (especially now that we are past the era where Tempest's Overload Air fields were a consistent sight in raids), Condi Reaper has a few advantages over Condi Scourge:

  • Reaper has faster burst damage than Scourge, owing to the speed at which the Shroud combo goes off. In fights where you have shorter burn phases like a lot of encounters in fractals or fights where you frequently need to "start over" you condi application like Gorseval or Deimos Reaper may allow you to pull ahead depending on the group.
  • Reaper provides more CC for a group. While in an optimized setting the CC requirements for a group aren't stretched to far beyond specific key players, in a more average setting the additional CC Reaper has over Scourge (an extra stun, and constant chill) allows it to contribute to a breakbar more than Scourge does.
  • Alternate forms of "support" in the form of pulls, blinds if you don't need more defensive support stuff like barriers/might generation due to having a healer like a druid already.
  • Suffers less from taking Parasitic Contagion to allow for a more offensive playstyle (though being able to use this effectively relies on having mastered the rotation already.

As for highyl mobile foes, in most cases for bosses you often know how a boss is going to move if you're familiar with an encounter; with the most extreme cases being fights like Matthias in raids or the Archdiviner in fractals where they will indeed walk out of your fields... only if an ally is out of position. In that regard, one shouldn't judge a build by how it badly it may work when your allies aren't performing effectively.

The support that Scourge offers is all well and good, but if you're running on a full damage build it's not going to be very effective without building to accommodate it. For Reaper you can afford to run alternate traits for more selfish survivability/might generation if group support options are lacking should a situation require it.

Furthermore, owing to how similar both the builds are at this point, you can really just work on Condi Reaper and be able to transition to Scourge when/if you get PoE (and still be able to swap between the two as a situation requires it).

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@Amerikajinn.4635 said:

@"Methuselah.4376" said:Thing is, even condi reaper does not bring anything that scourge already brings and scourge goes beyond: barriers, might generation, no dependency on fields which means you can do your damage without having your fields a) overwritten b) overwriting fire fields, and can convert condis to boons every 4 seconds (traited). Yes, its Achilles' heel is highly mobile foes, but again it is easier to summon shades than relying on a chill field (which highly mobile foes get out of anyways).

Aside from the dependency on fields being completely manageable (especially now that we are past the era where Tempest's Overload Air fields were a consistent sight in raids), Condi Reaper has a few advantages over Condi Scourge:
  • Reaper has faster burst damage than Scourge, owing to the speed at which the Shroud combo goes off. In fights where you have shorter burn phases like a lot of encounters in fractals or fights where you frequently need to "start over" you condi application like Gorseval or Deimos Reaper may allow you to pull ahead depending on the group.
  • Reaper provides more CC for a group. While in an optimized setting the CC requirements for a group aren't stretched to far beyond specific key players, in a more average setting the additional CC Reaper has over Scourge (an extra stun, and constant chill) allows it to contribute to a breakbar more than Scourge does.
  • Alternate forms of "support" in the form of pulls, blinds if you don't need more defensive support stuff like barriers/might generation due to having a healer like a druid already.
  • Suffers less from taking Parasitic Contagion to allow for a more offensive playstyle (though being able to use this effectively relies on having mastered the rotation already.

As for highyl mobile foes, in most cases for bosses you often know how a boss is going to move if you're familiar with an encounter; with the most extreme cases being fights like Matthias in raids or the Archdiviner in fractals where they will indeed walk out of your fields... only if an ally is out of position. In that regard, one shouldn't judge a build by how it badly it may work when your allies aren't performing effectively.

The support that Scourge offers is all well and good, but if you're running on a full damage build it's not going to be very effective without building to accommodate it. For Reaper you can afford to run alternate traits for more selfish survivability/might generation if group support options are lacking should a situation require it.

Furthermore, owing to how similar both the builds are at this point, you can really just work on Condi Reaper and be able to transition to Scourge when/if you get PoE (and still be able to swap between the two as a situation requires it).

I do understand your points, but reason I advocate Scourge more is because from some patches, it seems that the reaper specialization is going to be more power focused. The rape on RS4, I felt, was a big hit.

I am not saying that condi reaper is not viable just that I personally prefer Scourge for the extra perks it brings.

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@Methuselah.4376 said:

@Methuselah.4376 said:Thing is, even condi reaper does not bring anything that scourge already brings and scourge goes beyond: barriers, might generation, no dependency on fields which means you can do your damage without having your fields a) overwritten b) overwriting fire fields, and can convert condis to boons every 4 seconds (traited). Yes, its Achilles' heel is highly mobile foes, but again it is easier to summon shades than relying on a chill field (which highly mobile foes get out of anyways).

Aside from the dependency on fields being completely manageable (especially now that we are past the era where Tempest's Overload Air fields were a consistent sight in raids), Condi Reaper has a few advantages over Condi Scourge:
  • Reaper has faster burst damage than Scourge, owing to the speed at which the Shroud combo goes off. In fights where you have shorter burn phases like a lot of encounters in fractals or fights where you frequently need to "start over" you condi application like Gorseval or Deimos Reaper may allow you to pull ahead depending on the group.
  • Reaper provides more CC for a group. While in an optimized setting the CC requirements for a group aren't stretched to far beyond specific key players, in a more average setting the additional CC Reaper has over Scourge (an extra stun, and constant chill) allows it to contribute to a breakbar more than Scourge does.
  • Alternate forms of "support" in the form of pulls, blinds if you don't need more defensive support stuff like barriers/might generation due to having a healer like a druid already.
  • Suffers less from taking Parasitic Contagion to allow for a more offensive playstyle (though being able to use this effectively relies on having mastered the rotation already.

As for highyl mobile foes, in most cases for bosses you often know how a boss is going to move if you're familiar with an encounter; with the most extreme cases being fights like Matthias in raids or the Archdiviner in fractals where they will indeed walk out of your fields... only if an ally is out of position. In that regard, one shouldn't judge a build by how it badly it may work when your allies aren't performing effectively.

The support that Scourge offers is all well and good, but if you're running on a full damage build it's not going to be very effective without building to accommodate it. For Reaper you can afford to run alternate traits for more selfish survivability/might generation if group support options are lacking should a situation require it.

Furthermore, owing to how similar both the builds are at this point, you can really just work on Condi Reaper and be able to transition to Scourge when/if you get PoE (and still be able to swap between the two as a situation requires it).

I do understand your points, but reason I advocate Scourge more is because from some patches, it seems that the reaper specialization is going to be more power focused. The kitten on RS4, I felt, was a big hit.

I am not saying that condi reaper is not viable just that I personally prefer Scourge for the extra perks it brings.

Eh, beyond minor losses to Condi damage in the form of less whirl finishers and reduced poison from Soul Spiral, Condi Reaper hasn't lost that much (and even for those losses the damage was mostly made back by the improved power damage that got swapped in. I think it's just more of a Anet boosting Power Reaper up to where it should be instead of pulling Condi Reaper down. Heck, it even got buffed (technically) when the condi rework went through due to you getting more overall bleeding from Deathly Chill. Plus, beyond the changes that affected Condi Reaper most of the buffs to Power Reaper have mostly been buffs to Power Necro as a whole, with boosts to axe damage, condensing traits into each other to make room for new traits like Awaken the Pain, and new options like the reworked Signet GM trait.

As for player preference, that's fair enough. I respect anyone's choice to play the build they want; but I do like to clarify stuff in regards to the two condi builds Necro has to offer.

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@Methuselah.4376 said:If you're gonna be a reaper, my advice is to stick to power. Condi can do more damage in the long run but you depend a lot on chill fields which may not always be accessible and are often overwritten. Furthermore, since Scourge was introduced, condi reaper has been getting steadily nerfed. It can still reach 30k under the most ideal (and perhaps unrealistic) settings, which is 3.4k more than power reaper but if the trend holds then condi reaper will be nerfed to the ground and power reaper will be buffed even more.

For T4 fractals, I always use my power reaper and it is loads of fun and I am often top dps while also maintaining good survivablity and minor group utility. However, I cannot deny the massive bonus the condi reaper brings via Epidemic. Pretty much the same case for dungeons.

For raids...well scourge is really the go to spec for raids. Truth be told you're gonna have a hell of a time finding pugs with a necro so you might be better off finding a group of friends that raid. I have raided with power reaper (the least desired spec for raiding) and it worked out fine but only because it was with friends who knew I could consistently maintain 20k+ damage. Thing is, even condi reaper does not bring anything that scourge already brings and scourge goes beyond: barriers, might generation, no dependency on fields which means you can do your damage without having your fields a) overwritten b) overwriting fire fields, and can convert condis to boons every 4 seconds (traited). Yes, its Achilles' heel is highly mobile foes, but again it is easier to summon shades than relying on a chill field (which highly mobile foes get out of anyways).

I dont think they will buff necro. Cause there is an unsaid rule:

  1. Necro has to be not so good1.1 Necro isnt allowed to perform good, if you only have one in your group.1.2 And necro has to be the the worst 1v1 class in the game.
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