Zerkershouts Power Reaper Build [sPvP]

[Arzamar.7150]

Hello guys,

I was always a fun of Power Necromancer. This didn't change when Reaper come out, I played tons of games with it and had the most fun out of all professions and builds. However, with the Scourge, it feels like people have forgotten the Power Necro. So I decided to create a big bursty Reaper build and had an amazing win streak.

First of all, I do not like wells. Wells provide some support for team and range life force generation, but they don't fit my playstyle. I always liked shouts, so this build runs Soul Reaping instead of Blood Magic.

The idea behind is to generate life force out of Reaper form safely and burst everyone in Reaper form. Because Necromancers have good HP pool and Shroud form, I tried Bersekers and it really worked! You will have around 21K health, which is not bad. Of course, it's not that good for a Necromancers, but don't forget that you are running Berserker. Plus Reaper form + Soul Reaping tree helps a little bit more.

But I must point out the fact that I had a Scrouge friend who somewhat supported me in our games and I tried to be in a team fight all the time, 1v1 may not work with Zerkers.

If you don't have a proper or any kind of support, feel free to change Berserker to Marauder, however, if you have a Firebrand or a Scourge in your team, or better a premade, I strongly suggest going with Berserker. Here is the build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBhOD7kZTocTsaTwdTgeTsgLYxVxuYZk6M0GeWQtpAwBA-jpBHQBzY/BCeQAaSZAxdEAAwFAIgPAAA

Some notes:

Why shouts? Since we don't have Blood Magic trait line, shouts are kinda only option to go. Rise's cooldown is pretty high so we don't need that, Suffer and Heal provides somewhat good condition cleansing. While in Reaper form you have almost %100 crit chance, try to abuse that. Wait for enemy cooldowns, try to play passively until you generate enough life force. Greatsword's #4 is really good option to defend yourself from melee power builds. Axe #2 and Reaper #4 kills everyone.

Also don't forget that Reaper#1 is really strong, after you used #4 and #3, just cleave everyone with auto chain of #1. You are the only one who can crit 6-7k with auto attacks, use that hehe.

[pah.4931]

SEEMS like it would be way to easy to kite and kill with so little sustain (I play a paladin blood magic reaper and I feel like I die super fast) -- especially if the team focuses you right away. You'll have to keep us updated on how it's going.

[ArmageddonAsh.6430]

No mobility. No defense. you would be dead with ease against anyone with Range.

[Arzamar.7150]

Well as I said, you need at least one person to support you. Also not trying 1v1 is important, since as I and you guys said kiting is a big counter. If you only try to contest in a teamfight situations like 2v2, 3v3 etc, its amazing however. 12-1 currently on EU at low plat. Shouts give really good heals, life force and sustain if you are against 2 or more people, but they don't help on 1v1.

Duoing with a Scourge really helps since Scourge gives lots of barriers, fast reviving and condi cleanse also some CC like fear. Firebrand would be good too as I imagine.

[DeceiverX.8361]

I just don't see a reason for running Tri-Shouts without shout synergy runes.

YaaW is just strictly worse than Spectral Armor in a lot of situations as far as defenses and LF gain goes.

I think relentless pursuit and SotL are both invaluable, but I know many disagree here.

[pah.4931]

I just think spectral grasp and wells (with blood magic) is better. And of course Paladin (going berserker with Reaper gives me nightsweats just thinking about it....). Getting blown up by a P/P thief in a second from stealth. Or mesmer. Reaper was designed to be a bruiser, so I prefer playing it like a bruiser. Also, if you want a teamfighter, then you're better off having more sustain and be less glassy anyways (you're not +1ing or ganking). Not sure what the extra damage affords you since you have no escape and little defense.

BUT, if you have fun with this build, then that's all that matters!

[ZDragon.3046]

@ArmageddonAsh.6430 said:No mobility. No defense. you would be dead with ease against anyone with Range.

Thats not a real argument thats truth to just about every necromancer build thats not core and in some rare moments of luck clarity scourge. Reaper will always die to range regardless of what he takes.

[ArmageddonAsh.6430]

@ZDragon.3046 said:

@ArmageddonAsh.6430 said:No mobility. No defense. you would be dead with ease against anyone with Range.

Thats not a real argument thats truth to just about every necromancer build thats not core and in some rare moments of luck clarity scourge. Reaper will always die to range regardless of what he takes.

It is when you BUILD for no defense, mobility or anything. Thats the difference. Some are weak due to how poor Nercro and Reaper are. Others are bad because despite the issues they decide to not think about defense, mobility or anything and think going full zerk is a good idea. Its not.

[Arzamar.7150]

Going full zerk might be a problem for other classes, but as by this post I tried to say that it's not "THAT" bad for a Necromancer. Why? Because of your high health and second health bar. Which profession has 21K HP with zerk? Also you have Reaper form where it kinda acts like your second health bar, plus the Soul Reaping tree buffs your life force generation and Reaper form.

This build not meant to be a solo queue build, it's more like a build you want to play with your premade as I tried to explain before. Try it with your Scourge or Firebrand teammate.

[KrHome.1920]

This build underperforms. It has too many weaknesses and too few synergies. Condi burst will destroy you. Two stuns in a row will destroy you. Range will destroy you. Melee specs will destroy you due to superior sustain (you can't shroud+spectral armor combo to mitigate damage, your heal is poor).

In general your build is a one trick pony. If your burst fails, you die.

If you want to go full berserk you should play something like this:http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBHhF6kjGozGs2Gw1GgeTssLYQRtEQAg6KcGSWxRxr4WE-jJxHwAKLDM4JAA4UA0b/BA

I achieve good results in duells and teamfights with this build. You have multiple ways to cover your squishiness:

• spectral armor + shroud combo is mandatory on non-toughness builds (no spectral armor means: go at least (!) demolisher amulet)
• every shroud enter applies at least (more boons the more targets you hit) 11 boons (AtP, SS, SoS, Sigil), this means 2k or more heal + heal via shroud autoattacks
• two pulls, chills, cripples and in general your hard hits are great tools to mess up your opponents rotation
• awaken the pain is surprisingly good for bursts as the instant 9 might stack grants you +360 power (CV: even more might if you hit chilled targets)
• you are able to burst condi cleanse two times which is important in the scourge meta
• SoS prevents you from soft cc lockdowns (immob, chill, cripple), on such a squishy build you want to stay mobile all the time

[ZDragon.3046]

@ArmageddonAsh.6430 said:

@ZDragon.3046 said:

@ArmageddonAsh.6430 said:No mobility. No defense. you would be dead with ease against anyone with Range.

Thats not a real argument thats truth to just about every necromancer build thats not core and in some rare moments of luck clarity scourge. Reaper will always die to range regardless of what he takes.

It is when you BUILD for no defense, mobility or anything. Thats the difference. Some are weak due to how poor Nercro and Reaper are. Others are bad because despite the issues they decide to not think about defense, mobility or anything and think going full zerk is a good idea. Its not.

Which necro does not have anyways you cant build what you don't haveTrue defenses, mobility skills necro lack in on all fronts. The best you can hope for is spectral armor and even that is a very soft defense in which you actually want to get hit so that you gain life force.

In the majority of cases necros best defense is its offensive conditions which come with power and condi builds, blinds, chills, fear etc.So to tell him that its bad because it lacks something which necro does not naturally have available to its kit like other professions is a bit of a false argument to be making here.

You could argue flesh wurm or spectral walk for mobility but both those skills are gimmicky in a kit and usually used in wvw raoming buidls more so than spvp.

[Arzamar.7150]

@KrHome.1920look ^, please.

Actually running 40 sec CD Spectral Armor which can be countered by one boon corrupt or 40 sec CD 5 condi cleanse Signet does not help that much.You guys miss the point about Power Reaper. It doesn't have enough skills to protect itself from ranged builds, doesn't have strong defensive options anyway, so why waste utility skills on 40 sec CD 8 sec protection boon while you can give vuln to everyone or spread your conditions to everyone? That's the idea behind it.

Also, Reaper can be easily kited and that's not dependent on any build, so that's why you should not try to 1v1 with this build or with wells. That's why this build relies on a support and should be doing work in team fights. In team fights, you can burst multiple people to downstate so fast that no one can.

So if you want to give constructive criticism, please don't talk about low defenses and utilities, it's Reaper's problem, not build's. Adding 1 or 2 high cooldown utility doesn't help that much.

[Nimon.7840]

I currently run this for wvw roaming:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNAnYRnc0Albi90A22A0bildBDKqlACAxRxs4Wk6KcGyCA-j1SBQBA4BAgQ1dewJAIfHBgEqSwMWQIjK/o5+B4RfgJVCuhDBApAyTyG-w

It does okayish against warriors.

Sucks vs thiefes and rangers pre-patch. But that's the nature of reaper or necro in general.

Super good against holosmith.Okayish against Dragonhunters and mirages.

[KrHome.1920]

@Arzamar.7150 said:@KrHome.1920Actually running 40 sec CD Spectral Armor which can be countered by one boon corrupt or 40 sec CD 5 condi cleanse Signet does not help that much.This is the most ridiculous thing I have read for a long time in the necro subform. These two utilities are top tier reaper utilities. Not a single skilled reaper player will deny this.

Try to use suffer! after a scourge loaded 7 condis on you. Good luck!Try to get rid of an immob when covered with 3 or 4 other condis on your build. Good luckSpectral armor is not used for protection! It's used for higher shroud uptime to tank damage due to life force gain in shroud. Protection is corrupted to vulnerability. Just ignore that! A corrupted might to weakness affects you much harder. So a second boon that lowers the chance to get might corrupted instantly is even something positive in a weird way.

You are obviously a beginner and a theory crafter, who thinks he contributes to fights while the truth is he just gets heavily babysitted. Your communication with your friend carried you. You even confirmed the latter, so why are you even post your build? It loses 90% of its solo matchups and is outclassed by many other builds in team fights. When the two of you run into two players that work in a coordinated team too, they will focus you down in 2 seconds and your friend can't do shit. Even counterpressure requires a certain amount of survivabilty which you don't have.

But what am I talking. Everything is viable in NA platinum. So just go for it!

/I am out

[Arzamar.7150]

@KrHome.1920 said:

@Arzamar.7150 said:@KrHome.1920Actually running 40 sec CD Spectral Armor which can be countered by one boon corrupt or 40 sec CD 5 condi cleanse Signet does not help that much.This is the most ridiculous thing I have read for a long time in the necro subform. These two utilities are top tier reaper utilities. Not a single skilled reaper player will deny this.You are obviously a beginner and a theory crafter, who thinks he contributes to fights while the truth is he just gets heavily babysitted. Your communication with your friend carried you. You even confirmed the latter, so why are you even post your build?

Well yeah? As you said, I pointed out that this build needs a support to help you to survive. Do you guys have a rule on Necro forums to post only solo queue builds? I crafted a build, tested it on 20~ games and it worked really well so I wanted to share. Your logic does not make any sense. You could dislike, the build could not work for you but criticizing a build just because it's not a solo queue build is really stupid. Sory but that's that.

This build may not work for you if you do not have any support to sit with you, but if you have, it would work better than other Reaper builds. You could try that if you have a friend to join together.

I just like to theorycraft and that's why I love this game. The builds posted here may not work for you, but you should reply it after you test it on few games with the recommendations. If someone posts a roamer ranger build for example, and you try to play it as a bunker, do you think you can give criticism about it? Or its just you didn't try the build properly?

[Sephylon.4938]

Correction: your build needs 2 supports, a firebrand AND a scourge, atleast according to you.

[Arzamar.7150]

"But I must point out the fact that I had a Scrouge friend who somewhat supported me in our games and I tried to be in a team fight all the time, 1v1 may not work with Zerkers."

Nope, this was that I said. I never said you need 2 supports, I just pointed out that this builds need "a support".

[DeceiverX.8361]

@ArmageddonAsh.6430 said:

@ZDragon.3046 said:

@ArmageddonAsh.6430 said:No mobility. No defense. you would be dead with ease against anyone with Range.

Thats not a real argument thats truth to just about every necromancer build thats not core and in some rare moments of luck clarity scourge. Reaper will always die to range regardless of what he takes.

It is when you BUILD for no defense, mobility or anything. Thats the difference. Some are weak due to how poor Nercro and Reaper are. Others are bad because despite the issues they decide to not think about defense, mobility or anything and think going full zerk is a good idea. Its not.

This right here. Partially. Zerk is fine. No attention to the reaper's shortcomings and not addressing its mobility isn't.

My reaper can catch thieves in most fights without issue. Because I actually build to stay mobile enough to keep pace. And I've done so since the spec launched. And I've never had a problem. The only really hard matchup is bird soulbeast because it has a 1200 unit hard disengage and ranged burst every 10s. And most rangers don't opt for that. The rest can't apply pressure while resetting that continuously.

As a side note, AtP is a trap trait only usable in PvE. Chill of Death provides so much more value in fights and almost always offers more killing-blow damage.

[ArmageddonAsh.6430]

@DeceiverX.8361 said:

@ArmageddonAsh.6430 said:

@ZDragon.3046 said:

@ArmageddonAsh.6430 said:No mobility. No defense. you would be dead with ease against anyone with Range.

Thats not a real argument thats truth to just about every necromancer build thats not core and in some rare moments of luck clarity scourge. Reaper will always die to range regardless of what he takes.

It is when you BUILD for no defense, mobility or anything. Thats the difference. Some are weak due to how poor Nercro and Reaper are. Others are bad because despite the issues they decide to not think about defense, mobility or anything and think going full zerk is a good idea. Its not.

This right here. Partially. Zerk is fine. No attention to the reaper's shortcomings and not addressing its mobility isn't.

My reaper can catch thieves in most fights without issue. Because I actually build to stay mobile enough to keep pace. And I've done so since the spec launched. And I've never had a problem. The only really hard matchup is bird soulbeast because it has a 1200 unit hard disengage and ranged burst every 10s. And most rangers don't opt for that. The rest can't apply pressure while resetting that continuously.

As a side note, AtP is a trap trait only usable in PvE. Chill of Death provides so much more value in fights and almost always offers more killing-blow damage.

Zerk is fine against Melee. Reaper is an EASY kill to pretty much most classes because most classes have what Reaper and Necro fear: Ranged damage + Mobility. You can build for as much mobility as you can, it still wont be enough to catch or out run most classes. This is why i am not scared of fighting Reaper or Scourge because they are EASILY countered without really needing to build for it, as most classes take mobility as you need it against everyone, you only really need to build condi removal but hell i have killed Scourges before they have even got into range Soulbeast >3

[Dakujji.1478]

What do you guys think of this build?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBhOD7kZTodTs2GwcTgeTs8LYQJtAwHI+IGFviUPhvQwC-jJxTABRfEAAY/hMKDY9BBAA

This build allows for up to 20k soul spirals and up to 15k death´s charge, and i´m sure it´s possible to dig some more dmg out of it.Shroud auto attacks ramp up to 5 to 8 k each.

Main focus is vitality which gets converted into ferocity, besides the 31762hp.. you can outlive most bursts.

Using Locust swarm + spectral armor IN shroud is hilarious, since the LF bar goes up instead of down, but you got to get the timing right.

The usual tactic would be to pull the enemy towards you with GS5 then GS3, swap to axe, dodge and then Axe 2. This already takes up about 40% of HP.Then you can just pop shroud, death´s charge, pop shroud armor and then soul spiral the hell out of them. If the guy is still standing, pop in Shroud5 since the animation from Soulspiral usually cancels Shroud5´s animation thus making it an instant hit nearly with no casting time.

Lots of dodging involved in this build :)

Let´s hear it!

[Nimon.7840]

@"Dakujji.1478" said:What do you guys think of this build?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBhOD7kZTodTs2GwcTgeTs8LYQJtAwHI+IGFviUPhvQwC-jJxTABRfEAAY/hMKDY9BBAA

This build allows for up to 20k soul spirals and up to 15k death´s charge, and i´m sure it´s possible to dig some more dmg out of it.Shroud auto attacks ramp up to 5 to 8 k each.

Main focus is vitality which gets converted into ferocity, besides the 31762hp.. you can outlive most bursts.

Using Locust swarm + spectral armor IN shroud is hilarious, since the LF bar goes up instead of down, but you got to get the timing right.

The usual tactic would be to pull the enemy towards you with GS5 then GS3, swap to axe, dodge and then Axe 2. This already takes up about 40% of HP.Then you can just pop shroud, death´s charge, pop shroud armor and then soul spiral the hell out of them. If the guy is still standing, pop in Shroud5 since the animation from Soulspiral usually cancels Shroud5´s animation thus making it an instant hit nearly with no casting time.

Lots of dodging involved in this build :)

Let´s hear it!

Well. I think that's way too less Condi removal. No?

I was playing some wells reaper and it worked awesomely well. We'll of power,blood,corruption, suffering and elite shout.Axe/dagger+ greatswordRune of strength or chronomancer (lately I played strenght)Blood magic top,bot,topSpite bot,mid,bitReaper mid,bot,top

Amulett was the power,precision,thoughness,ferocity one.

We'll tbh. I only played 3 games in silver, because I dropped (only played at the beginning of the season, then only played raids and wvw)

But I only died like once in three games and I could always win the teamfights for my team, when I decided to go in.

Don't know if this is still viable in upper tiers.

I also tried a shout reaper. But the sustain is worse. Zero Teamsupport. And I felt like I died much easier.

It feels like reaper is even better than scourge.Sure, scourge can range ae Condi spam. But reaper can do heavy ae power dmg.

It only gets pretty bad for you, while fighting 2 scourges at the same time. But I guess you shouldn't fight 2 scourges alone xD