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Reaper Rotations & Utility Combos [WvW/PvP]


Wizardauz.3761

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Just started playing again after a 4 year break. Made a necro because i liked the look of reaper. Pretty new to Necromancer Class as a whole.

Was wondering what resources are out there, scoured Youtube and some sites but couldn't really find anything definitive. Anyone can copy a build on youtube/metabattle but have zero idea on how to really effectively use it

Was wondering if anyone could point me in the right direction or even party up sometime and show me a thing or too.

Thanks guys

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You can find threads here but generally for reaper you're gonna want axe/wh, either GS or Staff as there is a case for both imo. Utilities would probably be either shouts, wells and or a combination. Mainly you are gonna wanna kite to fill your shroud, and try and land your shroud burst. Bail out and dip etc... This would mainly be pvp. WvW i would say lean more on wells if zerging, staff most likely. The wells mid(?)/backline on meta isn't too bad for a start. That said it's a tough life out there for a reaper.

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Well reaper in wvw zergfights is super bad.You can only bomb once with wells and then tickle the enemy with staff.The only thing you can do is when your zerg pushed over the enemy zerg and let's enemy downs behind. Reaper is perfect for cleaving those downs.But if you wanna be useful, and take part in the fights, you have to play scourge

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Call me masochistic but i'd rather play what i enjoy and get damn good at it, even if it is sub-optimal.

Then meta slave myself to playing something i dont enjoy (I.E. - Scourge). Reaper is way more thematically pleasing as well as more intense gameplay wise.

Come from a Core Guardian Player ( GS/Hammer Meditations). The only thing i find confusing is the thought process behind the design of Gravedigger and the lack of a leap.

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@Wizardauz.3761 said:Call me masochistic but i'd rather play what i enjoy and get kitten good at it, even if it is sub-optimal.

Then meta slave myself to playing something i dont enjoy (I.E. - Scourge). Reaper is way more thematically pleasing as well as more intense gameplay wise.

Come from a Core Guardian Player ( GS/Hammer Meditations). The only thing i find confusing is the thought process behind the design of Gravedigger and the lack of a leap.

And a block or any kind of defense.

Reaper gets just super bad in wvw zergs and there isn't anything to enjoy. And next week even the thing where reaper is good at gets taken out of wvw: cleaving downs.Cause there won't be any downs next week.

Sure if you have fun being useless for your zerg go ahead and play reaper, or if you having fun to die a lot.

Oh and just in general. Don't ever ask again for rotations in PvP modes. Sure there is things you can combo. But for PvP rotations just don't exist.

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@Nimon.7840 said:And a block or any kind of defense.

Reaper gets just super bad in wvw zergs and there isn't anything to enjoy. And next week even the thing where reaper is good at gets taken out of wvw: cleaving downs.Cause there won't be any downs next week.

Sure if you have fun being useless for your zerg go ahead and play reaper, or if you having fun to die a lot.

Oh and just in general. Don't ever ask again for rotations in PvP modes. Sure there is things you can combo. But for PvP rotations just don't exist.

That's the sound of a jaded necro lol

Thanks for the tips tho.

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Power Reaper is played as burst or nothing.

Scenario 1:

  • your target wants to fight you in melee (thank god for that!) - Axe 2+1 while he engages
  • then let him do his usual cheesy burst/block/evade combo like every class can do, while you try to survive like a punching bag
  • if you can't stand his opening burst: spectral armor+schroud for defense immediately to survive (not optimal, but you are a necro, so what!? We suck!)
  • if you could avoid the opening burst without the need to enter shroud (sigil of energy for 3 dodges highly recommended!), then it becomes a matter of skill to know what your target will do next and anticipate, you have good chances to win the fight now
  • know your targets skills, wait for a good opportunity and follow up with a shroudburst (SS, WS, air, aydromancy, RS4 and stuff... NEVER use RS2 at this point!)
  • possible scenarios after your shroud burst, depending on the class/spec you are fighting (your target will start to kite you):1) RS2 to target then leave shroud and depending on the situation GS4 or 5 or 2 or spectral grasp to cover your shroud CD while keeping up pressure (every pull, gravedigger etc. forces your target into defense -> active defense for you, because a target that runs away from you can't damage you)2) RS2 in the opposite direction of your target to get some distance and leave shroud to recover while shroud is on cooldown (don't do this when fighting ranged classes!)

Then repeat the rotation above

Scenario 2:

  • your target wants to fight you at range (1200+)
  • use environment / LOS and don't overextend
  • ranger pets can be annoying here, so try to trick the AI
  • if your target is bad (and you know that at the beginning of the fight) you can try to start with an offensive RS2, but that's easy to counter by every class - even scourge

Like you can see surviving opening bursts and then counterpressure is the key factor. You have to gear correspondingly.Examples for matchups:

  • power guardian/dragonhunter/power shiro: add some toughness + NCSY! because high bock/invuln uptime which you have to tank
  • thief/holo: go full berserk because counterburst is key
  • scourge: go full berserk + burst condi removal (SoS+plague signet), then counterburst through his life/barrier pool
  • warrior: perma swiftness to be able to run in circles while his boons you triggered before run out
  • ranger + mesmer on your skillevel: Alt+F4

Power Reaper in zerg play:

  • stay behind the frontline
  • rush in, spectral armor+shroud burst, rush out with RS2 back to behind the frontline

That's it. This can be pretty effective as you burst like crazy and this even unblockable on demand and in an aoe. Rushing and bursting into a group of 3 or more targets on about 50% health will most likely lead into multiple downstates which your blob can cleave down while you rush out again. Don't stay into the fight for a long time. This will make you too vulnerable as spectral armor can't keep up your life force in shoud for more than 3 or 4 seconds when multiple targets start to focus you .

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But the problem is. There are only little fights where u instantly engage at the enemy. Often it's like casters cast and healers heal. Both zerg won't clash for a long time. And that's where reaper gets super useless.Sure if you have the right people with you it can work. Bu

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I mean i understand that even in Roaming, Small-Scale WvW, and Zerging the Reaper has problems and is overshadowed by its much more Overtuned Counter Part (Looking at you Scourge). Personally after coming back ive stuck to hold habits and have been enjoying roaming and learning Reaper. Ofc i've felt the pain of Mirage, DD, and Weavers roaming.

The main problems/weakness inherit to Reaper i've identified so far is.. (WvW/PvP Focused Problems)

  • Lack of Defense - No block or invuln, the possible trade off we have with having a larger HP pool + Shroud. (Shout out to my boy Nimon.7840 for stating it earlier). But when we go into a fight, were not expected to leave it, much less run away from it. Simply stated, Reapers are "Do or Die" quite literally.
  • Lack of Mobility - Presumably our access to Chill and Swiftness via "Speed of Shadows" and Utilities as "Summon Flesh Worm" & "Spectral Walk" is suppose to counter-act that.
  • Lack of "Speed" - We're very telegraphed. "Gravedigger" and the GS Auto-Chain are the poster-boys for this problem, while we can hit hard with individual attacks it really hurts us more then others when something is Invuln'd/Dodged.
  • Lack of Group Support - We dont bring much to group play. We bring damage, yes, massive burst. But we don't bring much to the team itself.

Now should all a classes problems be solved. No. A class should have defined strengths and defined weaknesses. It was brings diversity in group play, style, and skill.

I'm okay with the Reaper/Necro lacking mobility. Its a theme throughout the profession. I'm even okay with a slight lack in defensive options compared to other classes.

The one thing i've been struggling with so far is the Reapers lack of Reliability, Consistency, and Speed. When we get into melee we should be "In Our Element" this is where we shine. But Gravedigger taking 1.25sec to cast with a hyper-telegraphed animation all while being left vulnerable in melee not to mention our Auto-attack chain is the slowest of all professions in the game. For being a Reaper and having our most effective weapon/playstyle be the ranged Axe+Warhorn/Focus/Dagger seems counter-thematic.

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Reaper is pretty bad right now for blobbing with the degen nerfs basically reducing its sustain by around 80% and the changes to RS3 removing pulsing stability making it easier to remove. It can still 1v1 but it's much harder to play into highly-skilled opponents than it used to be as the sustain nerfs really affect its ability to force engagements and burn enemy resources while staying alive. It used to be stronger solely because of SR before it got totally gutted in wake of the addition of the scourge. The good sPvP build is power wells, but this is generally terrible for WvW. I'm pretty sure it's on metabattle. IIRC, @"EremiteAngel.9765" invented it some time ago.

I'm going to defer you to some reposted content about making reaper work in WvW:

It's honestly not even worth playing reaper without GS most of the time.

Just don't try to use it to deal damage, and above all, do not try to make Gravedigger work. Use it for LF gen, CC, boon corruption, and utility/sustain and gap closing and interrupts via skill 5 and chaining with CttB. Your primary sources of damage are shroud and Ghastly Claws on MH Axe. Do not try for the third hit of the AA chain unless you know it'll land and have no better course of action. If you can get damage off with it, great. Otherwise, its slowness is going to just open you up to being killed.

The best way to phrase how to use GS is the following:If you try to make GS a primary weapon for all situations, it will be terrible. If you play to its strengths and don't try to force its weaknesses to work, it's one of the best >weapon choices on necromancer in general due to the sheer utility it offers, and easily is a substantial reason why reaper is playable.

If you really want more reasoning behind GS, just look at my posts in this thread:https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/548039#Comment_548039

The build I've run with fine success in small-scale and solo play for WvW:http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNAnYRnMba2kab02Y5myNxyGlNQvpeTL4CGUbKAsAoODthnVcWsLWGB-j1CBQBB4EAwgDFwlUHhRKBHpSoso8JP6bi2+DA4JGoQVO4wBQ4bQAwkiqWVpqqqECQwYA-w

There are no rotations in PvP/WvW. I cover a few combos in the aforementioned thread. Ultimately, you just want to experiment and learn the mechanics of reaper and its matchups. You should try to make your animations as fluid and seamless as possible while negating aftercast delays (a period of inaction after each skill) by chaining skills together as soon as their effect occurs. Most of reaper's animation aftercasts can be cancelled via other skills, allowing you to drastically increase its speed by playing smart and learning what you can chain together and when.

It's not a cakewalk class and struggles harshly into a lot of the PoF content due to the SR/Shroud degen nerfs. As long as you're aware of this and don't expect huge performance, you can have a lot of fun.

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Thanks for the tips @"DeceiverX.8361"

I guess what i was looking for was certain intricacies inherit to Reaper.

Before i took a break i poured about 2500+ hours into Core Guardian and Core D/D Ele. There were small things you could do like "Churning Earth + Lightning Flash" or how Guardian could Hammer Ring + "Judges Intervention".

Those were the kind of combo's i had in mind.

Ofc every fight is fought differently whether against each class, ranged vs melee, etc. But certain combos provide a fluidity and compliment to each other like the ones for Ele and Guardian i mentioned above. Just wondering if there was something i didn't particularly know about either GS or Certain Utilities

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It's hard to say really. There are a lot of nuances that can win a fight for a reaper that are generally just important mechanics to know about the game.

Things like animation cancelling via shroud, combo fields, aftercast cutting and the likes are all really important.

There are a few out there, but it's super contextual and depends heavily on the matchup as well. Playing reaper successfully comes down to understanding exactly the tools you and your opponent have and how and when you can make trades. Too early or late on virtually anything and you'll get disengaged from and waste life force/shroud and most importantly the shroud cooldown. It's extremely easy to punish a reaper if they screw up. I often see them as free bags just because they rarely make perfect plays/often make huge mistakes or do not understand their matchup.

Honestly, it's really just going to come down to practice. It's not as frustrating or difficult as my thousands of hours on D/D core thief, but it's far from as easy as playing my Warrior, Soulbeast, Daredevil, or Deadeye.

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I've adored my reaper since before HoT came out... I farmed Teq for 2 months just to get a GS in preparation. I run GS and A/F if I'm in a group, and warhorn if roaming. For utilities, I've ALWAYS run spectral grasp. So much so, that not having it leaves me feeling naked. The 5 target thing was awesome, but then they changed to cooldown from 20s to 50s. Now, they've reduced it to 35s and I'm in love all over again.

Deceiver is 100% correct regarding the nuances. Once you've found the utilities and traits you like and get used to the timing and flow, you'll settle into a playstyle that will generate it's own rotations. I typically use the shout that gives unblockable when skirting larger groups, then go "fishing" with spectral grasp. usually you'll get at least two kids out of position from their zerg and they won't know what to do. It's the best and most rewarding class out there to play in my opinion, for both thematic and challenge reasons. There are a lot of videos out there regarding some tips and tricks that I would definitely recommend a gander at. Good luck!

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@Brigg.3961 said:I've ALWAYS run spectral grasp. So much so, that not having it leaves me feeling naked. The 5 target thing was awesome, but then they changed to cooldown from 20s to 50s. Now, they've reduced it to 35s and I'm in love all over again.The 5 target thing came with the cooldown increase to 50s. Before that spectral grasp was single target and you had to face your target (clunky as f....).

The most important thing was the change that it is not needed to face your target while casting anymore. This makes the skill unpredictable for the target (which is great!). The 5 target pull is nice, but situational. The life force gain when pulling 5 targets is insane (75% life force gain!). It's overpowered in PvE, but could be justified for PvP since when you pull 5 opponents to you, you want to have some defense (= high amount of life force). 35 seconds cooldown is okay. Definitely one of the stronger necro utilites now and a lot of fun to use.

reaper and combat flow:You only get good on reaper, when you bind a key to weapon stow and frequently use it. Being able to cancel

  • CTTB! -> force a dodge, block
  • GS2 -> force a dodge, block
  • GS5 -> get rid of the aftercast to guarantee a following GS2 hit, while your taget is still knocked down without the need of quickness sigil

...and many more are basics if you want to play the spec on a high level.

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I ran off to play core necro condi tank in WvW for a while.Then one day I accidentally got on to my Reaper in Lions Arch, I did a Reaper Shroud 2 dash to reach the bank and realized I still love Reaper the most.

Reaper is life!

Also to OP, you can learn much from DeceiverX!I learnt from him how to kill thieves a little better.Also many of his posts are some of the most well written and profound that I've seen on here.There is much to gleam from them!

Also to OP, if you are on NA, try looking for this Reaper in WvW who is currently on Crystal Desert.His Reaper is a tan-skinned human lady with shoulder length black hair.He is currently colored in bluish white and teal.IIRC, his account name is Solovet.His guild tag is SOLO i think.I call him King Solovet whenever I meet him because of his dedication and skill to Power Reaper.He has played purely Power Reaper in WvW solo roaming for his entire post-HOT gaming life as far as I know.Back then when Reaper had a huge condi boost, he still played power Reaper.

I think one of the most fundamental advise and which other posters like KrHome have advised above, go burst or go home!As you have mentioned yourself, Reapers suffer in many areas.So it has to play to its greatest strength.Burst!Try to take the initiative whenever you can and time your bursts well!

Also just to clarify to @DeceiverX.8361

The power wells build isn't invented by me! XDI think it was already a rage back then and in fact my own crappy version was greatly improved upon by another EU Reaper PvPer whom I forgot his name! lol...

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@"Nimon.7840" said:Well reaper in wvw zergfights is super bad.You can only bomb once with wells and then tickle the enemy with staff.The only thing you can do is when your zerg pushed over the enemy zerg and let's enemy downs behind. Reaper is perfect for cleaving those downs.But if you wanna be useful, and take part in the fights, you have to play scourgeI was "almost" going to argue this, then I saw it was coming from you lol. Keep up the reaper hate, maybe we will continue to be buffed :)

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@EremiteAngel.9765 said:I ran off to play core necro condi tank in WvW for a while.Then one day I accidentally got on to my Reaper in Lions Arch, I did a Reaper Shroud 2 dash to reach the bank and realized I still love Reaper the most.

Reaper is life!

Also to OP, you can learn much from DeceiverX!I learnt from him how to kill thieves a little better.Also many of his posts are some of the most well written and profound that I've seen on here.There is much to gleam from them!

Also to OP, if you are on NA, try looking for this Reaper in WvW who is currently on Crystal Desert.His Reaper is a tan-skinned human lady with shoulder length black hair.He is currently colored in bluish white and teal.IIRC, his account name is Solovet.His guild tag is SOLO i think.I call him King Solovet whenever I meet him because of his dedication and skill to Power Reaper.He has played purely Power Reaper in WvW solo roaming for his entire post-HOT gaming life as far as I know.Back then when Reaper had a huge condi boost, he still played power Reaper.

I think one of the most fundamental advise and which other posters like KrHome have advised above, go burst or go home!As you have mentioned yourself, Reapers suffer in many areas.So it has to play to its greatest strength.Burst!Try to take the initiative whenever you can and time your bursts well!

Also just to clarify to @DeceiverX.8361

The power wells build isn't invented by me! XDI think it was already a rage back then and in fact my own crappy version was greatly improved upon by another EU Reaper PvPer whom I forgot his name! lol...

Thanks for the kind words. I try :tongue:

You're the first person I saw mentioning running power wells at high rankings so I just assumed it was your idea. Nobody on NA was at the top standings on reaper at the time, but a few have crept up playing similar builds. I really don't pay attention to the sPvP meta that much let alone in a region I don't play in, though. Either way, you can probably provide more insight into power BM wells than me, as I only ever run the two when playing full tank frontline in WvW zergs, which is a bit more brainless than solo-defending a point.

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@TheDevice.2751 said:You shouldn't really play reaper in pvp unless you just don't care (like me).

If you care, go Scourge. Does everyone reaper does but better. Or just play a warrior if you want a viable gs wielding power build. Again, they also do everything a reaper can do but better.

That's not true. I played some preaper matches. An i always was too dmg top kills. Sometimes top rezz and even healing.

Don't tell me reaper is bad. most PvP players are just super bad. Standing in necro shades or wells and then say necro is op.I think you can easily get to a high rank with reaper

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