Reaper MM vs Scourge MM?

[Sunshine.5014]

Hi all, I'm thinking of starting a low intensity Necromancer for when I'm tired of playing piano on my Ele.

 

I found two builds I'm interested in:

https://hardstuck.gg/gw2/necromancer/minionmancer-reaper-r18/

https://hardstuck.gg/gw2/necromancer/minionmancer-scourge-r17/

 

What's the pros/cons of those 2 builds? And which one would you recommend? Thanks!

[Dadnir.5038]

Objectively, it's 2 dps builds with poor utility choice.

 

Reaper:

- Pro: You got some nice damage packed into your shroud.

- Cons: The minions and death magic.

 

Scourge:

- Pro: since you have high condition damage, you'll synergize with the death magic minion traits.

- Cons: You'll likely strugle with LF gen.

 

If I had to choose between the 2, I think I'd take scourge over reaper. Now, if I had another choice that feature Blood magic over death magic for reaper, I'd probably take reaper.

[Sunshine.5014]

7 minutes ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Objectively, it's 2 dps builds with poor utility choice.

 

Reaper:

- Pro: You got some nice damage packed into your shroud.

- Cons: The minions and death magic.

 

Scourge:

- Pro: since you have high condition damage, you'll synergize with the death magic minion traits.

- Cons: You'll likely strugle with LF gen.

 

If I had to choose between the 2, I think I'd take scourge over reaper. Now, if I had another choice that feature Blood magic over death magic for reaper, I'd probably take reaper.

 

Thanks Dadnir, any MM build that you would suggest?

[Dadnir.5038]

2 minutes ago, Sunshine.5014 said:

 

Thanks Dadnir, any MM build that you would suggest?

Not really, I don't like minions enough to have a dedicated build on hand. That said, when I run minions, I do favor using Blood magic for the minor trait vampirism over Death magic. Vampirism will give your minion just as much extra damage than the death magics trait and make your minions leech life for you. The more minions you get the more effective it is.

[Anchoku.8142]

Adding Death Magic and playing minion master will only introduce new frustrations after getting over the novelty of watching them attack your target or go find one to play with, themselves. Here are a few tips.

1. You do not need Death Magic to play MM.

2. Necromantic Corruption is the best of the minion traits because a full line of minions significantly increases a Necromancer's ability to remove conditions and the increased damage by minions helps fights end quicker.

3. Flesh of the Master and Death Nova at least partly conflict with each other. FotM gives your minions more health but, to use Death Nova, the minions need to die. That means you are free to choose other traits in Death Magic. You do not need all three. Two of the three is perfectly acceptable.

4. Minions are ultra-casual so expect everything to take longer as they keep you safe.

5. Minions have high toughness so enemy AIs will target them instead of you but Carapace adds toughness to your character, which will draw aggro from minions if it stacks high enough.

6. Instead of Death Magic, try keeping your minions alive and healthy using Blood Magic's Ritual of Life, Life from Death and Transfusion. Turn restoring their health into a mini-game using completely un-buffed minions.

7. Once in a while, think of minions as Engi turrets that walk (or wander) and resign yourself to doing all of the heavy lifting while still having to tell them to use their skills.

8. Try Reaper or Scourge without any minions to see if it is really that difficult. Coming from Ele, you may find a full Viper's condi-dps Scourge or Berserker's Reaper are more engaging to play. Some minion master players get deep into developing skill for which minion skill to use, when, but the same, tactical energy can be applied to other weapon and utility skills. You might find using other utilities and builds are quite potent after a bit of practice.

Edited August 12, 2021 by Anchoku.8142

[Wintermute.5408]

For PVE, I'd say Reaper. With MM, your damage is going to be trash either way, but with Rise! shout Reaper pushes its tankiness to a completely new level. Also, more rats.

I'd go with BM/DM for first 2 lines. Again, you'll deal no damage anyway. But you're going to be pretty much immortal.

Edited August 11, 2021 by Wintermute.5408

[Chichimec.9364]

Just recently I started playing around with Metabattle's LI minion scourge and I like it a lot for open world pve. It's tankier than the mm reaper I've been playing for years. Even in the Marionette fights I barely got scratched with that minion scourge build.

Scourge - LI Minion Scourge - MetaBattle Guild Wars 2 Builds

[Maultrace.5761]

I like reaper, it's cool and does nice damage... but then i tried trail scourge... i don't dodge, i don't even move sometimes, all i do is press some buttons and watch as everything around me dies... this is just too good to give up, i know that full bers reaper can shred to pieces in seconds, but the thought of being such an unkillable tank is just intoxicating, i can solo champs i had a trouble surviving as a reaper, just because they had mechanics you just can't ignore, not to mention as scourge, you're practically immune to conditions.

 

I love reaper... but the scourge man, this thing feel like cheating sometimes, kitten.

[QuirkyDM.2351]

I don’t think Reaper plays as an MM as well as the other specs. MM gives up a lot of mobility- you are considered in combat as long as your minions are in combat and your minions are ALWAYS in combat. Reaper is about the only spec that has decent mobility so I don’t like giving that up for minions.

 

Minions are great for tankiness and AFK farming. That is also what core and Scourge are best at so they work well together. Reaper is better at bursting and cleaving, and the minions detract from that. 

[Dadnir.5038]

7 hours ago, QuirkyDM.2351 said:

Minions are great for tankiness and AFK farming. That is also what core and Scourge are best at so they work well together. Reaper is better at bursting and cleaving, and the minions detract from that. 

Reaper is probably the one necromancer spec that have the most access to damage reduction/nullification. The truth is that it's tankier than even core necromancer but most players go for damage with reaper which create the prejudice that "reaper is for bursting and cleaving". (Perma prot? check! Perma weakness? check! Lot of blind? check! 20% damage (power/condi) reduction from infusing terror? check! Almost perma 33% damage reduction from "Rise!"? check! stupid amount of barrier gen in melee range? check! ... etc.)

[Boh.4568]

I assume you'll use it in open world, because anywhere else the minions will just be a nuisance/dead weight for you and your party/squad.

That said, you won't be a true MM without Rise!!, so for me it's Reaper. Rise!! is the best minion skill excluding the flesh golem, and the free damage reduction while the rats attack will be almost permanently up.

So, for the traits, reaper is taken. Then the only two other choices are death magic and blood magic.

The carapace can be an issue for the aggro, as someone else said, but the trait that permanently transfers conditions through the minions is invaluable and worth the entire trait line. And of course the +HP/+ATK trait for the minions.

Likewise, the fact that minions can vampiric-siphon for you makes the entire blood magic trait worth it, on top of your own vampirism.

As for the equipment, your damage won't be stellar without spite, soul reaping and the wells, but your survivability will be so high that you can go full berserk with a damage rune (scholar, eagle, etc) without any issues. As for the weapons, classic GS/Axe-whatever.

Just be prepared to be very slow to kill tougher mobs, and the high end champions will be a big problem because thay can oneshot most minions.

[QuirkyDM.2351]

8 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Reaper is probably the one necromancer spec that have the most access to damage reduction/nullification. The truth is that it's tankier than even core necromancer but most players go for damage with reaper which create the prejudice that "reaper is for bursting and cleaving". (Perma prot? check! Perma weakness? check! Lot of blind? check! 20% damage (power/condi) reduction from infusing terror? check! Almost perma 33% damage reduction from "Rise!"? check! stupid amount of barrier gen in melee range? check! ... etc.)

Those are some good points, though I guess it depends what the game mode is. Blind, chill and weakness don’t provide much defence against anything with a break bar. A little bit of soft cc but that’s it. Rise! and Infusing Terror are great as you said, but you’re giving up a third trait line to get access to those. Everything else you mentioned is available to all necros. Reaper’s shroud drains much faster, too.

 

Still, you bring up enough good points that I can say Reaper is not necessarily “not tanky”.