I Tried DPS REAPER in Guild Wars 2 - Thoughts 

during the entire test, the target had more than 50% hp ... you deal 20% more dmg when the target is below 50% + extra gravedigger damage. thats probably how you achieved the 35k dps.

One big thing about reaper is maximizing your modifiers, you get ALOT of bonus stats for being in shroud so you wanna pop your damage over time abilities before you hop in shroud (wells, daggers 2, greatsword 4) so they have the big modifiers for the majority of their durations.

The first thing i would always say to new dps player is to simplify, simplify and simplify until the point you know what your buttons do and what does dmg. Take for example reaper i think you would do much more dmg playing plain gs and using shroud in correct order. With that in mind going into training rotation while having 0 knowledge i would say do it using just 3 buttons. Then add 2 more, then again add 2 more. If at any point you start losing dmg rather than increase it with more buttons you are doing something wrong. If you repeat this process like 5 times, in less than an hour your dps can increase up to ~85% benchmark.

I play this with sword/sword. It's lower DPS but having the ranged option and movement of sword 3 is nice

I think one of the main challenges of this build is to manage your cooldowns so you can always maintain both soul barbs and the bonus from relic of fireworks. That adds up to 17% more damage. Also you could use sword on main hand instead of dagger just so you have a ranged option (plus mobility).

04:38 "Sweet and spicy butternut squash soup" gave me so much serotonin 😂🙏💕

Using mainhand sword has made me love the class even more, gives fantastic mobility and range at a slightly lower dps ceiling over mainhand dagger. Have a lovely day!

I like using GS + Staff for a ranged option and more AoE damage.

You *can* grant yourself Fury using "Your soul is mine!" in elite slot. That's also plenty of extra stability, might, quickness, some cc... Yeah, very loaded skill.

I literally needed this video at the perfect time, thanks Muk!

power reaper is such an easy and strong build imo, plus its fun (at least in my eyes :D )

welcome to the club Muk

This was the build that really got me into this game! Like you said, it excels at open world and the story. Also, I know it's not the meta, but "Chilled to the Bone" then "You're All Weaklings" feels really good to use in the middle of a bunch of enemies.

Keep in mind that you're using the "Close to Death" grandmaster trait in the Spite trait line. This gives you a 20% damage bonus to enemies below 50% health. So if you're doing a benchmark and the golem never goes below 50% health, your dps is lower than it would be if you kept going until the golem died. It's also worth trying not using skill 2 in shroud form. Auto attacking and shroud 2 is almost the same dps and sometimes if you're not perfect using shroud skill 2 you'll interrupt an auto attack.

Really good for open world for all the reasons you mentioned, however you CAN also provide yourself fury as well with runes that increase fury buff time, and a trait that makes fear give you fury. Doing that makes this the only class in the game (I think) that can get 100% crit chance with full Valkyrie armor (minus 1 accessory). Provided you take the second reaper trait that gives you crit based on enemy vuln stacks. This also increases life force, and while lf drains a percentage amount over time, taking damage will effectively make you lose less "reaper time" when you get hit because of the bigger lf pool.

Chilled to the Bone lets you self-provide Fury. Very useful for doing lamp or open world.

Reaper is aged like wine

I overall enjoyed your video, just one note. When I play Reaper I almost always just sit on Greatsword. I benched max at 35k which isn't amazing compared to the best, but makes it slightly more braindead. The dagger secondary weapon is technically more optimized, but sitting on greatsword allows me to use Sword/Sword in my second weapons set and swap to it during phases where you have to back off. It may not bring as much DPS as Greatsword, but allows you to keep up some pressure during those phases. I definitely find this DPS class far simpler than my Condi-Scourge, and I mained that spec for many years.

I remember years ago back when my best friend still played we made a build nearly identical to this. In open world it was insane and just made the game a lot of fun. To this day I have 3 reapers on my account for separate builds and setups. (This was before they added ways to swap builds etc) I'm currently returning and it was nice seeing the gift boxes I got from playing since launch. Hopefully with my other friend we can make plenty of good memories as well.

I main Power Reaper w/GS Axe/WH and I'm always doing great DPS, and TBH, I've not changed the build in a long time, and it looks very similar to what you were doing minus the same weapons. The Axe makes ranged possible at still decent DPS. Another tip: Easy Combo chain Daily is Shroud 5 followed by 4 spin and Daily done (if enemy has enough life)

Slight addendum, if you swap Golem to the Elite shout, you do cover Fury gen in open world! Or alternatively, you could tweak a trait to grant fury on fear. (I prefer the shout since I don't care much for break bars unless I'm doing metas, but then I'm probably getting might from random folks anyway :P) Thanks for the video, Muk! See you in the next one!

For open world also, you can use "Chilled to the Bone!" elite skill to give you fury and stability, the fury and stability get more effective when you hit more foes with it. I don't recommend running the golem in open world, it always engages with enemies leaving you in combat 24/7. However, you can use it for bosses since it tank the boss for you.

Whether power or condi wins also depends on the target's armour. Some bosses are seriously skewed in one direction or another. Well-known example is the red mini Vale Guardian. Good quick summary. While the Shroud doesn't like unavoidable damage it can also be used to dodge some mechanics although I'm not perfectly sure which ones.

And I did use your Link to buy the next expansion!

Hi, what stat infusion would you recommend to make this exact build better? I am new to using the Reaper and really enjoying it. Thanks in advance!

You can make Reaper a bit more comfy with Signet of Spite and undeath for Life force generation, WHICH also give you the revive utility to help prevent your team from snow balling into a wipe. Muk has Well of Suffering and Well of Darkness as utility skills which are the well that deal the biggest power damage but you can bring a little bit of utility in PUG groups to help out: Spectral Grasp for more CC, Corrupt Boon (does what it says) same for well of corruption, Poison cloud to block projectiles, Spectral Walk to be in 2 places at once, Flesh Wurm is actually clutch on Whisper of Jormag - able to block its phase 2 ball spam and Well of Power if your healer is struggling to remove condis (Eg Wing 2 bosses have alot of condis in them). So while you are a DPS who can do BIG DEEPS, it should not be overlooked how powerful slotting in one utility skill is to help clear the fight. Flesh Golem is the superior CC to Chilled to the Bone!, end of discussion. Additionally, if you are picking up Reaper for the first time - while Muk didn't do it in his demonstration at the start - get into the habit of hitting 3 when you go into Reaper Shroud, "Infuse Terror" is instant cast, gives 3 stacks of Stability which can help you clear certain mechanics (HT jump ropes and fears) and gives you 66% reduction to both damage types, use it when ever you need and it is and extra little 1 second fear which will also chill due to Shivers of Dread for emergency CC (COUGH Samrog COUGH).

✨"sweet and spicy butternut squash soup"✨ 4:39

You should try Sword/Sword - Great sword if you haven't. Counter intuitively Sword/Sword is essentially ranged. It has more CC /Life gain and does essentially the same damage but you don't have to be in Melee range when you're not in Reaper. It's projectiles also penetrate and its fear splashes fear in an AOE so it handles groups of mobs super well.

Thanks for the video. Did you also look at dual sword for open world solo?

Just made a reaper today, perfect timing

Finally the only way I play GW2 gets some "love?" from Muk xD I know Reaper does not give anything but I had a small role back then in a little raid group and the people were happy that I dont die so much for a raid noob. Also I love how much fun it makes in open world with just Bayblade gameplay.

I use an old Guildjen WvW Roaming build (Dagger/Focus, GS) to live in Shroud and there is nothing more fun than completing maps and thinking, "They gonna need to send a bigger army. I'm hungry..."

when Duel sword over Dagger sword you have a good distance hit with skill 2, giving you heal on is 2nd hit bare this in mind but 3 skills can repel you towards and away from close encounters to which i like to 5, 2,2,,3,4 ,.3 as i have 1 set to my mouse click

Reaper has long been one of my favorites, but that is for cosmetic reasons more than anything. I was a Thief main for a long time before that. Still love the Thief particularly with a staff.

In your comparison chart, would you also check if the build has a low intensity version ? It's good that you talk about the snowcrow max dps, but maybe you could also say: for those that only have few hours to play and based on your experience trying it in 2h, is it worth trying the real build (can you get close rapidly or be much better than LI) or the LI build will suit some better.

BRUH these protip reviews of builds are off the chain! Thanks to you I have an Asura. He happens to be a necro.

Replace the dagger with another sword and you'll be fine at range + get a gap closer. DPS loss is minimal against golem and against some bosses it's actually a DPS gain.

oh also they have a ton of utility, very enabled by that last slot being dedicated to signet of spite or whatever so you can swap it out easily, you mentioned some of them, but the flesh wurm eats fraenir of jormag's balls (you summon the wurm in the middle of the arena and it takes negligible damage while removing the spheres) well of power is an aoe stun break/stability/condi cleanse (in case you have none) and chilled to the bone is good in all cases except for large targets who get crushed by the flesh golem charge, it gives basically the same dps but also gives self might, stab, fury, quickness and a multi target aoe cc/damage

bringing signet of undeath is actually really useful to bring as the lifeforce it gives you passively is huge in terms of being able to stay in reaper a lot longer, its still a minor dps loss in an ideal fight when that isnt a struggle, but like for boneskinner you mentioned, you will definitely do better with it than the shout since youll be able to be in reaper a lot more

Thank you

The simple version is to camp greatsword instead of weapon swapping. Staff should only be used to precast marks before a phase begins, or to build bloodlust stacks. swapping dagger for mainhand sword gives you some ranged DPS. Flesh golem and spectral grasp is a LOT of cc in the right circumstances. Being forced out of shroud is better than being downed...

Back when I played a power Reaper build regularly (this was back before the since-remedied PoF nerf), I would always--ALWAYS--open a fight with GS 2 while closing with the mob. Why, you ask? The animation. The leap and spin while moving looked like it came straight from a comic book panel, and I can be a shallow, shallow Comet from time to time.

Hehe.. fun looking at other ppl play the reaper. My build probably does half of what Muk dished out. The jade bot 'buffs' help in farming and the initial quickness is a QOL. I'm one of those guys that don't stay in shroud form unless fighting bosses (PVE Open World). Shroud form can sometimes bug the 'Spar with Xunlai Jade's guard mechs' at Garden Heights if you kill the jade mech's too quickly and all that is left is the orange circle of the event and waiting on the timer to run its self out and then fails the event. I do love spamming 'grave digger' and spectral grasp with my shout build. Maybe one day I'll try these OP builds. :D Then again I fumble when weapon swapping and end up 'nerfing' myself even more.. lol

The true way to play necro is to take Harbinger to Convergence, gather all the orbs, max out blight for -82,5% hp pool. wolololo

I like to use axe/focus as my weapon-swap for range- handy for boonstrip and there's a trait for reduced cd's and increased damage.

Will you be covering condi builds that are primarily played that way even if there is a power variant? Classes that come to mind are virtuoso, renegade, and elementalist in general.

I use sword/sword like ranged. Use chrono relic for quickness on wells then the trait foe quick/fury on fear so full quickuptime 25 might and fury on self

Not to mention ppl always forget in reaper form you have 33% less strike damage taken + the minus 66% overall dmg taken from shroud skill 3 . but for the golem i largely prefer "chilled to the bone" freaking loaded up skill for fury , and super strong cc who does 500 breakbar damage on a 30 secs cooldown. One thing i would change is "you are all weaklings" providing fury instead of might. For those who feel like fury is lacking and want the 100% crit chance with berserker stuff you can use the relic of midnight king who give yourself and allies fury + might whenever you cc a target , which is pretty easy with reaper.

I've been playing a similar build, but with a few differences. I'm no expert buildcrafter so I won't claim all of these are really good ideas... The build I use is focused on cold damage, so lots of chill related stuff. I use Chilled To The Bone in the elite slot, and Suffer in slot 9 because, in addition to its chilling effect, I've also found that condition removal is more often useful than stun break (especially movement impeding conditions, which are obviously a big problem for a melee focused build that often needs to chase foes). For weapon sigils I use Geomancy + Hydromancy for their on-weapon-swap effects (note that entering/exiting shroud counts as a weapon swap).

if you are gonna go through all the dps specs that's gonna be a looong experiment but i do welcome it, can't wait for the ele part

I use sword/sword instead of dagger/sword to have a range option. Not as good in terms of DPS but you can poke at range and jump around twice to unga and bunga respectively.

I think there are a few more things you could keep track of when trying out the different builds: - cleave (reaper has a lot of cleave) - self boons (reaper can have self quickness for free which make it more self sufficient when group splits) - self sustain (reaper is very nice because of the extra life bar) - built in mobility (reaper shroud 2 is quite a large leap) - built in group boons (reaper does not share anything, but holosmith for example can share 5 might and some fury with everyone) - ranged attacks in melee build (reaper has 2 ranged utility and staff when you can't melee, there are some melee builds that has ZERO ranged attacks)

reaper my beloved

4:40 - Greatest moment of the video

Sword/sword is also a good choice over dagger/sword IMO. It gives a ranged option and extra mobility. Personally I don’t see a dps loss over daggers but I guess I’m just bad 😅

Reaper is my favorite!

in those situations where you get kicked out of shroud because you took too much damage, i would swap out one of your utilities for either spectral armor or spectral walk before you go into shroud. You'll get 8% or 4% of damage taken back in life force. Should help staying in shroud longer. Yeah a situational deal but it's good for single target situations.

Reaper is my main with 6000 hour. Hands down my favorite class. I also mainly play wvw.

I love my Reaper. The only class I got the 1.2k wins in PVP because of how OP chill shout is 😂. Ultimate Phantom🎉🎉🎉

I play this in open world/story using GS and Axe/Focus and its a lot of fun- unga bunga for the win

I hate memorizing. I just make sure to rotate around 100% soul barbs uptime (hence need to jump in and out of shroud)

Hi, I'm going insane here... Being still fairly new to the game, I'm trying to figure out all the boons and buffs and auras and enhancements one can bring to the field. There's a white + with a sectioned circle around it next to the item enhancement, armor reinforcement and so on. What buff is that? Edit: Found it. Rescue Protocol. Never been to EoD areas so that's why I've never had that.

reaper provides self fury w/ a 10s window on a 30s cd through its elite skill, so reaper is also critcapped by itself in open world

I've got a question about the rotation. As a reaper main myself, I know the guide and rotation logs say 2 shroud 2s before shroud 4, even though shroud 4 is the big number maker, and even you, mukluk, agree that there are times when you take too much damage and drop out of shroud before u can get to shroud 4 and that big serotonin hit, so my question is, is there a reason why we don't immediately pop shroud 4 first?

Maybe its just personal taste, but ever since they kinda made shouts better, I always take "Chilled to the Bone" instead of Golem, even though it does less damage its a faster recharging CC than Charge and it can give you stab which reaper lacks outside of shroud 3 and its really bad to pop into shroud just for stability (this is mostly for open world though, fyi). Also, you forgot to mention reaper is the best class and has the best aesthetics.

"The best nerd in the game..." love it

I love reaper so much, I just really wish it was stop bugging out when i do my inputs very fast (for optimal dps hehe). Apparently its a charr/norn problem, but like 90% of the time whenever I enter reapers shroud my scythe aint there and i end up high fiving and punching the enemy instead anet pls fix

Barrier helps a lot with keeping shroud% whilst in shroud, so find yourself a necro buddy :)

Sword/Sword is my favorite.

Reaper has been my safety charr. Taking extended breaks from the game, its the easiest to plug and play, and get re-acclimated with the game. Its aged like wine. Aside from Vindi, its the only elite spec that I can autopilot metas and multitask on my 2nd monitor. Very user friendly. 10/10 recommend to newer players.

i never had my scythe disapear in shroud on me - but i also dont play and ugly rat on necro

So, as a question to more knowledgeable reaper mains, is there any worth in trading out Soul Eater for Decimate Defenses and then swapping out some berserker gear for dragon gear instead? I remember when EOD was announced that there was discussion of incorporating Dragon gear into power reaper builds due to the fact that we can get a pretty high crit chance without gear investment and with gear investment and taking decimate defenses vs soul eater, can easily cap our crit chance. This being the case, Dragon was highly considered since it gives higher Power and Ferocity and then a bit of precision for crit chance and vitality. The vitality was considered nice since a reaper's shroud is based on max life so all four of these stats provided boosts to the reaper gameplay. If anyone is able to provide more info, I would most appreciate.

IMHO, Necro, regardless which build, it's just solid, even though sometimes, it would be nice to have that extra bit of hp but, it's a survivor class.

"Dime a dozen deadweight dps" They are if Michael here plays them XD

Dran sword in the thumbnail! Beyblade X ftw

I can understand your love of signet of spite, but signet of undeath is useful even if solo for when you get to the 50% mark and start spamming GS 2. Yes I'm not ever reviving folks but the auto lifeforce regeneration is useful in some fights.

I love me a good spectral grasp and spin to win reapin' time

you can do 34-35k dps with just greatsword and no weapon swap, weapon swapping is clunky and unless you wanna spend some good time in the golem room.. just greatsword spam xd

i like to replace a well skill with the signet instead since the shout is an instant cast and doesn't interrupt abilities. now there's only 1 real "utility" which is just the 1 well also i think elite shout is also really good, lifeforce gen, decent breakbar, and some damage if you don't need flesh golem's massive cc

Please do autoattack hammer dragonhunter. 30k, brings permanent prot, decent cc, and 2 open slots for awesome guardian utility skills. Rotation is press 1, go grab a snack.

I have a question. How is muk able to have arcdps and other addons. Does he do it any other way than the unoficial addon manager? Because that thing is, at least for me, broken starting today. It wouldn't let me delete adcdps addon which in turn would not let me play the game and would instantly crash it because of some error. After deleting the addon manager somehow arcdps would always add itself back to my gw2 files and now I have to reinstall the whole thing. Is there any other way to have arcdps and gw2radial or do I have to just do everything manually from now on because the addons kept acting like a ***** virus and crashing my game?

I love reaper, but it sucks when Mr. "hi dps" decides to grief me with some mechanic like Sabetha red circle bomb and my lifeforce goes from 100 to 0.

I have exact same items and still it shows only 74% crit chance not like in video, what i might possibly be doing wrong guys?xd

Reapers club here :D

Is there a guide for how to get the gear?

I get 39k with great sword and staff not sure what's going on here.....

Power Reaper - hit target, target dedite, next target. LOL. unless you bump into something that hits *REALLLLLYYYYYYY* hard, it's crazy strong in open world.

Finally the best profession

sweet and spicy butt nut squash is propaganda by like idk someone evil, you can make ascended food with the same stats for about the same price and it lasts double the time and it shares with other people

Condi Deadeye noooow >:O

I am switched from dps reaper to harbinger, because its more challenging class.

i have the inf. shield necro build, i designed. it protects me, my minions, and all allies up to , i think 25 total in a inf. shield. So no one takes damage but the enemies. the shields also damage enemies near them.

On dagger sword, you should combo 4-5-4-5 and use dagger 2 as the last skill before swapping or going into shroud. In the opener, just use gs 5, gs 4, wells, weapon swap, dagger 2, shroud. If using the shout utility, out that in after you activate fireworks.

As a new player these "I tried" videos and the people in the comments have been such a boon.

You said that you count the auto attacks. I've got great news! You don't have to! If you have quickness+alacrity, just spam shroud2 while it's on cooldown, to cast as soon as possible. You'll do exactly 2 auto attack chains! You can cast your shroud4 and shroud5 while in shroud2 animation, those skills won't cancel your shroud2, but they'll cast instantly so no interrupted auto attacks. Same goes to Greatsword2. After GS2 you wanna do 1 auto attack chain, but the auto attack chain resets the GS2 cooldown. So you just spam GS2 while it's on cooldown. What about under 50%? The GS2 has an aftercast animation that can be cancelled like pros. What to do? Spam GS2 while you're in animation, GS2 will cancel the aftercast animation itself!

to be fair, condi reaper does stack the dots very fast so its not the WORST at short fights. but yeah its mostly just funny haha spin bleed

Don't nerf virtuoso again please! It used to rampager gear on them, and now it's something obtuse like sinister... Boooh

You don't use Shroud 5 on the first shroud rotation.

So...do you only play Asura? With man? Show your own race some love at least! Lol.

first :)