Reaper - Greatsword Roamer

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Focused on: Strike damage

Designed for: WvW Roaming

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

Normal

Overview

A bursty Power Reaper build for WvW roaming. Its sustain is rather low, but sometimes the best defense is a good offense.

Archival note: with another CD increase to Nightfall, it's getting really hard to justify taking GS for roaming. Play the Power Curses build instead.

Skill Bar

Greatsword

Axe/Focus

Utility

Skill Variants

Utility

For the optional slot:

• Spectral Armor - better LF generation plus a stun break and defense against strike damage.

• Spectral Grasp - ranged CC which stops enemies from escaping, and even helps with LF management.

• "Suffer!" - condition transfer with good range that could also snare enemies on a low CD.

• Corrosive Poison Cloud - protects against projectiles, significantly reduces the damage dealt by melee enemies and even has poison for healing reduction.

Weapons

• Taking Staff over Greatsword is also a viable option, offering better range and more condition removal.

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Specializations

Specialization Variants

Swapping Curses with Soul Reaping is also a viable option. This version of the build has lower sustain, lower crit chance, but higher burst potential and better mobility (also makes passive movement speed runes somewhat unnecessary):

Equipment

Head
Marauder

Shoulders
Marauder

Chest
Marauder

Hands
Marauder

Legs
Marauder

Feet
Marauder

Backpiece
Cavalier

Accessory
Marauder

Accessory
Marauder

Amulet
Cavalier

Ring
Cavalier

Ring
Marauder

Greatsword
Marauder

Sigil

Sigil

Axe
Marauder

Focus
Marauder

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x18

Relic

Runes

• Rune of Superior Rune of Surging - good offensive stats and passive mobility boost.

• Rune of Superior Rune of the Cavalier - passive mobility, offers a middleground between Surging and Durability.

Relics

• Relic of Speed - improved mobility with Spectral Walk but this synergy is very easily disrupted by boon removal. This relic works much better with the Soul Reaping variant which has Speed of Shadows.

Sigils

• Sigil of Superior Sigil of Agility over Sigil of Superior Sigil of Cleansing - trades some defense against conditions for Quickness to make it easier to pull off either a Ghastly Claws or Spinal Shivers. Has synergy with Relic of Speed (if taken).

Consumables

Food

• - passive damage mitigation and great stats.

• - cheap precision bump with armor-ignoring damage procs that heal you.

• - active damage mitigation.
  • - budget version

Utility

• or .

Usage

General

• Spectral skills are going to be the main Life Force (LF) builders
  • Even at maximum LF you can consider using Spectral Armor before entering Reaper's Shroud. Both the Protection and the extra LF from incoming attacks are going to increase the time you'll be able to spend in shroud.

• Build Life Force by killing critters or any PvE mob before fighting players.

• There's more to Spectral Walk (SW) than just being a stun breaker with a bit of LF management, this skill allows for quite a bit of creativity. For example:
  • Activate SW ⇒ jump off a cliff while being chased ⇒ Spectral Recall when your enemies jump after you.
  • Activate SW ⇒ break line of sight ⇒ cast "Chilled to the Bone!" ⇒ teleport back at the very end of the channeling (this makes it harder to avoid and reduces the chance of getting interrupted, although the outcome is going to be a bit luck based).
  • Activate SW ⇒ Necrotic Traversal (if using Flesh Wurm) ⇒ teleport back when they catch up to you.

• "Chilled to the Bone!" has a very distinct animation which makes it easy to avoid, if you feel like that's going to happen then stow your weapon to cancel the channeling. This is also great for fake casting - you can use the skill, cancel it immediately with weapon stow (the whole animation will still play, potentially baiting out dodges or other defensive CDs), and send it only on a CD of 5 seconds.

• Ghastly Claws and Spinal Shivers are some of the best burst skills in the build, try to use them while the Sigil of Superior Sigil of Vision proc is active.

• Entering shroud acts as an instant defensive measure:
  • Transfers conditions to enemies on your next attack via Plague Sending.
  • Procs Lesser Enfeeble for Weakness from Weakening Shroud which strikes foes after a small delay. If Lesser Enfeeble connects it'll immediately transfer conditions with Plague Sending. This is a really powerful interaction that could save your life even if you're stunned, as shroud can be activated while sitting in a CC.
  • Leaving shroud cleanses conditions through Unholy Martyr.

Shroud

• Most of your burst comes from Reaper's Shroud, where your damage is further increased by Reaper's Onslaught.

• Opening with Infusing Terror is very common, as it helps getting your damage off uninterrupted while the damage reduction helps you stay in shroud longer.
  • Terrify is the chain skill of this slot. This should only be used when either A) you need an emergency CC, or B) Infusing Terror is about to expire.

• Death's Charge should be used in the field created by Executioner's Scythe for the Frost Aura whenever possible.

• Soul Spiral should primarily be used on CC'd or downed targets (as Poison reduces the resurrection healing coming from their allies), but thanks to the permanent Quickness while in shroud this skill is now much easier to land without any real setup.

• Executioner's Scythe's a single target skill for the most part, as it only stuns one target. Terrify can Fear targets long enough to prevent enemies from dodging this skill.

• Use autoattacks when eveything else is on CD.

Greatsword

• Nightfall is the only thing that justifies taking Greatsword, its strength is arguably on par with Well skills. Nightfall is fairly versatile and useful in many situations, especially when it comes to surviving vs melee players.

• The autoattack chain is just way too slow and will barely (if ever) be used.

• Gravedigger suffers from the same problem as the auto chain, but at least it hits way harder. This will mostly be used as a downed cleave skill when Shroud is on CD, but if you're feeling lucky you can try to use it for bursting in regular combat especially against bunkers. Much easier to land with some lingering Quickness from Reaper's Onslaught.

• Death Spiral is excellent for stacking some vulnerability/life force.

• Grasping Darkness is a decent CC but can be hard to land against moving targets.

• After unloading skills 3-5 spend most of your time in Reaper's Shroud waiting for weapon swap to come off CD.

Related Builds

Spectral Onslaught - the Conquest PvP version of this WvW roaming build.