Reaper - Power Curses Roamer

The community gave this build a rating, making it top-tier: Great

Focused on: Strike damage, Sustain and Boon removal

Designed for: WvW Roaming

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

Normal

This build was last updated on July 31, 2024 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.

Overview

A Power Reaper build for WvW roaming. Significantly more durable than most other Reaper builds without sacrificing too much damage, and the boon corruption from Curses traits is quite useful against tanky opponents.

Skill Bar

Staff

Axe/Dagger

Utility

Skill Variants

Utility

For the optional slot or even over Spectral Armor:

• Summon Flesh Wurm - ranged teleport and stun break, useful for disengaging or chasing down targets.

• "Suffer!" - better condition management, instantly gets rid of conditions that'd get in the way of doing damage like Blind or Weakness and could even act as a low-CD ranged snare.

• "Nothing Can Save You!" - unblockable attacks and frequent boon removal.

• "You Are All Weaklings!" - low CD stun break with extra damage and Weakness application to shut down burst attempts.

• Spectral Ring - great CC that makes it hard for enemies to reach you or escape your damage.

• Corrosive Poison Cloud - creates a safe zone against ranged enemies, could help against some popular specs like Deadeyes or Soulbeasts and the Weakness shuts down power-based builds in melee too. Furthermore the healing reduction from Poison could help you wear down tanky Cele builds.

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

Weapons

• Sword/Sword over Staff - both of these are utility weapons first and foremost. Dual Swords offer much better mobility and some extra boon corruption while retaining tools like Fear and Weakness applications at the cost of sacrificing range, condition management, healing reduction and the ability to fire your skills behind your back while building distance under pressure.

• Focus over offhand Dagger - a more offensive option with good damage and boon removal.

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Equipment

Head
Marauder

Shoulders
Marauder

Chest
Marauder

Hands
Marauder

Legs
Marauder

Feet
Marauder

Backpiece
Marauder

Accessory
Marauder

Accessory
Marauder

Amulet
Marauder

Ring
Marauder

Ring
Marauder

Staff
Cavalier

Sigil

Sigil

Axe
Cavalier

Dagger
Cavalier

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x18

Relic

Equipment Variants

Stats

There's some room for customization when it comes to gearing:

• For more focus on boon duration replace the Amulet and 1 Accessory with Diviner ones. With Ascended gear this will give you exactly 30% boon duration, enough to hit breakpoints on some traits granting Protection and Quickness.

• You may choose to sacrifice some crit chance for more tankiness by replacing the Amulet and 1 Ring with Cavalier ones.

Runes

• Rune of Superior Rune of Durability - more tanky option.

Relics

• Relic of Isgarren - offers slightly higher burst damage and it's easy to maintain, but you have less control over it than you do over Fireworks.

• Relic of Speed - significantly increases your mobility but there are only 2 Swiftness sources in the build, against other builds with boon removal this might end up losing a lot of value.

Consumables

Food

• - passive damage mitigation and great stats.

• - active damage mitigation.
  • - budget version

Utility

• or .

Usage

General

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

• Both weapon sets offer a decent mix of defense and offense, but they're mostly just stalling until you can go back into Reaper's Shroud for burst damage.

• "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 is the best burst skill on Axe/Dagger and doesn't really require any setup. Unholy Feast is best used on targets below 50% HP.

• Dagger skills are mostly defense oriented. Deathly Swarm is one of the main condi removal tools in the build but also Blinds targets, and the condi transfer is good at counterpressuring targets even on a Power build. Enfeebling Blood mitigates incoming damage through Weakness.

• On Staff try to use Putrid Mark after Chillblains whenever possible in order to combo AoE Weakness. These are also your two most dangerous skills on this set.

• Staff is more of a utility weapon, low damage but it has a condition transfer, a CC, snare, and adds much needed range to the build. The Chill and Fear are useful both for keeping distance when you're waiting for CDs and preventing enemies from escaping when they're trying to flee.

• If you're using Death's Charge only for the mobility you should consider dropping out of shroud near the end of the animation. The very end of Death's Charge brings your character to a halt, we can cancel this by cancelling shroud.

• 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.
  • Shrouded Removal removes one condition when you enter shroud and keeps cleansing you every few seconds while in shroud.

• 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.

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.