Build:Reaper - Spectral Onslaught

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

Focused on: Strike damage and Control

Designed for: PvP Conquest

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

Normal

This build was last updated on June 01, 2024 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.

Overview

A high damage PvP Power Reaper built around the Reaper's Onslaught trait, augmented by Spectral skills for proper Life Force management to decimate teamfights.

Skill Bar

Staff

Axe/Focus

Utility

Skill Variants

Heal

• Consume Conditions - better condition management, but overall a worse healing skill.

Utility

For the optional slot:

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

• Spectral Armor - stun break, defense against direct damage, and great Life Force generation.

• Spectral Ring - area denial that can save your life and has nice synergy with Fear of Death (if taken).

• Well of Darkness - great sustain tool that can help both you and your team survive longer.

• Corrosive Poison Cloud - excellent anti-projectile skill which also brings Poison and Weakness spam to the table, further mitigating damage as well as enemy healing.

• Spectral Grasp - CC and Life Force management.

• "You Are All Weaklings!" - short CD stun break with instant AoE Weakness application makes this a great defensive skill especially against power-based specs.

Elite

• Lich Form - long CD burst skill that could help you mop up kills.

Weapons

• Some people prefer playing with Greatsword instead of Staff, giving up range and utility for more burst and some protection vs melee provided by Nightfall. Take Speed of Shadows on Soul Reaping when playing with Greatsword. Overall GS is considered to be less competitive of an option than Staff though.

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Specializations

Variants

• Close to Death is a significant damage increase against low HP targets but you lose out on some important boons.

Specialization Variants

Replace Spite with Blood Magic for higher sustain if necessary:

Equipment

Staff

Sigil

Sigil

Axe

Focus

Sigil

Sigil

Rune

Amulet

Relic

Equipment Variants

Amulets

• - more forgiving option with higher HP and Life Force pool in exchange for doing a bit less damage.

Runes

• Rune of Scholar - if you can afford to give up some mobility for more damage.

Usage

General

• Spectral skills, Staff marks and Focus 4 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.
  • Spam Soul Grasp as much as you can if you're not at the Life Force cap.

• 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. This works for stomping downed enemies as well, the channeling isn't interrupted by either of these teleports!

• For mobility use the following sequence:

1. Reaper's Shroud (also applies Swiftness from Speed of Shadows when playing with Greatsword)
2. Death's Charge
3. Exit Reaper's Shroud just before Death's Charge finishes (the ending of DC brings your character to a halt, which can be cancelled by dropping out of shroud early)

• "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 one of the best burst skills in the build. Try to use it when you have a fair amount of Might stacks, Quickness, and preferably Vulnerability on the target.

• Keep using "Your Soul Is Mine!" even out of combat to build Life Force.

Damage

• Axe/Focus is the burst set, Staff is more of a defensive/utility one.

• Spinal Shivers is one of your strongest burst skills but only against targets with 3 or more boons. Try to use this when Sigil of Intelligence is active for a guaranteed crit.

• Ghastly Claws always does good damage but scales up against targets with Vulnerability.

• Unholy Feast works best against low HP targets but it's also the only AoE skill on this set, so if you really need cleave damage then the HP doesn't matter, just use it.

• Staff has low damage except for Putrid Mark, but usually that skill should be kept for defensive purposes as it's one of your few condition management tools (unless you really want to greed and get a kill).

• Chillblains is great at snaring targets and applying healing reduction via Poison

Shroud

• Most of your burst comes from Reaper's Shroud, where your damage is further increased by Death Perception and 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 auto attacks when eveything else is on CD.

• Burst combo example: Death's Charge (gap closer with good impact damage) ⇒ Terrify ⇒ Executioner's Scythe ⇒ Soul Spiral

Greatsword variant

• 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 sutations, especially when it comes to surviving vs melee players or 1v1ing on point (but that's not your main role).

• The auto attack 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.

Top Streamers

• Twitch: Mijo

• Twitch: Notoriousnaru

Related Builds

• Greatsword Roamer - similar Reaper build for WvW roaming.