Build:Reaper - Condi DPS

The community gave this build a rating, making it second-tier: Good

Focused on: Condition damage and Area damage

Designed for: Raids and Fractals

Difficulty:

TBD

This build was last updated on February 19, 2022 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.

Overview

A condition damage build for Necromancer that sacrifices the versatility of Scourge for higher damage. This build also brings large amounts of short-range cleave without having to rely on Epidemic, and its frequent application of Blind and Chilled make it effective at mitigating damage in mob-heavy fights.

Skill Bar

Greatsword

Scepter/Dagger

Utility

Skill Variants

Healing Skills

• Signet of Vampirism or Summon Blood Fiend for a little more damage. Signet of Vampirism is slightly more DPS, but can hit targets other than the one you're attacking.
• "Your Soul Is Mine!" is the only bonus source of life force generation you have, which may be necessary on some encounters.
• Well of Blood is your biggest heal in encounters without incoming conditions, and it provides a small amount of support.

Utility Skills

Replace Summon Bone Fiend if you need any of the following:

• Corrosive Poison Cloud if projectile absorb is needed.
• Epidemic if in an encounter with numerous adds spawning.
• Plague Signet for condition cleansing teammates and a strong condition transfer.
• Summon Flesh Wurm is your go-to blink skill should you require quick mobility.
• Summon Shadow Fiend If you need more life force, shadow friend can help.

Elite Skills

• Summon Flesh Golem for good crowd control (or in any situation where a boss is too mobile to make use of the full damage potential of Plaguelands).

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Specializations

Specialization Variants

• Use Parasitic Contagion for strong self heal at a 10% dps loss.
• Use Chilling Victory if you find yourself starved of life force.

Blood Magic variant (instead of Soul Reaping)

Variants

• You could bring Blood Bond to maximise DPS, but if you're taking Blood Magic its reasonable to assume that res power is more valuable.

Blood Magic gives more support in the form of minor heals. Usually not worth running, but here for the sake of completeness. Make sure to switch your heal to Well of Blood to benefit from the ranged revive.

Spite variant (instead of Soul Reaping)

Spite gives access to self-generate Quickness and Might, enabling you to easily maintain 25 stacks once a target is below 50% health. Use this in situations where you're completing a solo role (for example, doing Back Wargs at Escort). It also grants you far more vulnerability application.

Equipment

Head
Berserker

Shoulders
Sinister

Chest
Berserker

Hands
Sinister

Legs
Berserker

Feet
Sinister

Backpiece
Sinister

Accessory
Sinister

Accessory
Sinister

Amulet
Berserker

Ring
Sinister

Ring
Berserker

Greatsword
Berserker

Sigil

Sigil

Scepter
Berserker

Dagger
Berserker

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x18

Consumables

Food:

• or ascended versions
  • , or for a cheaper alternative

Utility:

• • or for a cheaper alternative

Usage

Rotation

A lot of condi reaper's damage comes from combo fields - by far the most effective comes from the ice field provided by Executioner's Scythe. Whirl finishers from Soul Spiral, Death Spiral and Gravedigger all apply Chilled, which also applies Bleeding via Deathly Chill. Your Summon Bone Fiend also has two projectile finishers on each attack.

In addition, applying Blind and Fear will also apply Chilled via Chilling Darkness and Shivers of Dread respectively, boosting damage from any skill that applies those conditions. As Chilling Darkness has a 3-second internal cooldown, spreading out your sources of Blind (Nightfall, Deathly Swarm, Plaguelands and Well of Darkness) is also beneficial.

Finally, entering or exiting Reaper's Shroud counts as a weapon swap, meaning that we can trigger Sigil of Superior Sigil of Hydromancy and Sigil of Superior Sigil of Geomancy twice on each loop while only having them on the greatsword. To achieve this, as soon as we swap to greatsword (and trigger the sigils) we enter Reaper's Shroud, then remain in shroud for approximately 9 seconds so that the sigil cooldown ends, and Exit Reaper's Shroud to trigger them a second time.

Burst

Begin on greatsword.

1. Reaper's Shroud
2. Executioner's Scythe
3. Soul Spiral - be sure to let it complete the animation
4. Exit Reaper's Shroud
5. Death Spiral and Gravedigger - both provide whirl finishers but Death Spiral performs more, so use it first in case you drop Quickness
6. Nightfall - this is a priority skill that will interrupt the cast of the previous skill if you use it too early, so be careful
7. Grasping Darkness
8. Weapon swap - you can weapon swap as soon as you see the claw from Grasping Darkness in order to cancel the aftercast

Sceptre section

1. Grasping Dead
2. Devouring Darkness
3. Blood Is Power
4. Plaguelands (if available)
5. Blood Is Power (if available)
6. Deathly Swarm
7. Enfeebling Blood
8. Blood Curse → Rending Curse → Putrid Curse x2
9. If you didn't use Plaguelands this loop, do an extra autoattack chain
10. Well of Darkness
11. Grasping Dead
12. Devouring Darkness
13. Weapon swap

If Plaguelands is not available at step 4, but is nearly off cooldown, you can delay steps 3-6 until after step 8.

Greatsword/Shroud section

1. Reaper's Shroud
2. Infusing Terror → Terrify
3. Life Rend → Life Slash → Life Reap x3
4. Life Rend - one extra autoattack to ensure that we're in shroud long enough to trigger Sigil of Superior Sigil of Hydromancy and Sigil of Superior Sigil of Geomancy a second time when we exit.
5. Now return to step 2 of the burst section

Example rotation

Notes:

• Use Epidemic whenever there are enemies near the main target. A second necromancer can even bounce the conditions back to the main target.
• Try to position yourself inside the hitbox of your target to ensure that all created Chilling bolts hit your target as they spawn instead of flying off uselessly.
• While the build uses CC as part of it's rotation, if your groups needs immediate access to CC bring Summon Flesh Golem instead of Plaguelands for CC on demand. It's better to do this than lose out on DPS by saving Executioner's Scythe.
  • If necessary, you can delay your Terrify while in shroud if it will line up with a defiance bar.
• If you fail to transfer conditions with Deathly Swarm, clear them with Consume Conditions as they hurt quite a bit! Be aware that this will Blind you, so make sure to throw a single autoattack out afterwards to clear it.

Breakbar

On Demand:

• Summon Flesh Golem is one of the strongest crowd control skills the necromancer has.
• With a Warhorn in your 2nd weapon set, use Wail of Doom. Note that by taking warhorn you lose your ability to transfer the self-condis from Blood Is Power and Plaguelands, resulting in a ~1.5k DPS loss.

Part of rotation:

• By making use of Chilling Darkness and spacing out the blinds in your rotation, you can upkeep Chilled on a target at all times to greatly assist breakbars.
• Grasping Darkness is both a pull and applicator of Chilled you can use whilst in Greatsword
• Nightfall can also be used to apply additional chills for breakbars whilst in Greatsword.
• For your shroud you have Executioner's Scythe and Infusing Terror.