Reaper - Condi Dread Reaper

This is a rough draft. Once adequately written, it will progress to the testing stage, where it can be rated by the community. You can help by proposing changes with a comment.

Focused on: Condition damage

Designed for: Open World

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

Normal

This build was last updated on April 05, 2025.

Overview

A fun, frenetic, solo open world condition Reaper build with both strong condi burst and strong sustained condi damage. It can self-maintain 25x Might, 25x Vulnerability, duration-capped Fury (30s), duration-capped Quickness (30s), 50+ stacks of Bleeding, plus a few stacks of Poison and Torment.

This varies depending on how many enemies you're fighting, with more enemies making it easier to max out those boons and conditions, due to Fear and Chill explosions hitting multiple mobs, proc'ing those boons and conditions multiple times.

But it is still possible to max them out when solo'ing a single Champion monster, if you can cycle through the rotation fast enough and avoid getting interrupted or CC'd. No Concentration or boon duration is needed to max out all boons against large mob packs, but may be useful when solo'ing some difficult Champions.

Core mechanics

1. Fear applies Quickness, Fury, and Chill. There are five abilities that apply Fear, and you rotate through them as quickly as possible.
2. Chill applies Bleeding and Vulnerability. Besides Fear, there are three abilities, one whirl combo, and two passive traits that apply Chill (Chill of Death, Chilling Nova).
3. Critical Hits apply Bleeding directly from the trait Barbed Precision and Sigil of Earth, and Critical Hits against Chilled targets cause a Chilling Nova explosion that Chills nearby targets.
4. Gain Might from hitting enemies that are Chilled, hitting enemies that are below 50% health, or autoattacking enemies while in Reaper Shroud.
5. Breakbar damage happens naturally by cycling through the Damage rotation. The strongest breakbar abilities are "Chilled to the Bone!" and Executioner's Scythe. You can omit those from the damage rotation if you need to save them for active breakbar phases, but both are on relatively low 30s cooldowns and generally don't need to be conserved.

Skillbar

Scepter/Warhorn

X/Sword

Utility

Scepter is the strongest mainhand weapon for a Bleed build. Conditions applied by Scepter are empowered by the Curses trait Lingering Curse, and Scepter's autoattack chain applies Bleeding to a single target with all three attacks in the chain. Warhorn and Sword are the only offhand weapons with a skill that inflicts Fear, so we take those and cycle their Fear skills on cooldown.

Skill Variants

Weapons

Staff

Use Staff in place of Sword if you don't have SotO or haven't unlocked the account-wide Expanded Weapon Proficiency yet. Use Staff 5 -> Staff 3 -> Staff 2 to apply Fear, Chill, Poison, and Bleeding. Optionally use Staff 4 to cleanse your conditions. Then immediately swap back to Scepter/Warhorn or enter Reaper Shroud. Don't stay in Staff any longer than necessary to cast its 2-5 skills, its autoattack is too weak.

Pistol/Sword

Besides Scepter, Pistol is our other mainhand weapon that inflicts heavy conditions. However, Pistol focuses on Torment and provides no inherent Bleed application, so Scepter is still stronger for this build. The main value of Pistol is that it Pistol 3 Vile Blast provides an additional Stun which is useful for breakbars. Pistol's autoattack Vicious Shot also bounces between two enemies, providing slightly more cleave AoE than Scepter autoattack.

Sword/Sword

You can also use Sword/Sword in the second weapon set. Mainhand Sword loses some single target damage compared to Scepter, but gains AoE, movement, and healing. Sword's autoattack chain applies Chill (and thus Bleeding) only with the third attack in the chain. However, Sword cleaves and pierces, hitting up to five enemies, heals with every attack, and has a double-leap that is one of the more fun movement skills in the game.

Utility skills

• Spectral Armor: can replace Well of Power for an alternate stun break
• Spectral Grasp: can replace Spectral Ring when underwater, or Well of Power if you need even more CC and can sacrifice your only stun break for it.

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Build and Stat Calculations

https://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSwEsEOrMhEWTNrrtlUyKr0xVpvpC-DSJYmR7/ZUgUNOFlCPJEEhW7XQAro87ns8ovFUB-e

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Specializations

Variants

• Plague Sending for additional condition clear
• Path of Corruption for additional boon corrupt

Equipment

Head
Viper

Shoulders
Viper

Chest
Viper

Hands
Viper

Legs
Viper

Feet
Viper

Backpiece
Viper

Accessory
Viper

Accessory
Viper

Amulet
Viper

Ring
Viper

Ring
Viper

Scepter
Viper

Warhorn
Viper

Sigil

Sigil

Sword
Viper

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x6

Infusion
x12

Relic

Equipment Variants

Stats

You can replace some Viper pieces with Trailblazer or Ritualist stats for more survivability and/or Boon Duration if you need. Try to keep Bleeding duration at 100%, possibly using Rune of Krait and Sigil of Superior Sigil of Agony together. Also keep in mind that Precision is valuable, as it causes Chilling Novas, Bleeding on Crit (talent + sigil), and increases Condition Damage as a percent of Precision (talent + utility buff).

Sigils

If you overcap Bleeding Duration beyond 100%, you can replace Sigil of Superior Sigil of Agony with one of the following. Aim for 100% Bleeding Duration, then maximum Condition Damage, or alternatively sigils that apply Torment or Poison.

• Sigil of Superior Sigil of Malice
• Sigil of Superior Sigil of Bursting
• Sigil of Superior Sigil of Torment
• Sigil of Superior Sigil of Doom

Runes

Rune of Trapper are preferred, but you can use any of the runes below until you can craft your Trapper Runes. Aim for 100% Bleeding duration, then maximum Condition Damage. Try to use the runes where the 5th and 6th runes give 100 and 125 Condition Damage respectively.

• Rune of Berserker
• Rune of Necromancer
• Rune of Renegade
• Rune of Sunless
• Rune of Krait

Consumables

Food and Utility buffs can give you about 3% condition duration each. Use those to get Bleeding Duration to the cap if needed, then prioritize Condition Damage and Precision.

Food

Utility

Usage

Standard Rotation

Open with Elite + Utilities:

1. Elite: "Chilled to the Bone!": Chill + Fear
2. Utility: Spectral Ring: Fear + Condition cleanse
3. Utility: "Suffer!": Chill + Condition transfer

Start in Scepter/Sword:

1. Sword 5: Devouring Visage -> Consume: Fear + Might
2. Sword 4: Hungering Maelstrom -> Gormandize: Vulnerability + Chill

(If using Staff instead of Sword, start with Staff 5 -> Staff 3 -> Staff 2, then weapon swap.)

Weapon Swap to Scepter/Warhorn

1. Warhorn 4: Wail of Doom: Fear
2. Scepter 3: Devouring Darkness: Torment
3. Scepter 2: Grasping Dead: Bleed

Enter Reaper Shroud

1. Shroud 3: Infusing Terror -> Terrify: Stability + Fear. Use on cooldown. Killing a mob reduces its cooldown by 50%, so in large packs it's almost spammable.
2. Shroud 5 + 4: Executioner's Scythe -> Soul Spiral: Ice Field + Whirl combo that applies massive amounts of Poison and Chill.
3. Shroud 1: Life Rend -> Life Slash -> Life Reap: autoattack in Reaper Shroud for a few seconds for Crits to cause a Chilling Nova explosion and to allow Fear cooldowns to reset.

Exit Reaper Shroud, attack with Scepter until Fear cooldowns reset, then repeat the rotation.