Guild Wars 2

I know there’s much more to learn about the Reaper specialization, but I wanted to theorycraft a new approach to a minion build. My son has been playing MM for months, and loves it. He mostly plays PVE but sometimes joins me for roaming in WvW.

So the specializations would be something like this:
http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgQGqALkA2g~

The keys are Lingering Curse which gives 100% condi duration wielding a scepter and Necromatic Corruption which has minions pull condis from you and put them on opponents. It almost doesn’t matter what traits the reaper gets based on what we already know.

Gear is all dire stats
scepter/dagger
scepter/focus
sigils are probably corruption/doom on the two scepters and ice on both dagger and focus
runes are probably tormenting (could be grenth if more chill is needed)

Heal is either blood fiend or the new shout. Utilities are Rise! shout, shadow fiend, bone fiend, and flesh golem.

Play style is pretty simple. Get the minions out. Use all the weapon skills and then stay in auto-attack. Swap periodically. With veggie pizza food, it seems like scepter by itself could maintain 8 bleed stacks and 3 poison stacks. I’m assuming in HoT that monsters will have meaningful attack skills, so keeping them under constant chill will be valuable for everyone.

I’m looking forward to seeing the full story on reaper today.

I have been theorycraftiing in my head something similar while thinking about condi builds in general with the Reaper line. I was replacing Shadow Fiend Fiend with “Rise!” instead of Bone Fiend for the extra DPS/hits, but never thought about Shadow’s blind comboing with Chilling Darkness and Lingering Curse. I was also thinking about replacing a second minion with Epidemic for PvE open world.

This is all assuming that “Rise!” has a quick recharge time of like 24 seconds. Also assuming that the new Lingering Curse acts similar to the old/current Axe Training.

Another thought was going for extra sustain with Parasitic Contagion instead of Lingering Curse, if there was enough condi application/DPS alrdy. This would help cover our healing per second when Minions are all dead, make us more tanky when they’re up or support a Necromantic Corruption/Unholy Martyr combo as cover healing (Blood Magic and Curses investment would mean no Reaper Line though).

I want to see if I can work a condi/healing MM build into a Reaper build as well, but I think it would best be played as Death, Blood and Curses. A Power/Healing MM should easily be able to take the Reaper spec though.

There’s definitely some kind of variant that doesn’t involve the reaping line that’s still a condi MM build. Something like this, for example where you add Dhuumfire to the mix for damage.
http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgQFbAKkA2g~

In this case, you don’t have Rise but there are lots of great utilities like you mentioned.
You also don’t have the benefits of extra defense for chilled enemies.

But the thing that really stands out to me is that the 100% condi duration on scepter is just hugely powerful. Minions apparently inherit condi duration and damage from the necro, so the flesh golem is probably maintaining permanent cripple (especially if you also have bone fiends). The bone fiend immobilize is close to 5 seconds long… So it feels like you can really keep an opponent in a tough spot in terms of mobility and have a pretty steady level of covering conditions

eldenbri.1059:

There’s definitely some kind of variant that doesn’t involve the reaping line that’s still a condi MM build. Something like this, for example where you add Dhuumfire to the mix for damage.
http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgQFbAKkA2g~

In this case, you don’t have Rise but there are lots of great utilities like you mentioned.
You also don’t have the benefits of extra defense for chilled enemies.

But the thing that really stands out to me is that the 100% condi duration on scepter is just hugely powerful. Minions apparently inherit condi duration and damage from the necro, so the flesh golem is probably maintaining permanent cripple (especially if you also have bone fiends). The bone fiend immobilize is close to 5 seconds long… So it feels like you can really keep an opponent in a tough spot in terms of mobility and have a pretty steady level of covering conditions

I agree the change to Lingering Curse and additionally Necromantic Corruption makes a condi MM very appealing in a condi heavy environment and for soft cc in general.

We will see if there’s any other interesting Reaper condi trait combos later today I guess.

Just watched the live stream – I think my son is going to be very happy

Looks like the build I laid out is just fine. http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgQGqALkA2g~

In Reaper, you take Augury of Death to recharge shouts faster. Chilling Force to generate might on every hit on a chilled target (with apparently no cooldown…) And Blighter’s Boon gives life force or heal every time you hit a target that is chilled (because you get might).

The might-stacking potential means it might be worthwhile to take Aristrocracy runes.

Definitely do the shout heal because it hits lots of opponents and can help recharge the rise shout (I think it works that way – any shout hit causes reduced recharge)

I think he will really like this

Looks like rapid application of chill+vuln will be good for covers too, IMO.

Not to mention that the chill uptime will wreck the CDs of condi removals after they’re burned through. Just some thoughts.