Guild Wars 2

What is a good ideal base crit chance for a Power Reaper?

I’ve been running full Ascended Berserker’s gear on my Reaper and I’m about to convert it all to Valkyrie gear in the Mystic Forge. As suggested my many players in game and on several YouTube tutorials (Brazil for one example)

I’m using this Reaper build (build input also welcome) I was advised to drop blood magic for soul reaping for higher uptime on shroud for better survival without sacrificing on damage.

I know I’ll defiantly have 100% chance in shroud, but I’m worried about non shrouded crit chance with Gravedigger skill.

Is an ideal level of precision I should be aiming for? I don’t want to convert all my gear to Valkyries only to find out I’m not able to get those wonderful 30k+ crits anymore.

Running general PvE to farm mastery experience. Mostly solo play, some META events, Teq & a few low level fractals. Not interested in swapping Staff out for Axe. That’s pretty much the only thing I’m not open to change.

Appreciate any advice!

Well, the question is: Do you really want to? I use the same three trees, but have stuck with Zerker.

Reaper’s Onslaught, and Vital Persistence really only shine when there are lots of mobs dying around you, ideally sequentially(like, say, solo, open world PvE or to a lesser degree, non-bossfights in dungeons, for any kind of bossfight you get the crappy half of Reaper’s Onslaught, meaning your dps isn’t quite as high as you’d like.

Also you don’t really need Unyielding Blast as your other sources of Vuln(like Bitter Chill or GS3) provide more than enough, and if there are other people involved, it just becomes overkill. If you’re going to stick with staff, best to drop down to Soul Marks anyways and make it slightly less unbearable.

I use Speed of Shadows and either:

• Foot in the Grave to get a reliable, short stunbreak, 3 sec stability and a nice movement speed boost in Shroud
• Dhuumfire for that relatively meaningless, but it still counts, fire damage, since you’re reliably high might it’s not completely useless, just almost entirely so.

Anyways, your choice, but going Valk means you do drop a good amount of DPS outside of shroud.

With 25 Vuln and Fury and Spotter and Banner that will get you near 100%… Or close enough that it won’t matter. But that’s for a party, harder to do solo

Depends on your playstyle. Are you planning to be in Reaper as much as possible? If so, switch to Soul Marks, and use Valkyrie Gear. You will have 50% just from Death Perception, and Decimate Defenses will get you the rest. You don’t even need other people to get you there, but it will be nice to have them when you aren’t in shroud, but not necessary.

If you aren’t planning to be in shroud for days, Berserker weapons, Valkyrie armor. (either way you will want the berserker/valkyrie mixed trinkets.)

I use this and I crit CONSTANTLY….

full zerker gear will get you at about 54ish% and you can stack enough vulnerability solo that you can completely forego death perception and instead take dhuumfire or foot in the grave. alternatively, you could switch out soul reaping for blood magic to get that self healing and provide a bit extra group support without losing out on crit chance but you would lose vulnerability stacking from shroud1.

if you’re doing group content, everyone will be stacking so much vulnerability that you will get the 50% crit increase from decimate defences near constantly, so you could ease off on your vulnerability stacking and take things like the focus and chill traits in spite for that bit extra damage

you also don’t need valk gear at all, necro is tanky enough that any stats other than attacking stats are a waste. you taking too much damage? run rise, gonna take fatal? pop shroud.

also if you’re really needing more survivability, trait into blighters boon. you generate enough might from shroud aa and boons from allies that it’s a decent amount of healing in shroud.

tldr; full zerker with decimate defences will have you at around 104% crit chance, don’t take death perception

Dont do it. Don’t convert your gear to valkyrie. It’s only good on paper, think of all the vulnerability downtimes or kitten groups you gonna get. it’s not worth it for the long run.
Only place you could benefit would probably be raids if your party is decent and if you use the right consumables

btw. don’t run soul reaping wtf. blood magic is better, lower cd on wells

Reknarok.7582:

full zerker gear will get you at about 54ish% and you can stack enough vulnerability solo that you can completely forego death perception and instead take dhuumfire or foot in the grave. alternatively, you could switch out soul reaping for blood magic to get that self healing and provide a bit extra group support without losing out on crit chance but you would lose vulnerability stacking from shroud1.

if you’re doing group content, everyone will be stacking so much vulnerability that you will get the 50% crit increase from decimate defences near constantly, so you could ease off on your vulnerability stacking and take things like the focus and chill traits in spite for that bit extra damage

you also don’t need valk gear at all, necro is tanky enough that any stats other than attacking stats are a waste. you taking too much damage? run rise, gonna take fatal? pop shroud.

also if you’re really needing more survivability, trait into blighters boon. you generate enough might from shroud aa and boons from allies that it’s a decent amount of healing in shroud.

tldr; full zerker with decimate defences will have you at around 104% crit chance, don’t take death perception

I based what I said on his current build. With things as they are, he doesn’t need precision. At all. At least vitality would have some benefit; precision on that build is pointless.

If he wants to change it, then yes the stat set changes with it. But he said he’s using it mostly just for PVE, and MAYBE raiding. I advise people on what they want to play, unless they are playing in a more competitive gametype, like raiding, high end fractals, speedrun dungeons, WvW or PvP. Then I’ll suggest changes. But pointless to do that without knowing what he wants the build to accomplish, and how he wants to play a necro.

I use a full marauder’s set with marauder’s backpack and berserker + valkyrie trinkets, and I am having a blast for it. With the set up as I have it, you lose roughly 6% base damage overall, but you crit much more often plus extra survivability and life force. What a lot of people are saying about nearing 100% crit when you have Spotter and banners is true, but my set up is more self efficient and I only really take Decimate Defenses so I can have even more survivability with blood magic instead of soul reaping (plus don’t need to be in Shroud for my full crit).

on that build, yeah. but death perception isn’t a very good build tbqh, especially when you can achieve the a better goal with the right set of gear and traits regardless of whether he’s in shroud or not. going his way, he’s well over the crit chance cap while in shroud. how, exactly, is that favorable to him

it kinda seems like he’s sort of beginning with necro pve, which in that case, throw him in the deep end. relying on defensive stats when we have so many mechanics to keep us alive seems a bit counter intuitive to me

besides, nothing wrong with suggesting changes to his build. he even welcomes it. my proposed changes don’t alter the way of playing much at all, will net higher DPS, and provide support and sustain without sacrificing damage output while in or out of shroud. it seems like a win-win scenario to me. plus vampiric rituals, cmon

Sublimatio.6981:

Dont do it. Don’t convert your gear to valkyrie. It’s only good on paper, think of all the vulnerability downtimes or kitten groups you gonna get. it’s not worth it for the long run.
Only place you could benefit would probably be raids if your party is decent and if you use the right consumables

btw. don’t run soul reaping wtf. blood magic is better, lower cd on wells

@OP: Listen to this person, please.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Sublimatio.6981:

Dont do it. Don’t convert your gear to valkyrie. It’s only good on paper, think of all the vulnerability downtimes or kitten groups you gonna get. it’s not worth it for the long run.
Only place you could benefit would probably be raids if your party is decent and if you use the right consumables

btw. don’t run soul reaping wtf. blood magic is better, lower cd on wells

@OP: Listen to this person, please.

Also, you’re rarely going to find a raid group wanting to bring a power necro. I mean yeah you find groups that do. But then again you find groups that 10 man ele healer VG. Doesn’t mean every group is going to do it.

And yes blood magic > soul reaping. And a personal choice of mine Bitter chill > Spiteful Talisman. I prefer a higher chance of having 25 vuln up permanently to a single +5% damage buff.

Yeah I’d say you probably shouldn’t convert from Zerker’s. Work on building an alt set of Valkyrie’s so you can mix in pieces. You need to have a set of gear that you can rely on using for all your boosts.

I’m currently doing general PvE to earn mastery experience. Solo events, META events, Teq, low level Fractals.

I’ve been told several times in game I should convert to Valkyries gear to increase HP / LF pool without sacrificing damage output. I’ve found several guides and tutorials on YouTube explaining how it works better (example brazil videos)

I was told to swap out blood magic for soul reaping for better survivability via staying in shroud longer and building LF quicker.

Really the only thing I’m not interested in changing is swapping Staff out. I wish to retain that no matter what build / gear I decide on.

I just feel that currently with Berserker’s gear I have a ton of precision that’s not needed and feel the points could be better allocated into vitality.

Lahmia.2193:

And yes blood magic > soul reaping. And a personal choice of mine Bitter chill > Spiteful Talisman. I prefer a higher chance of having 25 vuln up permanently to a single +5% damage buff.

I swap bitter chill and spiteful talisman depending on party im pugging with

@Aeniklast
Valkyrie will sacrifice your damage output, because it relies on vulnerability on mob (and having spotter, discipline banner and fury at all times). In reality you will never meet these 4 criteria at all times, it has to be set up first and you also rely on other players. Especially in open world, you’re going to hit a lot of newly spawned mobs across a bigger area.

Blood magic is superior to soul reaping. Vampiric traits will upgrade your survivability much more than more life force. Not only it reduces your well cooldowns, it also gives you a little more damage with the lifesteals that also work in death shroud. That means if you drop all wells, greatsword 4, enter shroud and spam 4&2, you’re gonna heal your true HP quite a lot.

Sorry to bring it down to you, but staff is a terrible weapon, only useful in pvp. If you truly care about performance, you will swap to dagger/focus + greatsword. Staff may also be the cause of your problem with LF generation.

The precision you have from berserker gear may seem abundant but remember many times you fight foes over the level 80. Later in FotM you might even fight mobs of lvl 83 – critical chance on these foes drops down despite the Hero panel showing you a 100%. Apart from that, you need this base crit chance for situations without buffs or vuln downtimes.

Sublimatio.6981:

Sorry to bring it down to you, but staff is a terrible weapon, only useful in pvp. If you truly care about performance, you will swap to dagger/focus + greatsword. Staff may also be the cause of your problem with LF generation.

Totally understand, but I like the aesthetics of a Staff very much and refuse to give it up. I also hate being cornered into a melee class, even though axe is still ranged I just prefer the look of a staff.

So looks like general consensus is switching to Valkyrie gear will render me worthless without a group? I know I won’t have many buffs / debuffs playing solo, I just figured I’d still be able to hold my own in solo content. It’s usually just fluff I’m fighting anyways.

Aeniklast.9283:

Totally understand, but I like the aesthetics of a Staff very much and refuse to give it up. I also hate being cornered into a melee class, even though axe is still ranged I just prefer the look of a staff.

Then bring an axe. Even axe, for all its faults, is vastly superior to staff. In PvE you may as well not be wielding any weapon on a power necromancer if you’re bringing staff. You will do essentially no damage regardless of your stats.

Aeniklast.9283:

I know I won’t have many buffs / debuffs playing solo, I just figured I’d still be able to hold my own in solo content. It’s usually just fluff I’m fighting anyways.

You can hold your own in blue gear with no trinkets, but that doesn’t make it a good idea. You asked what the ideal was, and that’s what berserker is in this case.

Lahmia.2193:

Rising Dusk.2408:

Sublimatio.6981:

Dont do it. Don’t convert your gear to valkyrie. It’s only good on paper, think of all the vulnerability downtimes or kitten groups you gonna get. it’s not worth it for the long run.
Only place you could benefit would probably be raids if your party is decent and if you use the right consumables

btw. don’t run soul reaping wtf. blood magic is better, lower cd on wells

@OP: Listen to this person, please.

Also, you’re rarely going to find a raid group wanting to bring a power necro.

This last comment is also part of the reason why I didn’t worry overmuch about what a raid group would want. It was a power necro build, thus not really raid-accepted. So I treated it as something to do OW PVE with, which can be whatever you want it to be.

Sublimatio.6981:

Lahmia.2193:

And yes blood magic > soul reaping. And a personal choice of mine Bitter chill > Spiteful Talisman. I prefer a higher chance of having 25 vuln up permanently to a single +5% damage buff.

I swap bitter chill and spiteful talisman depending on party im pugging with

@Aeniklast
Valkyrie will sacrifice your damage output, because it relies on vulnerability on mob (and having spotter, discipline banner and fury at all times). In reality you will never meet these 4 criteria at all times, it has to be set up first and you also rely on other players. Especially in open world, you’re going to hit a lot of newly spawned mobs across a bigger area.

The precision you have from berserker gear may seem abundant but remember many times you fight foes over the level 80. Later in FotM you might even fight mobs of lvl 83 – critical chance on these foes drops down despite the Hero panel showing you a 100%. Apart from that, you need this base crit chance for situations without buffs or vuln downtimes.

I’ve never depended on others to make that work btw. maintaining 25 stacks of vuln has been pretty easy all by myself, more so with others. Didn’t know about the high level fractal dropping your crit chance.

bearshaman.3421:

I’ve never depended on others to make that work btw. maintaining 25 stacks of vuln has been pretty easy all by myself, more so with others. Didn’t know about the high level fractal dropping your crit chance.

Issue is 25 vuln stacks requires you to give something up.

Bitter Chill? You need to drop the focus trait
Unyielding Blast? You need to spend time doing DS AA which is junk
Death Spiral? Lower DPS than GD spam

As someone that dabbled in this in PvE, I would say that I would prefer either 0 or 50%.

While I think blood magic is the better option, here, if you’re adamant on soul-reaping, I would want to drop death perception for foot in the grave, and take 50% crit chance from zerker. Necro has limited dodging, so that stun break will save you a lot of hp/life force, which in turn keeps you in the fray dpsing longer. Decimate defenses can get you the other 50%, wherein I would want to take cavalier or crusader. I personally prefer toughness over vitality by the simple fact that if you’re going to trait staves and take a greatsword, you probably will generate life force fine (although it’s not good, I once did it just to equip the crossing for flavor). If you then take blighter’s boon, you gain hp in shroud every time you 1 for might. Then toughness should increase your effective hp more than vitality. Cavalier is basically straight damage, and crusader is if you want some healing power on top of toughness while still gaining power/ferocity.

Aeniklast.9283:

What is a good ideal base crit chance for a Power Reaper?

I’ve been running full Ascended Berserker’s gear on my Reaper and I’m about to convert it all to Valkyrie gear in the Mystic Forge. As suggested my many players in game and on several YouTube tutorials (Brazil for one example)

I’m using this Reaper build (build input also welcome) I was advised to drop blood magic for soul reaping for higher uptime on shroud for better survival without sacrificing on damage.

I know I’ll defiantly have 100% chance in shroud, but I’m worried about non shrouded crit chance with Gravedigger skill.

Is an ideal level of precision I should be aiming for? I don’t want to convert all my gear to Valkyries only to find out I’m not able to get those wonderful 30k+ crits anymore.

Running general PvE to farm mastery experience. Mostly solo play, some META events, Teq & a few low level fractals. Not interested in swapping Staff out for Axe. That’s pretty much the only thing I’m not open to change.

Appreciate any advice!

The pure valkyrie gear with soul reaping is more for solo than anything because you keep high dps while being more tanky.

Also for the people saying that zerker is more dps? Yea, when you are not in shroud solo. When you are in a group however, you really don’t need the precision at all. And its been proven that vampiric+wells+valk gear is 13% more dps than zerker when you have good rotations and the 10% vit to power food.

It just all depends on what you want. I’d argue full valk carries hard in t4 fractals however. The sustain is kittened.

When you are fighting more than 2 enemies, staff will generate more LF than axe, which allows you to run the soul reaping build more effectively.

At this point for me personally. For raids however, I wouldn’t run power necro personally. Someone will normally just try to single you out at the first wipe. Speaking from exp.

FrostDraco.8306:

At this point for me personally. For raids however, I wouldn’t run power necro personally. Someone will normally just try to single you out at the first wipe. Speaking from exp.

Those are usually the people who can’t see their own flaws/the whole picture though. It’s not worth changing your whole playstyle just because someone doesn’t take a minute to think.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Sublimatio.6981:

Dont do it. Don’t convert your gear to valkyrie. It’s only good on paper, think of all the vulnerability downtimes or kitten groups you gonna get. it’s not worth it for the long run.
Only place you could benefit would probably be raids if your party is decent and if you use the right consumables

btw. don’t run soul reaping wtf. blood magic is better, lower cd on wells

@OP: Listen to this person, please.

Yes, if you can avoid dieing with berserker, then valkyrie will be a dps nerf. Buffs outside of shroud are not guaranteed. Start with full zerker and add valkyrie trinkets until you can avoid being downed.

Not needing Death Perception also allows either FitG or Dhuumfire for more build diversity.

(FYI: What follows is all of the input from the OP, since this thread has veered off track a bit)

What is a good ideal base crit chance for a Power Reaper?

I’ve been running full Ascended Berserker’s gear on my Reaper and I’m about to convert it all to Valkyrie gear in the Mystic Forge. As suggested my many players in game and on several YouTube tutorials (Brazil for one example)

I’m using this Reaper build (build input also welcome) I was advised to drop blood magic for soul reaping for higher uptime on shroud for better survival without sacrificing on damage.

I know I’ll defiantly have 100% chance in shroud, but I’m worried about non shrouded crit chance with Gravedigger skill.

Is an ideal level of precision I should be aiming for? I don’t want to convert all my gear to Valkyries only to find out I’m not able to get those wonderful 30k+ crits anymore.

Running general PvE to farm mastery experience. Mostly solo play, some META events, Teq & a few low level fractals. Not interested in swapping Staff out for Axe. That’s pretty much the only thing I’m not open to change.

I’m currently doing general PvE to earn mastery experience. Solo events, META events, Teq, low level Fractals.

I’ve been told several times in game I should convert to Valkyries gear to increase HP / LF pool without sacrificing damage output. I’ve found several guides and tutorials on YouTube explaining how it works better (example brazil videos)

I was told to swap out blood magic for soul reaping for better survivability via staying in shroud longer and building LF quicker.

Really the only thing I’m not interested in changing is swapping Staff out. I wish to retain that no matter what build / gear I decide on.

I just feel that currently with Berserker’s gear I have a ton of precision that’s not needed and feel the points could be better allocated into vitality.
______________________________________________________

Sublimatio.6981:

Sublimatio.6981:

Sorry to bring it down to you, but staff is a terrible weapon, only useful in pvp. If you truly care about performance, you will swap to dagger/focus + greatsword. Staff may also be the cause of your problem with LF generation.

Totally understand, but I like the aesthetics of a Staff very much and refuse to give it up. I also hate being cornered into a melee class, even though axe is still ranged I just prefer the look of a staff.

So looks like general consensus is switching to Valkyrie gear will render me worthless without a group? I know I won’t have many buffs / debuffs playing solo, I just figured I’d still be able to hold my own in solo content. It’s usually just fluff I’m fighting anyways.

Ok, so I see a different issue here then. You want to keep staff because you like the look and you don’t like being in melee, yet you have a build designed to produce lots of lifeforce. The sole purpose of lifeforce is to use shroud, and you are using the reaper traitline, thus your shroud will put you in melee. Also you have GS as one of your weapons, and you’ve mentioned using Gravedigger, but also don’t want melee. I’m very confused on what you want to do here.

Since so much of what you are doing is solo (thus no spotter, frost spirit, banners, etc), then whether you use Berserker or Valkyrie (or a mix) depends on what traitlines you use, and also what rune set you are using (which hasn’t been mentioned yet I think), and what weapons you plan to use. Staff is a weird weapon, with 4 AOE attacks, and is useful if you take the reaper line just to have a long range weapon (if range is what you want), but I still don’t know if you want to do ranged or melee as your primary range.

This is just my opinion but power is the highest priority, then precision to the cap, then ferocity.

The reason is this: Power provides the basis for crit modifiers. A critical hit automatically adds 50% more damage to the base damage even with zero ferocity. This is why players love Death Perception. Ferocity adds to that 50% but only when the player crit’s.

This is all discounting minimizing the time between completion of internal cool downs for critical hit-based effects and the next crit.

I generally use the same priority for consumables, too.

Although you may not cap crit rate without Death Perception, FitG will help you stay in play while Dhuumfire will add dps to all builds; especially hybrid builds like Viper’s and Sinister

Anchoku.8142:

This is just my opinion but power is the highest priority, then precision to the cap, then ferocity.

The reason is this: Power provides the basis for crit modifiers. A critical hit automatically adds 50% more damage to the base damage even with zero ferocity. This is why players love Death Perception. Ferocity adds to that 50% but only when the player crit’s.

This is all discounting minimizing the time between completion of internal cool downs for critical hit-based effects and the next crit.

I generally use the same priority for consumables, too.

Although you may not cap crit rate without Death Perception, FitG will help you stay in play while Dhuumfire will add dps to all builds; especially hybrid builds like Viper’s and Sinister

I’d like to add a caviat to this.

This would be the case for every class….BUT necro. The problem with necro traits is that even without any precision, you can get 70% at the drop of a hat with decimating strikes and fury. Then you need 29 or 30 percent to cap.

If you are solo, you could make this up with berserkers gear, assuming you aren’t going to use shroud, because if you are using shroud, why NOT take soul reaping? FitG is awesome, when you arent running shouts. In pvp, its the better option, but in pve, it’s not really needed assuming you know how to use RS3, or run shouts. Dhuumfire, the DPS is ok ish. I wouldnt prefer it over death perception because I dont only use RS1. here is a DPS benchmark showing they are just about even. The problem with dhuumfire is once you go the full valk/ferocity build, it goes waaaaaay behind.

So i feel a lot of necro players are forced to either, A) build for 100% crit chance without shroud and take blood magic. This build is better in a group, as you dont need the added survivability at all. Or, go for the gusto and drop your crit chance to nothing, and go for 100% in shroud and use soul reaping. Much tankier, decent dps, decent sustain. Much more suited to solo -play and dealing with large amounts of trash.

I did the latter. I would say to the OP, if you are a player that plays alone, and needs to carry when in groups, the valkyrie build definitely holds its own. But if you are not abusing the death perception and shroud uptime, then it’s DPS is terrible.

So you really need to do an assessment of what your needs are. Berserker gear and some valk peices works as well if you want to min max in groups. But yea. Berserker for a non-shroud/group playstyle. Or Valkyrie for a specifically solo/carry playstyle.

For open-world and PvE full berserker should be fine. I play my build focused almost entirely around shroud, so I got as close to 50% as possible without going under to let Death Perception cover the rest. While Valkyrie has the better damage potential with food, it’s only the case in situations where you consistently cap vulnerability for Decimate Defenses to give you the other 50% crit chance. Capping vuln alone when moving target to target isn’t an easy or quick process, so this will end up making things slower if you depend on it. Being in berserker gear lets you pick Chilling Victory, instead, which boosts your sustained damage when against multiple foes and also provides you with life force acquisition when hitting a chilled foe. In anything but bossing/raids or situations where you focus a single target for a long period of time with the help from others via vuln capping, CV is the better choice unless you’re not running Soul Reaping.

Gravedigger generally speaking is pretty overrated, and Onslaught is the best GM trait to take in any scenario where you’ll be getting lots of kills or kill credit due to the reset on Death’s Charge, Soul Spiral, and Shroud 3’s stability and fear. BB is good in PvP environments with Sigil of Strength and Spite with CV as this allows for good sustain, but very aggressive builds benefit tremendously from Onslaught since it also decreases the time of channels by increasing their attack rate, making your kills much quicker. I don’t think BM is really worthwhile unless you’re either in PvP using the above sigil with BB or are bossing in a group which already caps might and vuln. For everything solo, I prefer to use Spite, CV, and Onslaught.

Protip: The reset from Onslaught doesn’t affect any skills currently being used, so it is important to keep this in mind when making channels with Soul Spiral or when around other players, as you might need to cancel them early to get the reset for the next target.

With the ascended berserker/valkyrie stat trinkets, valk armor, and berserker weapons (my initial build for this), you only need EITHER Death Perception for the shroud build, or Decimate defenses for the Reaper build. With fury, you are sitting at or near 100% (one with the vulnerability reaper and GS just throw around like candy, or with the extra 50 in shroud) and that’s without food. And that’s not even a full valkyrie build, which I would only do if you were using BOTH traits, not one or the other.