[PvE] Reaper Vampiric Army Build

[PvE] Reaper Vampiric Army Build

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Posted by: MadRabbit.3179

MadRabbit.3179

Edited: Changed up the build based on feedback below.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBhQD7khGobTsrGwpGg9GsMNYTPgLQFQaAUACAxhwT4KE-TRCFABF8AAa4gAUy+DAcBAKU9nrUCikyv001swRAAA-e

This is for open world mostly. It’s all about a large number of minions and life stealing. I think the max I have been able to get is 12 or 13 at one time, provided “Rise” hits 5 targets and you kill something during the fight. Minions increase your toughness, strip conditions off you, life steal and tank for you.

If all your reaper shroud abilities are off cooldown and you execute a whirling combo with Soul Spiral in a field, you can get roughly half your life back when you jump into shroud.

Dagger/warhorn is mostly a clutch and for movement speed. With the sigil of leeching and Blood Magic traits, Life Siphon can heal for roughly half of your life pool as well.

I think my win rate against champions I have encountered in HoT is about 60%. The large number of minions plus all cleave makes decimating large groups of mobs pretty easy.

Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.

(edited by MadRabbit.3179)

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Posted by: Dadnir.5038

Dadnir.5038

- Transfusion turns Soul Spiral into a powerful self heal.

I may be wrong but last time I check transfusion didn’t heal it’s caster at all. (thought it help your minion staying alive).

No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.

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Posted by: Durian.5419

Durian.5419

Leeching Bolts don’t heal your in Shroud either, last time I tried.

Takkek Twicechosen, bone-collecting ranger of Plague[SICK]

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Posted by: xavios.3601

xavios.3601

Leeching Bolts don’t heal your in Shroud either, last time I tried.

Can confirm, no healing. Was wondering if i was just not noticing it because of the tint from shroud.

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Posted by: Diovid.9506

Diovid.9506

I wouldn’t underestimate the spike damage you can do with with Rise + Death Nova. If you use Rise in a group of enemies and summon 6 minions, those 6 minions will all die at exactly the same moment 25 seconds later. Which means 6 death nova’s at exactly the same time.

Unholy Sanctuary is unnecesarily defensive I think. Besides, it always seem to trigger death shroud at a moment that is not in my best interest.

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Posted by: Ehra.5240

Ehra.5240

This is almost exactly what I’ve been running with some trait choices being different. Like Diovid mentioned, I run Death Nova over Unholy Sanctuary. I feel the damage it offers far outweighs the sustain granted to an already sustain heavy build. And if you’re going to run Blighter’s Boon I see no reason to skip over Chilling Victory, although I prefer to use Decimate Defense and Reaper’s Onslaught. Death Spiral alone gives you an almost perma 12% Vuln.

I also use Axe over Dagger since if I need to get around then I can just swap out a trait for near perma Swiftness. With the dagger gone I typically end up just swapping in Ritual of Life, but I’ve also played with swapping out a pet for Blood is Power and comboing that with Mark of Evasion to proc Blood Bond for a nice single target burst / heal (if only there were a more reliable way to keep a few Jagged Horrors around to trigger the bleed requirement instead….. Or maybe just use something like a Sigil of Geomancy. I’ll have to mess with it more).

I’ll also confirm that both Leeching Bolts and Transfusion do not heal you while you’re in Shroud. With that said, if you’ve got a large enough ball on you Vampiric Strikes and Vampiric Presence (which DO heal you while in Shroud) can still recover a nice chunk of HP with RS 4 (as does Locust Swarm).

But, overall, it’s a really solid build for running open-world content. The minions give you easy, lazy DPS for random trash, and they don’t end up being redundant when you do large zergy events as something like a well may. As I said I prefer taking more offensive traits, but it’s very easy to move to a more defensive/sustain focused setup without having to swap out lines. Banshee’s Wail is just a click away for near perma Swiftness, again without having to swap out trait lines. Flesh Golem absolutely demolishes breakbars, and you have enough CC in your toolkit to be able to stun many champs just by yourself.

Between the sustain and having a ranged option it’s very rare that I find myself in danger. And, despite giving up Spite, I feel the pets still help put out enough damage that I don’t feel like fights take longer than they should.

(edited by Ehra.5240)

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Posted by: MadRabbit.3179

MadRabbit.3179

Leeching Bolts don’t heal your in Shroud either, last time I tried.

Can confirm, no healing. Was wondering if i was just not noticing it because of the tint from shroud.

I played around with the trait choices a little bit last night and here is what I got. It’s hard to seperate out what healing effects are providing what value. The wiki of life stealing I used as a reference when making this doesn’t exclude Leeching Bolts from healing a necromancer in shroud.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Life_stealing

Using Soul Spiral outside of Nightfall causes no increased health gain beyond the normal regen and vampiric traits. Minions do seem to be healed by it. However, if you time it right and use it before your lifeforce runs out, you’ll gain some healing from it. The mechanic seems to target you; the shroud just prevents it from healing because it’s not a life stealing effect.

Using Soul Spiral inside of Nightfall for Leeching Bolts causes my health to significantly increase. I do need to compare it to a Soul Spiral in a frost field for objective comparison to see if the leeching bolts really are helping or not or if I am just imagining it.

Still running Transfusion, because it’s the only good trait choice.

I did drop Soul Eater though for might and lifeforce on chill.

Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.

(edited by MadRabbit.3179)

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Posted by: Ehra.5240

Ehra.5240

Spec completely out of Blood Magic, removing all of your leeching traits, and try using Soul Spiral inside Nightfall. You won’t get any HP back.

edit: Although now that I test it more, I’m having trouble getting any healing out of Leeching Bolts, even when out of RS and using Gravedigger.

edit: nevermind, the heal works with Gravedigger. Just wasn’t noticing it at first.

(edited by Ehra.5240)

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Posted by: MadRabbit.3179

MadRabbit.3179

I’ll take your word for it for the time being and assume that it’s just the bolt damage procing vampiric that I am seeing.

Even so, not a reason to change up the build. Just going to priortize frost field in shroud and save nightfall to use with gravedigger spam.

I’m still playing around with a grandmaster trait choice for Reaper. Blighter’s Boon and Chilling Victory seem to synergize really well and provide a lot of single target lifeforce gain which is one of the biggest weaknesses of this when fighting single champions.

Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.

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Posted by: Ehra.5240

Ehra.5240

Never suggested you should spec out of Transfusion, just saying that it’s not a self heal. Same with leeching bolts in shroud.

With that said, another benefit of Death Nova is that you can explode a bone minion immediately before you go into shroud and pop 4, giving you a bunch of poison stacks.

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Posted by: Shoe.5821

Shoe.5821

I’m pretty sure Transfusion does self heal. At least, it does in Death Shroud. I haven’t tried it in Reaper’s Shroud.

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Posted by: Ehra.5240

Ehra.5240

No, it doesn’t. I’ve just gone in game, removed all of my traits but Transfusion, didn’t summon any pets, pulled a mob, let it hurt me, then poped into shroud and hit 4 and I did not gain any life outside of what Vampiric Strikes gave. I can even marked down my HP totals before and after using Transfusion then added up the HP gained by Vampiric Strikes just to see if Transfusion’s self heal for some reason doesn’t appear in the combat log, and there’s nothing. Just a passive trait that’s a lot better than people give it credit for.

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Posted by: Shoe.5821

Shoe.5821

Guess I was misinterpreting the healing all along. I admit to being surprised by this. I love the utility of it anyway in terms of summoning teammates.

Just wish I could come up with a way to fit Blood Magic into Reaper. Everything I’ve tried has failed horribly. I’ll give this a try in pvp.

(edited by Shoe.5821)

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Posted by: HardRider.2980

HardRider.2980

Blood Magic does heal through shroud fyi: Ive been using it successfully

We are heroes. This is what we do!

RIP City of Heroes

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Posted by: MadRabbit.3179

MadRabbit.3179

Ehra is correct. It doesn’t self heal.

I’ll update my original post later on. I’m still trying to experiment with the different healing sources.

Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.

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Posted by: Flintbrow.7985

Flintbrow.7985

I’m having ridiculous success running Death/Blood/Reaper:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNAR4dnc0AdbitbCu0As3glpBb6BcB+ASHgTWAI+DmCfhA-TxBFABFcRAQS5HJ7PkmuBAeCAFq+zVKBJEQoJA-e

Opening with Reaper’s touch (along with WOS) will bounce around, stacking vuln. and upping my crits substantially. We have both great offensive and defensive traits, but my preference in the new areas is to gear offensively and trait defensively….this just works well for the packs of Chak, etc. that can be a problem. Rise w/ death nova popping-off frequently is a great way to stack loads of poison as well as to tank damage. I dunno, after trying out many different builds, this one is just a beast if you want a little sustain coupled with decent damage. Of course, YMMV.


Neenu Waffler-Warrior for what once was the Toast-

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Posted by: xavios.3601

xavios.3601

Using Soul Spiral inside of Nightfall for Leeching Bolts causes my health to significantly increase.

No, not in the least. Its ok, i hear theres medications for hallucinations …

Seriously though, Leeching Bolts doesnt do anything while in Reaper Shroud. Death Shroud has no whirl finishers. Transfusion does heal minions in both shrouds, ditto for other players and their pets/minions if i dont hit the target cap via my own.

(edited by xavios.3601)