Guild Wars 2

Reanimator gets a lot of play because its foisted on you and many people have it being so early in its tree. But to me Reaper’s Precision is almost as silly and worthless of a trait. Sure you don’t have to pick it, but it would be nice if you could and would want to.

Curious, does anyone use this or like it?

Reaper’s Precision: You have a 33% chance to gain 1% life force on critical hits.

To me, this trait is just a joke. And its sad, because lack of solid life force generation is I think one of our biggest problems as an attrition class. But this is even worse than the limp Signet of Undeath which gives you a measley 1% Life Force per 3 seconds, in combat.

But Reaper’s Precision, even if you have a high crit build, let’s say 50% crit, this trait is unlikely to give you more than 3% Life Force even in a quite long battle. For example It takes me about a full rotation of abilities, on both weapons, plus Death Shroud to put down the veteran sPVP mobs in the mists. That’s a good 20 attacks or so, this trait is going to give me 3% Life Force generation in such a fight. That’s not even one extra second of Life Force’s natural decay rate.

Please buff this sorry trait Anet.

To be honest, I don’t use this skill and have not tested it, but my gut feeling on it would be that it does not have an internal cooldown. Which would mean if you dropped a MOB, and it crit 3 times, it could potentially give back 1% LF per crit (if you were really lucky).

I am not saying it is great, but just think about a full rotation of staff skills and dagger skills. You have 6 AOE skills that can hit 5 targets each, thats 30 potential hits, with a 50% crit rate being 15 crits, and of those crits 33% proccing, being 5% LF.

My problem isn’t that it is lackluster as a trait, but that it shares a spot with so many better options.

I’d grant you it could be slightly more valuable in a zerg fight, or farming mobs, but these are not really our critical areas. Which are more sustaining against other attrition classes head to head, and in those cases, you are only going to have one target for this trait to work against (maybe 2 if a pet class, or other Necro) and in those cases, its pretty darn meh.

Even if hitting the AOE cap (5) on all your AOE’s, at high crit rate, its unlikely to generate more than around 10% for a full two weapon set rotation. Compare that to Soul Marks, which guarantees 13% Life Force from 4 abilities on staff alone, regardless if you hit just one target, and we can see a big difference.

I think 50% on the proc rate, or even 60%, would make it competitive.

Whenever I’ve tried Reaper’s Precision, I’ve not seen any notable improvement in LF refill, and I usually have 45-60% crit chance, depending on my build at the time.

As to which is worse, well Reanimator, of course, since you can’t avoid it in DM.

Pendragon.8735:

lack of solid life force generation

Baaaaahahahhaa. Nice one, mate ;-)

On topic, I think the point of Reaper’s Precision is it is meant to be used as a “crutch” to generate life force if you are not using any of the other options – Soul Marks, spectral skills, power weapons, etc. It’s not fantastic, but it helps. It seems weak to me, but I haven’t tried swapping it in and out of a build and taking note of the difference, so I’m reluctant to comment on how good or bad it is.

Nice thing is life force builds on its own too (near deaths), so I usually dont have a problem with getting some in the tank. I wouldnt bother with either trait. If you want some life force when not in battle kill a critter.

Reaper precision not as bad as you think. Seen top necros use it in well bomb builds. A lot of crit ticks flying around with swarm/ wells/ and life sypthon.

I wonder if Reaper’s Precision has an ICD? The wiki doesn’t state one. Just curious.

I’ve been using Reaper’s Precision and I really like it. I’ve done many build tests over the last few days, and Reaper’s is definitely noticeable in building LF fast in power/crit builds.

I find it works ridiculously well with the staff piercing auto attack as well as the marks.

I don’t think Reaper’s Precision is that bad either. I use it on my 30 30 10 build and it allows me to, coupled with Signet of Undeath, fill at least half of the LF bar in a fight, which I save for enemy spikes. It’s nice when you don’t have access to Soul Marks for the extra defensive life force.

Reaper’s Precision isn’t very useful. It’s essentially a “well… If you’re not using this slot for any other reason, why not…?”. It’s still marginally useful.

Reanimator actually punishes you for having it.

I think it more depends on the build really. I’ve tried it in several dagger or scepter builds and it make no noticeable difference. I can see how a well build could benefit from it.

Look at it this way, most of your skills do not generate LF, and by investing in 1 talent you enable ALL of your skills to generate LF.

How good it is really depends on your stat build and how often you crit.