Guild Wars 2

I am looking at the various options, and it seems like a pve power reaper could stay in shroud for a long time and having it up fast after it expires.

Reapers Onslaught is looking mightilly tempting, but Blighters boon with might stacking seems like it would be key in replenishing shroud fast when outside it.

Relentless Pursuit also seems like a good pick, since it makes snares less of a hassle to deal with when you dont have utilities in shroud. Especially when paired with Speed of shadows. – Unyielding Blast I am wondering how useful it is for a Reaper, since shroud 1 is not a ranged skill and you automatically cleave. I know Lifeblast would pass through multiple enemies with it.

Vulnerability stacking can be handled with Rending shroud, and crit with Death Perception.

With reaper, you can actually just not take Death Perception, and instead go for Decimate Defenses. Assuming you’re keeping up 25 vuln, which you should be, you’ll have the same 50% bonus crit chance Death Perception would’ve given you.

You can then take Dhuumfire for a bit of extra damage on top of your swings, or Foot in the Grave because stun breaks are nice.

Excludee.3850:

With reaper, you can actually just not take Death Perception, and instead go for Decimate Defenses. Assuming you’re keeping up 25 vuln, which you should be, you’ll have the same 50% bonus crit chance Death Perception would’ve given you.

You can then take Dhuumfire for a bit of extra damage on top of your swings, or Foot in the Grave because stun breaks are nice.

Not only that, but you’ll have increased crit outside of RS too.

And the oppinion on Reapers onslaught vs Blighters boon? As well unyielding blast.

For PvE…

With Paths of Midnight and Chilling Victory, you can stay in Shroud indefinitely unless you’re getting focused by everything and its mother. Even then, I’ve managed to stay in Shroud for a long time.

This does force you to take Death Perception if you want perma-crits, but the might stacking and vuln stacking is unparalleled. Add Strength Runes on top if you want.

LucianDK.8615:

And the oppinion on Reapers onslaught vs Blighters boon? As well unyielding blast.

Blighter’s Boon is not terribly good for generating Life Force, as you don’t self-apply many boons while not in Shroud. And if you’re running in a group (where you’ll be receiving boons), generating LF isn’t going to be hard anyway with things dying around you.

Chilling Victory is far better in the LF-gen department. Reaper’s Onslaught is a near-must-have for any Shroud-oriented build as it (combined with Paths of Midnight) brings your Shroud skills off CD insanely fast. In addition the 15% attack speed increase ups your DPS, LF-gen in Shroud, your vuln-stacking, and your might-stacking. It synergizes too well with the other parts of a Shroud build to ignore for an arguably situational trait.

Also, Unyielding Blast is, in my opinion, absolutely necessary if you’re running Soul Reaping in PvE.

Just my two cents.

This is the build I run.

Hrm, wouldnt that mean you would need more chill skills for utilities? Reapers shroud doesnt offer much in chill, except shroud 5.

But please tell me what makes unyielding blast that good, if you already cover vulnerability stacking with Rending shroud? If your main attack already cleaves, doesnt it make pierce irelevant?

I’ve never had problems with chill dropping off, to be honest. You setup your Shroud rotation with the GS or Focus skills upfront to get Chill rolling before hoping into Shroud. Using Shroud 5 + 4, you send out tons of Freezing Bolts which’ll stack up chill even more. When you pair Paths of Midnight with Reaper’s Onslaught, you’ll have Executioner’s Scythe up fairly often.

Also, you can swap out your utilities anytime you need more chill. Spectral Grasp is great for LF-gen, breakbars, and single-target chill stacking. If you need still more chill, take Suffer and Chilled to the Bone. Traited Suffer is on a stupidly low CD.

But yeah—change your utilities to suit your purposes. Most mobs don’t live long enough for it to be crucial that you maintain 100% uptime on Chill just for Chilling Victory. Up against mobs that take longer, you’re typically running with other people, and the mobs you’re hitting are gonna have chill on them from other sources, especially if you’re running with a zerg.

Besides, Chilling Victory gives you a way to maintain some of your Might stacks outside of Shroud, especially when you start spamming GD. And it refills your LF bar.

As for Unyielding Blast, you need it to maintain the 25 stacks of vuln indefinitely. Rending Shroud will only stack 9 vuln on its own unless you run ConD duration. Which you won’t be in a power build. The pierce IS irrelevant. You take it for the vuln application.

Of course, you don’t have to do any of this. It’s just what I’ve found to be effective and synergize across the trait lines. YMMV.

thanks for the unyielding explanation, now that makes sense.

LucianDK.8615:

thanks for the unyielding explanation, now that makes sense.

Yep! I’ve not had problems with it being overkill when running solo. Though with a full group or zerg, vuln is usually capped anyway (especially on champs/bosses), so it’s probably better to swap it out for Speed of Shadows so you can hop into Shroud sooner.

LucianDK.8615:

And the oppinion on Reapers onslaught vs Blighters boon?

Well I disagree with the above response to this question. I think Blighter’s Boon is great, but I mostly use dagger/horn which is a lot better at proccing sigil of strength than anything else. Also traited Wells and Spite. So it depends on your build. However, I find the healing from Blighter’s Boon to be the most important part. I can heal back to full while in shroud, making for an extremely strong sustain cycle.

But anyway, I opt to use Reaper’s Onslaught for PvE because I simply don’t need the sustain from Blighter’s Boon. I’d switch to it if I needed more sustain. It does that job pretty well if you have a lot of boon generation going.

For sure! I’m not contesting the value that Blighter’s Boon has for sustain. It pairs well with a Vampiric build for that very reason.

But the OP asked about a perma- or near-perma-Shroud build and the value of Blighter’s Boon for quickly regening LF.

Given that, I’ve found spike-genning LF outstrips anything else. Axe #2, Focus #4, GS #5 and #3, and you’re pretty much full again and back in shroud.

At this point, it’s more flavor than anything, but I’d rather be able to spike-gen my LF and keep Reaper’s Onslaught’s flat DPS boost than add potential sustain. For PvE at least.