Dreadwoe's Wonderful (Read: Sociopathic) Reaper Guide

[Dreadwoe]

Hello my name is Dreadwoe, and I've been playing Reaper for a while now, and finally put together enough of this guide to consider it worthy of posting on the forums.

If you have any questions, concerns, or corrections, feel free to message me directly on the forums or on discord at Dreadwoe#5118.
I basically never see anything as finished, so I'm happy to change things if they are wrong or consider alternative points of view or play-styles in the guide.
This can be anything from me saying something wrong, ignoring some important mechanic, or even just ways to improve readability.

Regardless, feel free to add me even without a reason, just lemme know how you found me. o/

Future Plans:
comprehensive gear section including cheaper gear sets, variations of easy to steep gear progressions, and best pieces to get going into IDNLS.

[Milo]

Thanks for making this! I think this guide is pretty good for the most part. However, I disagree with what you have on the pvp section, as well as your selection for skill plates. Given that pvp is very variable based on the skill level of the person playing, I won't comment on that (people should make their own build like you - it's fun!), but as for skill plates, have you actually gone and tested these plates against the golem/idn/idnhc, or are you going off of theoretical values? I personally found that there's a certain point in your gear where your optimal skill plates start changing to different ones for whatever reason. The following assumes max crit, decent crit dmg (let's say 225% ish), and an optimal dps rotation playstyle.

Here is the order of the skill plates as I would list them for people with under 5k fd and 250k dmg from my own personal dps tests (keeping in mind this will also vary with playstyle):

locust dmg > ulti cd > mortal blow dmg >>>>>burning escape dmg>blade runner dmg>Pursuer as = Pursuer dmg (changes playstyle, but same dmg output) > rain of death cd>shinobit drop dmg>blade runner cd> etc.

Now here is the order of the skill plate if you have over 5k fd and over 250k dmg

Locust dmg > ulti cd > mortal blow dmg > shinobi drop dmg>>>>>>>>> pursuer as = pursuer dmg > blade runner dmg > burning escape dmg > rain of death cd> blade runner cd > etc.

My theory on why it's different is due to the shadow attack percentages. Since they are different than your own %'s for attacks (theirs are stronger), the damage amplification due to gear is more noticeable in these shadows than your other attacks. I definitely noticed the shadow damages start creeping up my skill list without changing plates from the under 5kfd 250kdmg category, but when I changed the plates, my damage increased by a very significant amount.

However, don't take my word for it. Since you're making a guide, test it yourself and post the numbers! Would be interesting to see if my own results were consistent with yours.

[Milo]

Clone dmg %'s are different. They still use 80 cap %'s, when the dmg was concentrated in pursuer and drop. I haven't seen any evidence so far that this has changed.

Your stats do matter. The key to getting high dps on a reaper is not in the consistent dps, but jacking up your dps during the short window of your ulti, and then riding that tide of bursty dps until your next ulti. The more stats you have, the higher your dps in that short window (because you can overlap a ton of skills at once), thus changing which plates become more effective for you. This also depends highly on your rotation. For myself personally, I use 2x mortal in the first part of my ulti and another one in the second part of my ulti (using all three at once lowers your dps compared to this alternative), which is why I value the mortal blow dmg crest so highly. Here's an example of me doing the rotation. This is by no means only useful for a beginner, as the rotation that I use is hardly one a beginner would come up with.

Blade runner CD is terrible because it takes too much time to cast compared to your other moves and doesn't do the dmg to back it up. Also, due to locust having a 6s cooldown, you're basically always going to be prioritizing it over blade runner with a cd crest, meaning you'll have blade runner off cd, but not used. If you are using it over moves with higher dps, you are sacrificing dps. You also don't need the cd for the debuff, so there is no reason to be using it over other skills unless it's for pvp, where it's very useful.

While it's true that sometimes, locust's damage gets transferred to burning escape, the fact remains that it is still one of your lowest cd skills with a high attack percentage. That's the real reason that it's useful, although not as useful as other crests from my own tests, assuming you only use 4 crests.

I find that pursuer as and dmg are the same because with as, you can use the ex licks and the explosion at the end, while with damage, it's too slow to wait for the ex explosion. However, I also find in general that using pursuer will lower your dps as you use it, meaning it's too weak to be of any use besides filler. However, the shadow is pretty powerful, and having it out means you can stack other skills on top of it, thus heightening your dps. In my own tests, both crests proved to be worse for pve purposes compared to other crests.

I also take issue with how you are gathering your data. I have been collecting data using the same rotation, since I was at 177k dmg with 4k fd, testing various crests, gear, rotations etc. I have been steadily gathering this data, taking screenshots of all of my info in golem and idn step by step, and I now have 350k dmg with 7k fd. I have also made careful notes on where I have changed my rotation and how that affected my crest selection. By doing so, I've seen the differences in damage that gear provides, and what effect crests have. The main thing I found was that before I had over 5k fd and 250k dmg, if I concentrated my attack power in my ulti, it didn't jack up my dps nearly as much as just having higher consistent dps did (hence why drop dmg was lower on the list for that category), but after 5k fd and 250k dmg, concentrating that power into my ulti made my dps go up exponentially more. Crit damage plays a big part in this as well.

The issue with your method is you're gathering information from other people, who are most likely using different rotations than you or are better/worse than you skillwise, and comparing it with your own. When you can't control these variables, it becomes useless to make comparisons, unless you COMPLETELY understand what they are doing (i.e. watched videos, studied them in raid, etc.). Even then, it's still difficult to match up their data with yours. When I say go do your own tests, I do mean your own, not using other people's data. I'd be interested in hearing more about what exactly you've been doing and the circumstances surrounding each test to see if I'm doing something wrong, or simply to replicate it and see if I get the same results. I understand that my own tests may be completely dependent on my rotation, and thus seeing someone else perform similar or the same tests would be very useful to me to find the optimal rotation.

[Dreadwoe]

Okay, so I cooled off my head some.
I apologize, I didnt really know who I was talking to or how much testing you had done, the results of which sound ridiculous, and I would like to try to squeeze some info out of you, so I can replicate at least some of your results

I noticed you using all skills during ult in the vid to burst down the golem quickly. Im assuming that that is only a burst test, and not typical playstyle when attempting to continuous dps, in which case you would use left clicking more.
Regardless, please respond to my concerns so I know what is going on in your mind when making these decisions, and please be clear in the specific things you have tested, to appease any of my doubts.
and if that video does display a different playstyle only used to burst down a single golem, can I get examples from others

If its not too much to ask, can I see a bit more of your playstyle and results so I can see how you came to the different conclusions you did?
Like:
>the clones becoming more effective at higher FD and damage values(please explain the kind of results you were getting that led to the conclusion you made, and try to explain that conclusion in clearer words, I think I may not be understanding it properly.)
>the use of skills during ult(MB, burning escape, blade runner, flame locus)
I personally had better results saving my CDs for outside of ult and only using RoD transfer, clones, and left clicking in order to let other CDs recover so I dont run out of skills later. I'm curious if that video is just an example of burst or the start of optimal long term dps. If you have a video of how you kill multiple golems, Id like to see that.

If I see your playstyle, I can practice and try to replicate it to compare to my own results and get a better comparision.

Now as for my defense of blade runner Cooldown, it is mostly for quality of life. The set rotation of BR>FL>BE makes damage optimization much easier than the clusterfuck without it, and mathematically it only seems to sacrifice <1% of total damage, because BR and shindrop +shindrop ash do the same amount (8%), and swapping out a BR plate for a shindrop plate doesnt seem like it would do too much.

Also, could you move the conversation to discord pms? I think it would be much easier to focus on single issues at a time that way.

Please help me be as confident with your conclusions as you are.

[Milo]

I'm glad we're finally seeing eye-to-eye. I'll be giving you tests to try through discord. It's easier for you to do a test and me to check my records for info on that test than for me to try to compile all the crap I've got and make it presentable, as I've got a ton of pics and would have to also write a description of each, something that could easily take me 7 hours to do by my estimate if I'm working fast.

To address some of the things you said though, as I think it'd be useful for other people to see:

My vid is both an example of me doing consistent dps and burst. Every time my ulti is off cd (every 90s), I try to be as close to the ulti rotation that you see in the beginning of the vid as possible, depending on which things are on and off cd. Hence, my rotation goes ulti burst --> consistent dps --> ulti burst --> etc. In this way, your dps will never truly stabilize in the time it takes to, for example, clear idn norm or hardcore. It'll be completely dependent on how many ultis you managed to pull off successfully (as of now pre awakening and no other patch updates for reapers). Also you most certainly don't want to be spamming your left click during your ulti except to do the rain of death damage transfer. Otherwise, you sacrifice dps. The only time you should be doing it is if you literally have nothing but barrage left.

DO NOTE: my rotation on the golem is a bit different than when I have the shard of will. When you have the shard, doing 3 mortal blows in a row is actually viable because you no longer sacrifice a shadow in order to lay down the third blow. there are a few other things, but I wanted to let you know that I have created a different rotation when under shard.

As far as seeing my past rotations and playstyle, if you click on the youtube button of my vid and check out my channel, I've been posting vids periodically of me doing content, dps tests, etc, as well as playing on other chars if you're into that. Let me know if you want something specific (I unfortunately can't successfully record a full idn run at the moment due to frame drops, but I'm trying my best to do so - same with rdn), but those vids should be good enough for now.

The clones being more effective at higher damages surprised me too actually. I wasn't expecting it at all. The way I found out was also sort of lucky tbh as well. When I was under 5k fd and 250k dmg and testing out skill crests, I came up with the results for the crest selection that I gave before, and after I surpassed 250k (which I considered a milestone because it wa sa 50k mark), I decided to redo my crest tests on a whim and found different results that I now use today. If I have the time, I may redo it now that I'm over 350k, but we'll see. I have to get in "the mood" first haha.

As far as blade runner cd goes, it seems that we have very different playstyles, and this may be affecting the results. My dps rotations on any character, but especially reaper, is to create as many clusterfu.cks as possible in order to have a bunch of skills hitting at once, thus jacking up my dps meter. I do use the standard BR>FL>BE, but that's only good every 6-8 seconds. You have to be doing stuff in between or your dps will drop.

I am not completely confident in my results - hence why I asked you in my previous message for your tests so that I could replicate them and get back to you. If I was truly confident, I wouldn't be asking for your tests; I would just say you're wrong, and here's why. However, since you haven't given me any, I'll just give you my tests on discord and go from there.