GW2 Reaper WvW Builds

Reaper is the Necromancer's melee elite spec. Shroud Knight replaces Death Shroud with Reaper's Shroud, which swaps ranged shroud skills for melee ones, burns life force faster, and gives you access to shouts.

The spec is built on chill. Shivers of Dread turns every fear you land into chill and makes chill last longer, Cold Shoulder makes chilled foes take more strike damage from you and deal less back, and the chosen Chilling Nova spreads more chill off your critical hits. Everything the build does is a way of getting chill onto a pile and then hitting it.

In a zerg that means one job: arrive on a group that has already been bombed and finish it. Greatsword is slow and telegraphed — the payoff is Gravedigger coming back off low-health targets and Grasping Darkness dragging stragglers back into the mess. On top of that you carry real boon removal: Well of Corruption, Nightfall, Spinal Shivers and "Nothing Can Save You!", which also makes your next few attacks unblockable.

We keep one Reaper build here, and it is a zerg build. If you want the Necromancer's pressure without the melee commitment, look at Scourge; if you want a similar melee slot with a different damage engine, look at Ritualist.

1 Reaper build

Playing Reaper in WvW

Shroud is a resource, not a stance. Life force is what pays for Reaper's Shroud, and Reaper spends it faster than the other Necromancers do, so the honest skill of the spec is knowing when to spend the bar and when to build it back on autoattacks.

Reaper does have Stability, whatever you have been told: Infusing Terror on the shroud bar grants it and reduces incoming damage, and the elite "Chilled to the Bone!" stuns everything around you and grants stability, might, fury and quickness for each foe you freeze. What it does not have is enough of it. That stability is personal and short, so you are still living inside the squad's bubble, and when the bubble breaks you are the closest body to the enemy.

Where it struggles is any fight it cannot reach. Against a group that trades at range and refuses to commit, a Reaper never gets to swing, and the shroud bar you were saving drains to nothing. It also has no blink: Speed of Shadows gives swiftness and clears movement conditions when you enter shroud, which is help getting in, not help getting out.