From a quick glance there are a couple issues i can see with your rotation. 1. Interrupted auto attacks: your autoattack consists of 3 swings of your sword. The last one inflicts chill which you need for dps. If you cancel your autoattack before it completes the last swing, you will loose dps. 2. Random autto attacks: you sometimes have random sword swings between different skills because you dont chain them together fast enough. Thats also a dps loss because as mentioned above, IF you atoattack, you will want to complete the autoattack chain. 3. Weapon set: You are partially using the wrong weapons. For power reaper the meta is Greatsword and dagger/sword. The autoattack on dagger can regenerate your shroud. 4. Reaper does more dps to enemies 30k on the golem consistently you are going to be good enough (dps wise) to do a lot of instanced endgame activities. At that point i recommend trying to actually get good at the game itself before trying to max out your own dps. Edit 1: buff food and utility enhancement: As Jhmi7877 has pointed out below my comment, the right consumables will also drastically increase your dps. You will be able to see the recommended food and utility on the respective build guide on snowcrows. Note that snowcrows will most likely list an ascended version of the food you need. Worry not! You will be able to get an exotic food from the trading post with the same stats. You will however need to look up what exotic food has the same stats on the gw2 wiki or ask in mapchat. Food and utility can be quite expensive so you might want to only use it for raids e.g.
Food also can increase dps like 2k. We don't know his sigils either. Force + accuracy could help him. Rune too. Relic of fireworks would help as well. Spamming gravedigger under 50% hp is a steady dps. The chilling effect, you get from 'Chilling nova' or shroud 5 or staff 3 or fears, or sword 1 & 4, or focus 5, greatsword 5, so u don't really need to spam auto attacks with greatsword, it's best to just spam shroud auto attack for dps. Combos also add extra dps, so he gotta do skills in order. He needs to learn about combos.
Other issue is we need to see his gear he could be using wrong gear for class. Like example i play power untamed so i use full zerker gear with Scholar runes. If hes using wrong gear or sigils he will hit like wet noodle. Even if his rotation is good.
I would highlight the last point: Get good at the game itself before trying to max out your own dps. Knowing how the game works and knowing your class lends to better success in pumping out good DPS. Of course a new person won't be able to optimize their DPS yet, 'cause they need more time and experience to even know how to do that in the first place.
@@rubeuscubeus A big percentage for sure, the unlocked trait and some Reaper Utility skills gives lot of dmg and some dmg extra procs. So once fully unlocked you gonna feel the difference
@@rubeuscubeus Usually the traits that are in 2nd and then 3rd row give more benefits, especially with Elite specs. Check out the last non-choice trait in necro: Cold Shoulder. It basically gives you 15% increase in damage, since Chill is almost always 100% on an enemy.
@@rubeuscubeusHow could you think it's not it? The second row of traits gives you either 10% flat damage or more crits. Gee how is it possible to not do more damage with those, I wonder.
i was the number 1 strike and raid benchmark on reaper a few patches ago. A good start is to camp greatsword as you are actually mostly losing dps right now being on axe. also you should hold your greatsword 5 ability until right before you enter shroud as you can cancel the aftercast.. also both wells on your skillbar should also be cast right before gs 5, so it would look something like 7-8-5-f1-autochain in reaper's shroud into reaper's shroud 4, you can actually completely forego reaper's shroud 2 as its not that big of a dps increase and it locks you in place for a substantial amount of time which can be detrimental in some content. also i dont know if you have your relic of fireworks yet, but your greatsword 4 ability should be used whenever its about to run out.. also try to stay in reaper's shroud longer and space out, your reaper's 4 and 5 ability for maximum uptime on firework relic. if you use your greatsword autochain make sure to complete it fully as its a dps increase and it also resets your gs 2 ability which is the highest hitting ability on gs. below 50% opponent hp you want to spam gs 2 and not using gs 1 at all unless you need additional lifeforce, still using gs 3 offcooldown since it give considerable lifeforce generation
'Recently' (a few years ago) Arena Net added little descriptors to the Trait lines that really helps in my opinion. So even without getting a build online, a quick read explains that Spite eats enemy buffs, Curses is all about debuffing baddies, Blood Magic has to do with HP, etc etc. Not all classes have it but I really love when the traits synergize with each other and the ease of adjusting builds is one of my favorite things about this game. Grats on the epiphany!
You probably heard that a hundred times already but, doing the story chronologically is really rough ^^, you will have to do Season 1,2,HoTs without mounts or atleast just the free raptor new players get nowadays, and HoT's hero points are rough to solo for new players too, What is did personally years ago was skipping to PoF , got myself the springer and unlocked the rest of my spec then i went into HoT's and whatever else :)
That's a great start for a new player. I don't know the exact rotation you were going for but the skill activation was pretty fast and looked good. The biggest issue I see is that you haven't finished your elite spec. Usually the last choice on a trait line is very significant. You also don't have food/enhancement. Fixing those things will get you over 20k I bet.
"Other then getting hero points"... not having a fully unlocked elite spec is worse then not running it. If you're not willing to go get the hp's then you should drop the elite spec and run core necro or one of the other elite specs if you have it fully unlocked.
One you don’t have a full spec. Two what is your gear? Do you have all power gear? Do you have the proper relic? Do you have all the accessories? What are your runes and sigils? There is a lot more than just wacking on a golem doing a dps check.
I have been digging watching your journey and discovery of GW2. As a player from GW2 launch I love this game and have always loved the depth and complexity but the simplicity of entry. It is an easy game that is hard to master. The systems are complex but really it comes down to how you like to play. There is no right way per-say but there are some things that will make you better. My advice is as follows. - Read every tool tip. There is obvious information the casual will completely miss buried in there that will unlock your journey. I am still to this day discovering things I missed. - Food and Utilities. Sharpening stones and experience food are vital for the solo player and once your in a guild ask for a banner I am sure someone has them and would be happy to share. - Join a casual guild at first that has a focus on new players. These are your homies and will trip over each other to give you any and all info or even in some cases foot the bill for gear and infusions you may need on your journey. - Use online build guides. They are a good baseline for a build that will get you started or even help you in advance content. - Like others have stated, let that auto ride. The final blow is important. Let all animations play out without interruption. That will help you boost your DPS for sure. Most players from other game are used to animation canceling and in GW2 that is a big DON'T DO IT! It kills DPS. Just my helpful advice or at least I hope its helpful.
Dude just made a video about Eve Online. Someone boost this guy into a cruiser/battle cruiser with t2 guns/drones and we will see how the complexity really hits.
One important thing that i just saw was that you use greatsword 3 then greatsword 4. This might not seem very different than gs4->gs3. But it actually is. you have combo fields and finishers in gw2. your gs4 places a dark combo field on the ground, while your gs3 "whirl"finishes (readable at the tooltip). This creates Leeching Bolts that deal damage and heal you similar to lifesteal. Testing this difference was 33% more with the whirl finisher. Another was that you don't have some traits unlocked. This means for example that you don't get a +300 ferocity boost while in schroud. This increases your crit damage by 20% and while it doesn't sound like much this is a giant benefit. Your most damaging skills are in shroud and you activate both well of suffering and well of darkness just before going into shroud so they also benefit from that extra crit damage (as you should have 100% crit chance with fury, which might not be the case with exotic gear because you get less precision per piece than ascended). @luca7675 already mentioned a lot of other things, good luck and hope to see you blast soon! note that your shourd is a second health bar. If you get slapped during combat while in shroud, you lose reaper uptime as it takes away shroud health. your skill 3 in shroud is a massive 66% damage reduction and gives stability to tank cc's, This means that the skill should be used when you get big damage or cc in a real case scenario
That’s actually a pretty great start for a new player, I mentioned on another video you’re gonna be breezing past the average with your attitude and you’re absolutely proving that right now! Other people have said as much, but a huge component is gonna be finishing the reaper traitline, you’re leaving quite a lot of dps on the table right now (I’d say like 5-10k) Besides that, the only thing I noticed as someone who doesn’t play a lot of necro, spam greatsword 2 when the enemy is under 50% hp instead of auto attack loops Don’t interrupt the auto attack loops you are doing, the third skill in the chain is usually a big portion of the damage.
Hey! Welcome to GW2 I hope you keep enjoying it! Here’s a few tips I’ve got from playing Power Reaper a good while myself. For rotation on greatsword: First (as you were) you want to pop 4, then 2, then 3. This way the 2 and 3 can combo with the leeching field produced from 4. You can do 3 then 2 I just prefer 2 first since it has a longer cooldown on high health enemies. (If you wish to pop your wells during this time you’re more than welcome to as well.) After greatsword, you go into shroud and hit: 3,2,4,5,2 . The reason for this order is 3 first to give yourself Stability. This buff (boon as we call them in GW) makes it so you can’t get stunned or interrupted. 2 skill comes next so you can try to get two of them out before popping out of shroud. Then 4 (spin-to-win) for big damage. 5 lastly for chill damage and giving yourself quickness if you have the trait. A few other tips I can give: 1.) If on greatsword and enemy is low health, you can spam your 2 skill since the cooldown resets with low HP enemies. If the enemy isn’t low, as others are saying make sure to finish the 3 hit auto attack combo to chill the enemy for that extra bit of damage. 2.) Soul barbs. You’ll see the buff on your bar. You’ll want to make sure to keep that up at all times for the extra damage boost. If you see it’s about to go away, either pop into shroud or if you’re already in shroud, pop out and it should reset the timer for the buff. 3.) This is absolutely more personal preference but for second weapon set I prefer running staff (or dual swords but it’s unlocked in Secrets of the Obscure) The reason staff is nice is because it gives range when melee isn’t readily accessible but it can also put down more combo fields for your greatsword. But of course like I said it is personal preference so play whichever weapons you like best! 4.) Food and utility will buff your damage but it’s not too crazy of an amount for how expensive the food is lol. When you’re ready though I recommend Sweet and Spicy Butternut Squash Soup (I think that’s the name for it) and Superior Sharpening Stones for utility. Overall I hope some of these tips help!
You're missing 1/2 of your reaper build bonuses. It's not just the skills you unlock, but if you read the tooltips on those green builds choices, the ones you are missing can give 10% bonus damage to chilled enemies, One increased strike damage (which is what your shroud skills do) , One gives you extra ferocity which is a higher crit damage. Besides the fact that those builds are using full ascended gear with all of the infusions that add a bit more power to your build. And IDK if you knew this, but you have 2 tabs to store build set ups on and 2 tabs to store gear on if you want to try out more than one websites build recommendations. (And the gear in those equipment tabs come out of your inventory until you take them off of the tab). Someone who's an end game raider might make some suggestions on your rotation. The snow crows site I was using for my build recommended rotating out of shroud at certain points in the rotation to make use of "soul barbs" which is under the soul reaping green choice where entering and exiting shroud increases damage you do by 10% for a duration. You also had not food and no utility buffs on that parse.
first of all.. get the complete reaper spec, second, switch out your secondary weapon.. dagger/warhorn is what i like.. use food buffs (people always forget about food and utility buffs) dont know what gear you use, but use the right runes and sigils... 2nd greatsword skill is what people spam after enemy is below 50% since it can be spammed without cooldown, but its just high numbers, not high dps.. i dont play much reaper, so i only do about 30-34K.. but just some pointers..
Just go into fractals. 17k is enough for all of them except maybe master tier. And nobody will judge you if you do 17k in Tier 4 either if you just stay alive.
theres a few things thats gonna help with your dps 1. Finish reaper your missing 25% increased strike damage and 300 ferocity for not having reaper completed 2. Replace well of blood with signet of vampirism and spectral grasp for signet of power for added damage 3. In reaper replace Augury of Death trait with Chilling Nova trait because criting a enemy thats chilled will create a frost nova damaging nearby enemies every 3 seconds 4. Use Well of Suffering, Well of Darkness, great sword 4, hop into reaper shroud and use Soul Spiral as your opener. 5. Stay in reaper shroud until Soul Barbs buff is about to expire then exit to refresh it 6. When out of shroud cast wells great sword 4 again and auto attack or use great sword 2 if the enemy is below 50% until shrouds back up and repeat. 7. food and utility buffs will also help
Add all boons, add all conditions to the golem, be well positioned, complete your elite specialization trait line, show your build, runes, and relic. Remember they use the best of the best: utility, food, infusions, ascended gear, etc. Make sure you're in the same page, then, is a matter of chunk practice and timing (do not cancel top tier damage skills). Install ARCDPS, and look if you are dealing the damage your are suppose to inflict with each separate skill. Having said that you should go from 17K to 30K+. (This just a standing golem, with movement in real combat it's a different story) Cheers, and happy to see you enjoying GW2.
I was going to write a full list on things you can do to improve on your numbers, but that can be overwhelming. For now, I would say other than finishing the specialization line for reaper and being able to use all the traits and skills needed, the biggest difference might be understanding the skill queue system in guild wars. Skills that belong in the same "priority" will not interrupt each other on cast. This means that while I am channeling let's say shroud 4 (the spinning) and can press 2 when the channel is about to end to queue it, and your character will cast it as soon as possible. This will help as after you cast a skill, your character will always want to finish the end animation which doesn't do anything but a flourish, and start their autoattack instead. I don't think any of these are mentioned in-game, and you really have to just have experience in the game to learn about it. From my experience the priority usually follows this line of reasoning. dodge, weapon swap, and weapon stow >> skills that help you evade or block attacks >> heal skill >> other skills >> 1 on the weapon skill (most have it as their auto attack). Another thing is waiting for the whole auto attack chain to finish. the last hit of a chain is usually the only reason as to why you're doing the whole chain to begin with as that one hit can sometimes be more than all the other hits in the chain combined.
As a Veteran player, I would suggest that you get Hero points through PoF. Why? They are much easier to get. HoT is known for much tougher and hard hitting Champion HP. Of course once you get gliding, you can join a HP train. Always better in groups. Most of PoF HP can be soloed. You are doing great! I’ve been really enjoying your leveling series. GW2 is really a fun game 👍
"how there can be something absolutely staring me in the face" like your reaper spec not being finished hahaha love ya bud love your videos and i love how just absolutely excited you are
basics on reaper that can help you. GS4 first, it stays on the floor and can be combo'd inside with GS 3 and 2 use your "7" and "8" skills on the open and off cooldown. open your shroud with 5 into 4 for some combos as well or just so all your enemies are CC'd when you're attacking. always shroud on your axe set, basically swap from GS to axe, axe 2 and look into a focus off hand and use focus 4 and 5, then shroud, do that rotation and then when you come out you're ready to swap to GS again. remember you can spam GS 2 after 50% HP too. also just press buttons quicker, reaper is pretty high apm, alacrity is lost if you don't just press stuff faster. For a start this is great though and look forward to seeing you progress! Hope I can join for some fractals or strikes in the future! GL!! PS: use food and utilities, sharpening stones and bowls of sweet and sour butternut squash soup. Lastly, builds are made to be perfectly optimized online on places like snowcrows. One thing with power builds is they crave 100% crit hit, so it's a dps gain to look into marauder or assassins pieces for the extra precision or different food than mentioned for more precision as well to bump you to that sweet 100%
The first thing to check after build is gear which you don't show in this video so It's hard to judge. Make sure you are running berzerker gear on a power build with a 6 set of runes and a relic of the firework will go a long way. Considering you just capped you can probably ignore hitting crit cap until you get ascended gear to keep gearing simple but eventually you'll want a mix of berzerkers and assasins gear to you cap out at 100 crit with fury. The most annoying hidden mechanic in doing dps in guild wars is auto attack chains. Both in shroud and greatsword it is very important to let all 3 skills of the chain play out before casting another skill as most of the damage comes from the final hit. Additionally, greatsword auto reduces the cooldown of your 2 skill making it a critical part of your rotation. Honestly I don't play reaper much these days so shroud auto might not be as important but its still damage left on the table
I'm not a Reaper player or a Necro player at all, but the things I picked up are: - Cancelled auto attack chains. On most classes (at least the ones I've learned) you don't want to stop your auto attack chain halfway, you want to complete it to the end for the biggest hit. - Random auto attacks inbetween skills. This kind of plays in to the first point of not finishing them, you usually don't want to have random auto's going off inbetween using your other skills. - Not having the full spec unlocked is a massive hit in dps and just generally what the spec does. The last line of traits in a specialisation is called the Grandmaster Trair and have the biggest effect on your build. If I remember correctly, the Daredevil (Heart of Thorns thief elite spec) grandmaster traits change the way their dodge-roll works, which is a core Daredevil mechanic. - Lastly, the DPS benchmarks also have food and utility buffs which you don't currently have, maybe worth it to have a look which food and utilities are usefull for your build. I know Snowcrows always states which ones they use.
I don't play reaper, but a general thing I can recommend is food to buff your damage and a utility enhancement. You can get food on the trading post for fairly cheap, (it doesn't have to be ascended food or anything crazy) but it will boost your damage.
A few things I noticed you can improve: - Fully gear your build. Your reaper traitline isn't complete which just destroys you. Also make sure to run the right gear. I have no idea what you're using but you wanna use exotic level 80 gear with the right stat combination, the right runes, weapons with the right sigils. You can take a look what SnowCrows (a guild with absolute pros who do guides on their webside) suggest using to fix your build/gear that way. - Start with at least 50% life force (you had literally 0 as you went in = no shroud) - Avoid Death's Charge (Shroud 2) It animationlocks you and it's overall damage is really ignorable (It does the damage that one auto attack does) - As soon as you enter shroud press 3+4 to initiate your burst. 3 is just personal preference for me as it gives me self stability meaning I can't get interupted on my Soul Spiral (Shroud 4) - After Soul Spiral go for 3 auto attack chains as your fireworks relic is still ticking. Then slam down your executioners sythe (Shroud 5) to refresh it and go for at least 3 more chains. - After that you wanna leave shroud and attack outside of shroud for ~15 seconds till your lifeforce and skills are replenished. - If boss is above 50% try to work with your secondary weapon set (axe or dagger in mainhand horn in offhand or if you have access to it sword or torch in offhand - ideal setup for most damage would be dagger+sword) - In the video you were using a dagger in your offhand which is absolutely useless since it's more a condi weapon. - Make sure to understand which weaponskills have more then 20 sec cooldown (shroud included) as this will trigger your firework relic which you want to refresh anytime it's about to run out so you constantly have it - If boss is below 50% you wanna work more with your great sword as Gravedigger (Skill 2) will recharge anytime you hit something that's below 50% so you can spam it. - Along with everything mentioned don't forget to dip in and out of shroud as this is the bread and butter. This also means you have to utilize 20s weapon CD skills to refresh your relic which can mess you up when you first learn it. Make sure that you CAN weaponswap from great sword to your secondary set triggering a skill for the relic BEFORE you enter shroud so the weapon swap cooldown ticks off as you do your shroud shenanigans. If you do that you can just do some shroud autos before actually entering your burst as Soul Spiral also refreshes the relic. - Lastly: Know and use your big damage skills frequently. Two examples would be that you never used Unholy Burst (Axe 3) which is kinda good, you rarely used Gravedigger (Greatsword 2) - Doing that you should sit at somewhere 20-35k depending on how fast you pull it of, if you've set the testing room correctly with ALL boons and condis (which you did) and if you're using buff food which adds another few thousand damage to you. I usually hit 30k on the golem by doing that. Hope I could help you a little. Enjoy the game, cheers! :)
I am not a Reaper expert but a couple things you should setup indefinitly: 1. Finish Reaper Spec, your are missing like half of the whole third spec 2. Make sure you have the right Stats, Runes, Sigils and Relic according to your build. I assume you play Power so Berserker Stats, usually Scholar/Dragonhunter Runes, Force and Impact Sigils and the fireworks relic (or thief relic if you want safe sure dps, fireworks does outdamage it though if done right) 3. I could be wrong on this but I am pretty sure Reaper only uses his Greatsword 2 after 50% HP on the enemy. Reaper Shroud might still be a Dps Increase if the CDs are up, but I am pretty sure you dont use any other weapon skills at that point anymore since the CD resets instantly and it does bonus damage against targets below 50% HP. But this might be old news, any Reaper mains will surely correct me if this is wrong by now.
A good little boost to DPS/Sustain is have a Nourishment going and an Enhacement. Yes, there are different kinds with different buffs, check for what you're looking for. They can be relatively cheap to make and sometimes buy off the Trading Post.
1. You have a tendency to interrupt your wells being cast, as well as your auto attacks. You want to make sure to not interrupt your shrouded auto attacks because they reduce the cd of your skills in shroud. Normally iirc it should be (in shroud): 2, 4, 3 auto attacks, 4, 6 auto attacks or so, 4 > leave shroud. But I could be wrong. Basically, You'll need to learn which abilities you can queue after each other without an issue and which ones you can't.
This also goes for healing if you’re looking to be a healer, make sure that you specked into a spec that has passives that increase your healing output
I… I can’t help but find it amusing how you figured out how traits work! 💀 But it’s good that you figured it out! Come back to the golem after you’ve gotten all your reaper traits cause he’s not complete. All the core traits build the foundation of your spec, but the elite spec line is really what adds that “chemical X” to make you more competitive. ALSO! The goal is 30k DPS on the golem. If you can hit 30k on the golem, then you have a decent understanding of your rotation and that’s enough damage to clear everything as long as you understand the encounter. The 44k you’re seeing is the BENCHMARK. It’s the peak potential of any spec and it’s unrealistic to obtain that in 99% of actual fights.
Brother, i highly recommend experiencing the game world and its quirks before delving into the depths of hell that is dps honing. Sight see, take in the scenery and story, enjoy the events and the world. And when you've had enough, the depths will be waiting. Speaking from experience, you risk burning yourself out really fast. Love to see your enthusiasm tho. ITs a great game with the deepest combat system of any mmorpg xD
Honestly, able to do that much makes you one of the top few players in the game already. The only thing I can think of is, make sure you have full berserk gear, either full exotics or ascended, for your armor, weapons, and the whole right side of your equipment. Make sure to not interrupt your autos, those alone can be more than half of your dps. Cast your wells before you go into shroud as their damage tick will increase from the damage bonus’s from going into shroud. Don’t cast Reaper shroud skill 5 unless the enemy is at 50% or less, just focus one skill 2 and 4, while just autos in shroud. Your rotation for that should be used 2 right away, auto attack until you can use 2 again, then once 2 is finish, then press 4, and 5 if target is lower than 50% Another tip is, don’t rush yourself. Work on memorized the pattern and speed of your attacks and the order of your buttons. Once you got that rhythm down, then you can speed it up.
Good job over 10k dps is really impressive damage for a new player! If you just keep playing youll hit 50% of the benchmark very soon! My advice would be looking for low intensity builds there are many that are super chill with mostly Auto attacks and clock usually close to 30k dps
Not sure how much of this applies since I cannot see your equips, but: - gear priority: weapons > trinkets > armor. Trinkets are very important as they hold the majority of your stats after weapons. Often times newer players overlook this. - you want 100% crit (or close to it) AFTER fury is applied. Otherwise there's wasted stats - don’t forget relics - when you get ascended gear, make sure you equip stat infusions. A full set of infusions can add another 100 to your stats
As someone who's just been keeping an eye on all the new people coming into GW2, you're playing it the right way. You started out playing the way you wanted, you're making all the mistakes and the game is becoming much more enjoyable because you see how the ceiling is and you want to reach it. Keep playing, keep learning and keep growing. You'll hit that 45k number in no time. Also the base game is the tutorial. Break into HoT, that'll help get Reaper completed and get your the right traits needed.
First thing I think you should go after is to finish your reaper spec. It will significantly improve your damage. Not sure what the equip you're running, but the best in slot would be berserker's stats (power, precision and ferocity) with runes of the dragonhunter or scholar. Weapon sigils are also important, you can slot 2 in a two-handed weapon. And lastly, think of the food as another piece of equipment because it gives almost as much stats as your leg armor. Also don't forget that your trinkets (rings, amulets, etc.) is a big part of your stats; If you can afford it, the laurel merchant sells ascended ones. In any case, if you're doing 17k, you're doing quite a lot already compared to other starting lvl 80 players, you can do tier 1 fractals no problem
consumables are also very important, meta battle always shows which runes, relic, stats to get to maximize dps, and they pointing out every time that you need also food and maintenance buffs
also looking at your build tab, you have lesser spinal shivers which removes boons and deals extra damage based on boons removed. Snow crows was recommending awaken the pain (gives you more power and less condition damage) in the 2nd row of 3 under spite. And your first choice under reaper you chose shouts siphon health (I don't think you have any shouts) instead of chilling nova which does damage.
On reaper you basically don't want to autoattack unless you are in shroud. Arguably you can autoattackchain on greatsword to refresh greatsword 2 if other skills are on cooldown and shroud and weapon swap are on cooldown as well. Your "9" is just a pull which does no damage, if you want more dps you could replace it, otherwise you dont need to use it unless you want to pull or CC. Your offhand dagger on mainhand axe is not really a dps weapon, it's nice for condi transfer and such, but if you can pick a sword that would make it way better (but ig you cannot take it since you need to unlock the weapon in SoTo). But offhand focus should do more dps than the dagger as well. The shroud is a bit weird without the last reaper trait since it gives you a buff where when you autoattackchain the other skills get cooldown reduction, but ig just shroud 4 is prio 1 and other than that shroud 2 or autoattackchain. Shroud 5 is also nice to upkeep your relic (so only use when relic runs out) but its more effective below 50% target hp where you wanna use it more often. The Basic concept should be you use your skills on one weaponset 1, weaponswap to the second set and use those skills, place wells and go into shroud for enough time to have your weapon skills reset. Go out and rince and redo, starting with weapon set 2 of course. And in general rebinding the skills gives way easier access, like pressing everything further than 6 (for me even further than 5) is on the other side of the globe :D You could consider using Q E R F or other close keys for skills and rebind your current binds on those to somewhere else i.e. or use side mousebuttons or mousewheel click or something (some hate it but i.e. I have one side button for heal, q e r for 7 8 9, mousewheelclick for elite and rebound "use" on b so i basically dont have to move my left hand)
As per the guide on Snowcrows, there are pros and cons to power reaper. The cons are: No ranged dps, relies on resource management, requires accurate positioning, forced movement. But the pros are: Plenty of CC, easy to learn, provides self boons, lots of cleave. So even if your main will be reaper, maybe have a range spec or even ranged dps alt available to use when range might be required. The upcoming Oct 8 balance patch provides a bit of dps buffs to necro, too. Not sure how that will impact the power reaper meta build, though, if at all. I don't see much direct correlation. The Transfusion change will, of course, make support necros cry.
Just a voice in the choir but I'd say the most important thing by far is figuring out your opener/first number (first number refers to the number shown in the in-game chatlog when you bring the golem to 75% hp) and memorizing how to replicate that. Also, you should be practicing on the 4mil hp golem, not the 1mil one. Make sure when you're practicing your opener you give yourself full lifeforce with the special action key before you start your rotation. You're also missing some very, very powerful traits in reaper itself--a 15% damage modifier, a 10% modifier, and a +300 ferocity bonus in shroud + shroud skill cdr upon completing shroud auto chains. Notably, the 300 ferocity bonus is important for understanding your rotation, and why you always want to enter shroud right after you use your wells. Unlocking the rest of your spec should be your priority atm. I'm sure your gear is also less than perfect, which will also make a huge difference. You should also use food; you don't need to use the best food, but you should use the next-best, since it'll be quite cheap. I'd recommend the dirt-cheap plates of steak and asparagus and hardened sharpening stones. I'd just buy 25 and use them when you feel like your dps matters. I'd also strongly recommend taking focus instead of dagger offhand until you unlock sword with SotO. For actual rotation tips, I think the most important recommendation is that you spend as little time as possible autoattacking on dagger while still hitting its 2/3 every time you swap to the weapon. Basically, you want to be in shroud while you dagger skills are recharging. You also want to preface your shroud with wells because of that ferocity trait mentioned above basically every time (outside of the opener, but openers are often exceptions to general principles). Once you hit 50% you can start filling time on GS with gravedigger instead of extra autos or whatever, and executioner's scythe will get a huge damage boost at the 50% and 25% thresholds, so making sure you play around its cooldown is important. Aside from filling your time on dagger and boosting your well/gs4 damage pulses, executioner's scythe is the reason you're in shroud--especially at low HP%--which is why the cdr trait you don't have is so good. Hope that stuff helps, even if you don't internalize it immediately.
1:36 this is why you felt like it didnt matter to learn a class like mesmer if you only wanted to play Virtuoso, but you need to understand the core fundamentals of a class because all of the specializations matter.
Most definitely you need to finish Reaper. I tried re-creating your traits (I can't unlearn Shivers of dread and Cold Shoulder, so that will add some damage) Without any buffs or conditions and doing a very basic rotation without weapon swapping I got 11k DPS. Repeating the same rotation but with full Traits I now got 21k DPS (a big part of this was from the last Trait which gives quickness in Reaper form) With all buffs and conditions I now did 24k with your traits (still getting at least +15% from Cold Shoulder though) and with all the traits I got about 29.5k Note that my Necro is mostly using exotic gear (no infusions) and not perfectly optimized stats. I'm also not using consumables Because of this, I'm missing more than 300 power, ~80 precision (5% crit chance) and ~150 ferocity (10% crit damage) which would be quite the DPS boost. I could also work on optimizing the rotation, but honestly, 29k DPS is more than good enough for all the content I'm currently engaged in, so I can't be bothered :) As for the rotation there's better people than me to help you with that. Although a few tips that may not be obvious to new players is that some skills can be queued. Meaning pressing a skill while the previous is casting will queue them and remove all delay between skill uses. But beware, some skills like channelling abilities will be interrupted instead. Also instant cast skills like shouts can be used while using other skills without interrupting them. With that said, If you currently just want to start out with Fractals, I do believe 17k DPS would be fine for all Tier 1 at least (probably also Tier 2). But I would still highly recommend finishing Reaper :)
minmaxing dps checklist: copy meta dps build for your class from sites like snowcrows or metabattle (or come up with yours if you have gigabrain but not advised) this includes: -Correct weapons -Correct Utilities -Correct specs with correct traits selected Equipment: Have correct stat combination Have correct runes, relics, sigils Have all ascended (exotics is fine for some time but you want to move up eventually) Have stat infusions (super expensive for what they are worth, you don't need to bother) Consumables: Have utilities and food Know your rotation and practice it on golem Training golem only -Put all conditions on golem -Put all boons on you feel free to add something I forgot
Finish the reaper skill tree and make sure youre using food, ideally ascended, and utility buffs. For reaper Cilantro Lime Sous-Vide steak and Potent Superior Sharpening Stone. You can also use Bowl of Sweet and Spicy Butternut Squash soup if you cant make Ascended food. Its only slightly worse. It is worth leveling up cooking to make your own Ascended food though as its not tradeable and is actually cheaper than the alternative despite being better.
If you don’t copy the build exactly as it is on the site, the DPS drops significantly. In most builds, one of the secrets is always ensuring 100% critical chance, no more and no less, or 100% condition duration, no more and no less (in all conditions or just bleeding, for example, on Mesmer). Some builds fill this gap with food and utilities. So, by making a build somewhat similar to the one on the site and covering these key aspects, it already helps a lot.
You only showed half the build. Your gear(stat) are very important including rings accessory backpiece the runes and relic. Still very important. Now in regards to skills you press a lot of skills which don't really increase dps and should be used for their utility. Generally speaking if let's look at reaper shroud. The 5th skill is a pull and deals some cc. You want to keep it for ccing the boss same for 3rd skill you want to keep it for fear which again is a cc. 2nd skill is more of a gap closer in case the boss moves. You could theoretically use some these skills for increased dps but generally keeping it simple will give you more success. Dealing the 3rd autoattack chain with melee weapons is the best thing you can do for dmg. Entering and getting out of reaper shroud every 15 second increases your dmg duel to a trait, so don't stay too much in either form. One last thing is the combo system. Most of the skill have either a combo finisher or a combo field. You want to put down a combo field. And then do finishers over it. For example reaper skill 4 is a combo field your 2nd and 3rd utility skills are combo field. And for combo finishers you have greatsword skills 2 and 3. Btw after the boss is below 50% you want to use 2nd weapon skill instead of autoattack. Because it if connects it is resets deals a lot of dmg and it's a combo finisher. Also also combo fields/finishers can be used with other party members. Your numbers are higher with other players spamming near you( but in open world boss also moves or you have to avoid dmg so it balances out)
If you want an easier experience you can use a rotation without weapon swap and camp GS instead. It's a minimal dps loss (if at all), or even a gain in some fights (HTCM (second hardest fight in the game)) since you can use your weapon swap for stacking sigil of cruelty. On another note, once you unlock "Chilled to the bone!", I'd switch my ult to that, since it is a bit more reliable CC (Flesh Golem can die) even though you lose a few hundred dps.
Golem is great at practicing rotations if you are playing a class that uses them. Keep in mind though most fractal bosses require you to move around and do some mechanics, hence why different bosses have different benchmarks and why people prefer some classes over others for certain bosses. If you are determined to stick with necro (reaper) 1. finish unlocking all of the spec 2. Make sure you have the correct runes, sigils, and relic (99% of the time its thief or fireworks for dps) 3. Get to 100% crit chance with food, utilities, gear and fury boon Ive been playing core guardian hammer and get up to 30k autoattacking. If the rotation is too hard or the gear/food is too expensive to get its okay to play something easier and come back to learn necro.
17k dps is good for barely playing the game and the majority of the endgame content only needs at least 10k dps to complete them. I would recommend the following to increase your dps if you want to improve it: 1. The builds online would give you food options that you can use to boost your stats like sous-vide steak for power, flatbread for condi, etc. Don't forget Utilities as well like Superior Sharpening Stone! 2. Be sure to have the right gear stats like berserker and/or assassin for power to reach 100% crit, Vipers for Condi, etc. This also includes picking the right armor runes, weapon sigils, and relic. 3. Exotic armor is good enough for the majority of endgame content, but Ascended/Legendary would give you the most stats increase, and you can add special infusions to the ascended/legendary gear to increase your stats further (and be flashier in your Fashion Wars gaming)! 4. The traits are very helpful with increasing DPS as you've seen and if you learn your rotation & practice you can find the right skill rotation that would benefit the most with your traits.
Besides the hero points needed. What gear are you using? Are you using jewelry (amulet, rings, earrs, backpack, relic)? What about the runes and sigils? Reapers also wants to be in shroud most of the time. Btw, the first level of fractals you don't really need to be optimal, so you don't have to worry about starting in fractals, but at least make sure to have a full exotic gear (it's cheap) with proper runes and sigils and you should be ok. Necro (specially reaper) is one of the classes that you can smash anything on sight and you'll get decent enough DPS, so the most likely culprit for your lack of DPS is the traits and the gear.
- Until you unlock offhand sword, go dagger warhorn for your second weapon set. It has more lifeforce generation and better auto attack dmg when GS is on cd. - What are your accessories looking like? They hold a lot of your stats so if you're missing any, that's a big chunk of dps. - Your utilities and elite look good, but I prefer "you are all weaklings" over spectral grasp. But grasp is good too, especially for grouping adds. - Below 50% hp, your greatsword 2 skill doesnt have a cd so I wouldnt be autoattacking. After 50% hp you really only wanna use wells and a couple shroud abilities outside of greatsword 2. - idk if you have the trait yet, but dipping in and out of shroud gives you big buffs on reaper, so you wanna keep that in mind. Go into shroud roughly every 10 seconds.
He's gonna have to power run the expansions LOL. He needs heart of thorns or path of fire or end of dragons to get the hero points he needs without spending 3 days collecting 1 hero point at a time and then he needs to do Season of the Obscure to unlock the sword.
omg, you need to do an hp train with our lords and saviors. basically there's a few guys that will speedrun hero points in the dlc maps on a schedule, for tips. you just follow them around the map and get 100% of the hero points in the dlc in ~40 mins. true gw2 legends and part of the alt leveling experience.
You can do Fractals how you are don't worry about that, high end engame you will need to look into Sigel's, Runes and Relics and alot of other small min max tricks. also fully utilizing another weapon to swap into but for now you don't need to worry about things like that, you will learn all that as you progress through more content and expansions you have plenty to do and are more than capable of doing it as you are
Biggest thing that stands out to me you need to finish your auto attack chains before you go into another skill. The other thing that will help is by finishing the reaper unlock so you have all the traits.
Been saying if you are going a power build you need full berserkers gear and trinkets and scholar runes. Every power build goes that set up. I am a power untamed berserkers adds a lot of power as for Scholar runes them up your crit chance. Every power reaper i know uses that gear set up too. Even if your rotation is spot on if your gears all over the place and runes you will still hit like a wet noodle. Farm Heart of Thorns content it gives you free stat selectable exotic armor. First map. Look at the gear your builds using buy correct runes trinkets and a stat selectable back piece. Buy a recomended relic too if you see a slot fill it. Every build online tells you what should be equiped for peek performance. Do HOT POF or any other content for Hero points each HP gives you 10 points which will fill out reaper faster. A easy way to get rings if got 70 laurels is laurel vender look for berserkers stats rings. buy one of each they are ascended so best in stats too.
Also combo fields. This is less important in group context, because you'll just be activating combo fields constantly at all times anyways, but in a solo context... reaper shroud 5, then reaper shroud 4 in that order, and you'll see exactly what I'm talking about.
the dps suggested on the benchmarks usually are on the best conditions lvl 80, full spec on unlocked, ascended equipment and many many tries, that being said what equipment are you using? I believe this build should use full berserker, I would guess you don't have ascended but with exotic you should get close enough, check you have all runes, sigil and relics. Regarding the rotation, on reaper after the enemy drops to 50% you want to camp skill 2 on longsword, maybe stop to drop some wells and occasionally changing to shroud to spam 2 and 4 or 5 if cc is needed, and quickly come back to longsword. (I could be wrong but pretty sure skill 2 on longsword autoreachard after hitting an enemy below 50%)
Rube, you should collect hero point first to complete one of your elite spec trait. I would suggest you to collect hero point from Path of Fire maps if you want easier. Or if you want it in order, you can get it on HoT but a lot more harder, you need bring friends
If you're going for straight dps, there are some skills on reaper that you can kinda just not use. GS 4 for example doesn't do much damage but blinds and is good when pulling groups and GS3 isn't all that special unless you need the extra vulnerability stacks. When you're in reaper shroud, I usually open with 2 > 5 > 4 > 3 while casting 4 if i think i'm going to get hit or interupted, or i need extra defiance break from the fear. the 1 shroud skill will lower your cooldowns after this rotation so they should be up and ready next time you enter shroud, but 3 and 1 are your weakest shroud skills :) Don't forget GS2 has no CD when used on someone below half health
Personally i dont even equip elite specs until they're maxed, or at worst i have the last trait i need in column 3. Youre missing 3 of the 5 passives on that spec, youre likely better off using a base necro spec that has a full passives. "Core" build guides exist for basically this part of the game, and will be good to get you your hero points. Hero point trains are highly recommended in HoT, because some of the combat challenges are extremely brutal, and a lot of the others require masteries to get to, which commanders can teleport you to.
17k is not bad considering you're missing at least 3 key things from this: final reaper traits, food, and utility. For instance, the final reaper trait Reaper's Onslaught will cause your auto-attack shroud sequence to increase the effective DPS of Death's Shroud (#2 shroud skill) by 20%. Plate of Jerk Poultry can increase your strike damage by 15% of base damage. The utility primer can easily add another 4.5%. Those alone could add almost 50% DPS without doing anything else. Then the question becomes what armor, weapon, runes, sigils, trinkets, backpack, and relic are you using? What's your critical chance at? If it's only at 50%, that's leaving 33% of your dmg on the table. Then of course, then finally the rotation could be an issue. I'm not familiar with Reaper's rotations, but there may be sequences of abilities or not letting rotations complete that could be causing reduction. However, for most groups, 10k is perfectly acceptable especially for a new player. Getting yourself constantly over 20k would definitely put you above most casual players and 40k+ is where you'd strive to get.
Get yourself the arcdps addon, which shows yours and other peoples (that are in a squad or party with you) damage at all times. That instant feedback is invaluable when you're trying to improve. Read what your skills and traits actually do. You can look at rotation guides but generally it can be a good idea to simplify the rotation and build it from the ground up, adding more and more complications (for slight dps boosts) as you get better at it. Make sure your gear is in order. Might be a good idea to let an experienced player or your stream/youtube have a look at it. Don't worry about the fractal rush. There will be more of those in the future and you definitely shouldn't be doing endgame content when you haven't even unlocked your reaper specialization.
I always take benchmarks with a huge grain of salt. Those guy have maxed.... EVERYTHING. Full best in slot gear, food and utility buffs, which you average gamer wont do. Merely being aware that you have room for growth, and looking to do something about it tells me you'll do well making progress.
Well , you don't have the entire Elite Specialization unlocked , this affects you when you enter in Shroud cause , one of the Traits you get helps you reset the skills cooldown of your shroud Reaper as you finish a Chain of auto-attacks , and you are been confused for some buttons and the speed to cast it so a real quick remind to train : everytime time in Greatsword you use 5 > 4 you press imediatly the 7 > 8 cause this will cancel the animation of your 4 from the Greatsword , helping you deal a better burst , and just a reminder but you can play saftly with only the Greatsword and still do some good dps , just remember to catch the combo (5 > 4 > 7 > 8 > F1) to start the shroud burst everytime is off cd in GreatSword
For the Shroud Reaper combo is pretty simples : When you enter the Shroud (F1) immediatly press 2 and do 2x auto-chains (which is 3 melee blows but twice in a row) , use the 2 again and start spinning with 4 , wait the animation to end and use the 2 , then use the 3 two times and finish with 5 . so the sequence is pretty simple to understand but a little hard to memorize , just to make thinks more easy if you didn't understand , will be like this : (F1 - 2 - 2xAuto-Chain - 2 - 4 ..... 2 - 3 3 5 - F1)
Have your entire reaper spec unlocked. Make sure your armor stats and superior runes match the build youre going for. Make sure you have the right weapons and sigils for your build (your build may also require you to swap weapons in your rotation), pressing your skills quickly amd in the right order are just as important as anything else.
what everyone else said, unlock the full spec and doing 17k without full spec is already alright the dps numbers u see online are from people with maxed out everything on every slot with sigils, runes utility and food. If you're able to get kinda close to those numbers without food and utility you're fine
Quick way to improve might be finishing off the reaper spec. Use a build guide it will help alot, sometimes I watch lord hizen for pve builds he might help with your damage
Watch out for skill cancelling. Entering you Shroud and weapon swapping will cancel the animation of whatever skill you are channeling. And auto attack chains matter. You are also using axe/dagger as your secondary weapon set, which isn't optimal. Getting the last traits in Reaper will also boost you up, and your gear of course matters as well. If you are using the build from Snowcrows, then there should be a full rotation to follow.
You have to finish your elite specialization, you're missing alot of dps due to It only being partly filled. If Its too hard to solo, some people randomly do Hero Point trains on LFG. Just click on HoT, or PoF In LFG every once In awhile.
get arc-dps, makes you spot the dmg way quicker, do you use the right sigils? Get some dps food (even cheap options), and yes, the skills and skilltrees matter a lot! A and with reaper you basically only need the gs, never switch, except for precast signets
Small tipp..(just 200 commenst here already lol) you can play a bit of Wvw and get your hero points in no time. When reaper is full you can try several reaper specs and should be setup better
complete your 3rd spec line, but ppl already suggested that. So my oder suggestion would be, if u dont use your utility 9, and you're applying 25 stacks of might with the golem, switch it for signet of spite for more power damage. But outside the golem, you can use the grasping hands or a shout that provides might, like You are all weaklings.
aside from what everyone else said, I'm not sure what gear you're running but you need full ascended berserker gear with scholar runes and probably thief relic with ascended food and utilities.
For a more accurate result, you want to set the golem to 4mil health instead of 1mil, since it dies too fast otherwise and can actually inflate your numbers :O but yes, not having the full spec unlocked and no food and utility is the immediate glaring issue I can see. Good luck tho, you’re doing great!
You absolutely NEED to finish the Reaper traitline. As others have mentioned it will give you Ferocity (higher crit damage), a flat strike increase of 10%, and the grandmaster trait causes your 3rd auto attack in shroud to partially reset your cooldowns in shroud. This lets you spam shroud two more often. You also get to refund small amounts of Life Force while in shroud, meaning you get to stay in your high-DPS form for longer. You also will get access to the rest of your utility and heal skills. Right now you have almost no Life Force build up for shroud which is keeping you from staying in for as long as you could be. The Reaper utilities and later traitlines will help with that. Further, there’s a bit of a misunderstanding on how the rotation works here. First, you seem to not really know why certain skills are in order. Others have mentioned Combo Fields, which are less important on powerReaper than elsewhere but still important. Greatsword 4 and all your Well Utilities put down a Dark field which you’ll want to use with Whirl finishers for Leeching Bolts. A good way to see this is to do Greatsword 4-5, Both Wells, then go into Shroud and immediately cast skill 4. When you do this as an Opener to your rotation you’ll see your DPS start out likely much higher than where the benchmark ends up. Secondly, one of the largest damage increases on the build comes from Soul Barbs, the first trait in the second column. Anytime you go INTO or OUT OF shroud you gain a bonus 15% damage to all sources for 15 seconds. Much of the reaper rotation revolves around swapping in and out of Shroud to maintain this buff. Spend too long on your weapons and it’s a DPS loss, spend too much time in shroud and it’s a DPS loss. Finally, pay attention to how often you let the activation bar of a skill fill to half way before starting a new skill. In this case, you’re often restarting your auto attack chain and interrupting it with higher priority skills. Ideally, the auto attack chain should only ever start when you should be doing it, but in your example it’s starting constantly. Avoid skill interruption as a general rule. A lot of skills can be buffered by starting the next skill during the end of a skills cast time. This is why people recommend Greatsword 4-5, because 4 has a really long aftercast delay that can be cancelled with another skill. In this case it’s beneficial. Shroud 4 is a long channel time (spin to win attack) and interrupting it at any point will cancel the rest of the hits from the animation. Thus, an example of when you don’t want to do this. My best advice is summarized thusly: finish your traitlines and get all the correct skills for the build. Elite specs are strong, but with only 1 trait they are weaker than a full core build. Learn what your buttons do and HOW THEY COMBO INTO EACH OTHER. Power builds are all about burst, and proper combinations and orders are how you do that. Finally, learn what skills can and can’t be cancelled favourably or negatively and learn which skills can be safely buffered. Put that all together with proper Runes, Sigils, Relic, and Food/Utility and you should be able to get close to 80-85% of the benchmark in Exotic gear, 90-95% of the benchmark in Ascended gear.
well seeing there are People who think not unlocking the whole traitline is not a big deal explains some PUG experience I had before 😂 you want to get your whole traitline and just follow stuff you see on build sides like snowcrows for example. Rest comes from experience and knowing the fights. if you hit around 35k thats enough for most of the content. Also Idk if you have a macro Mouse but I highly suggest keybinding your abilites if not. reaching for 6789 for example mid fight is bad. Set up you keybinds so you can move around easily and feel comfy pressing buttons. GL hf in Tyria ^^
heart of thorns will award you 10 hero points per hp point in hot so think of it like doing the expansion maps to unlock the hero points alternatives wvw has a vendor that can allow you to buy hero points from expansion maps, as for dps youll likely not hit dps top ends until you max out the elite spec with reaper i recommend paying attention to critical hits so precision ferocity power this will make your reaper for extremely deadly, because reaper for has extremely high burst i try to make myself sustainable outside of reaper form to quickly recover reaper shroud, the faster i can fet back into shroud the better
Other people have been giveng great advice. I would also encourage you to run some events and fight some world bosses. Soloing champions is fun and great practice. You might want a second build just for that so if it's too much just focus on your dps build for now.
below 50% hp u use GS 2 more since it does more dmg amnd resets itself ... also traits u have to unlock, they give u big buff... and basicly u use only shroud 4 and autoattack most of the time using signet will give u more power, and popping wells u forgot about those, just a few to keep it simple
17k isn't that bad tho because you need at least 15k+ to do all content so your good there. Advise is still getting all Reaper nodes which you mentioned and use the combos that snowcrows uses and switch Axe/Warhorn to Dagger/Sword as advised on snowcrow. Overall your getting there but practicing and learning how to use your skills is a must.
To start, aim for 30-35k. Food/utilities will add 2k dps (ignore infusions till mucccch later but they can add 500-2k depending on the bench).. If your traits and rotation is fine, I think its your gear.. even with a slower rotation you should be hitting 25k. As a reaper you'll want all Power/Berzerker stats. And read the skills/test which are interuptable.. I'm awful at reading skills 😂
Well benchmarks are usually with 100% full gear. At this point you're only in exotic which is about 10% dps loss, you don't have infusions which is another 4%, you don't have food/utility for another...10%, You don't have your full spec unlocked, Which included bonus damage against melee range 10%, and bonus damage against chilled enemies 10/15%. Grandmaster trait also gives skill CD on auto attack for your shroud for the Strike variant of the build. Auto chains are important. But just in Stats you don't have and traits you don't have that's a 45-50% jump you could expect to see by getting those things. You didn't show your gear so it's hard to say with that, Runes/Sigils are important as is the relic slot. I believe someone sent you the relic during one of your streams but I don't know if you're weapons have the sigil of force +accuracy on both sets. Or if you have a full set of dragonhunter runes on your armor
I suggest unlocking the full elite spec before using it in the build. You're loosing a lot of dps with the current setup. Also use the correct gear and weapons for the build you are following otherwise you are lot less effective using the same build.
and lastly, read your tooltips! even if you use a premade build, read things and understand how your build works. Lots of the best builds have 'conditional' damage bonus traits. Alot of the times, you can't meet these conditions consistently solo, but in groups its almost passive. depending on what sort of content you're doing you can adjust the build... Example: +10% dps when your health is above 90% -- in a group with a healer, you dont have to think about this, it should just always be active... but in open world or solo stuff, lets say you dont have the sustain to consistently stay above 90%... another trait you can swap that trait out for gives you lifesteal on every crit! you lose the 10% damage bonus, but you weren't really using it when solo anyways! Explore builds, try things. One of my fav things is this game is making a build my own. I like to take really strong raid builds and adjust them for other content. all that being said, you're on the right track. Doing 17k without food buffs, without a complete elite spec, and probably not optimal gear, is actually pretty impressive. I see worse DPS in strikes and raids all the time
First of all, complete your build. You need all of the traits and skills correctly placed. Check your gears, sigils and runes (stat infusions are not a priority). Food and utility also are important. You didn't show your gear, but is your RELIC correct? I struggled with dps for a long time, because the idea of a rotation is a bit misleading. What you must be aware is: 1. What are your highest DPS skills? Arcdps is allowed and its graphs can be really useful to understand that. 2. What's the key mechanic of your profession? Reaper must go in shroud a lot, as an example. 3. Do you get more damage if using a skill after one or a set of other skills? 4. Is there any buff from traits or relics that you must be aware of and proactively trigger? I usually prefer practical training over the golem, because it's more fun and realistic... Don't bother about benchmarks, nobody expects you to achiev them. You can clear any fight in the game if your squad does 10k dps. Keep in mind that Snowcrows people have thousand hours of experience in realistic combat scenarios with a certain profession. They have knowledge and muscle memory to extend their dmg to the limit. Also, that number is in a controlled scenario where they could obtain an average dps over a limited period of time, so it's obviously inflated. Reaper unlocks easy mode for GW2, whith those concepts in mind you will be fine.
a couple thousand DPS is definitely doable. so 17k is completely fine. the game (fractals included) usually isn't so much about standing in one spot mashing buttons just trying to hit as much damage as possible. it's more about timing of the skills, knowing when to use them, positioning, dodging, mechanics, ect. knowing this or not knowing this is what is going to make a fight easy or hard, not hitting 40k dps.
You didn't state your gear. While you don't need Ascended, it helps to know you have the correct stats and if you're reaching critical chance cap- you want 75% before Fury so you get 100% critical chance. As most build guides chooses gear as Ascended, if you're running Exotics, you'll have to make some chances, likely an extra piece of Assassin's rather than mostly Berserker's.
Getting the rest of reaper as well as the correct weapons for the build - greatsword and dagger/sword. For open world, you can use anything you like, but if you're trying to hit the bench, you need to copy-paste from snowcrows. But I wouldn't advise going full Berserker gear in the Hot maps. No, actually, for the sake of content, please do
I am loving watching your journy SO much. Yes, join an HP train, or grind out some WvW and get those hero points, you sweet, innocent summer child ❤. Your build is not yet complete 😂 You dont HAVE to do this, btw. If you're tryna take your time with the story and expansions. 17k dps is enough for fractals when you're starting out. And raid are TECHNICALLY expac content, and for the first few wings even that dps is enough to get through :D
I know your following the story and all but go do a quick Hero Point train in either HoT PoF or End of dragons one of those 3 expansions the hero points u get there are 10 per challenge not like in the core world 1 per challenge and with a HeroPoint train its super fast and easy then just unlock the whole Reaper spec and enjoy :)
pro reaper tip.. if you have it chilled to the bone is a superior choice to a flesh golem,,, it has far more break bar power,, is aoe and you don't need a tank,, you have a huge health pool and in shroud your health don't move. I command on a reaper doing metas,, one of the funny parts is when people stick to the tag oblivious to their surroundings as I stand in puddles face rolling the bosses in shroud as my little zombie followers fall dead around me haha
food and ulitity items will probably push you past 10 k then there's also getting better at not intrerupting your sword auto chain if it's not completed
In the first 25seconds I could figure out why u can't get you dps up, you didn't fully unlocked your reaper spec and are only using it for the great sword. That's a big red flag. Only equip the spec after you have it fully unlocked. If you don't wanna get the hero points then go back to core reaper. Find a dps build for it. It will be way better than incomplete reaper.
![ATEEZ(에이티즈) - [GOLDEN HOUR : Part.2] Preview](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/X4PfgRPBUVo/mqdefault.jpg)
From a quick glance there are a couple issues i can see with your rotation.
1. Interrupted auto attacks: your autoattack consists of 3 swings of your sword. The last one inflicts chill which you need for dps. If you cancel your autoattack before it completes the last swing, you will loose dps.
2. Random autto attacks: you sometimes have random sword swings between different skills because you dont chain them together fast enough. Thats also a dps loss because as mentioned above, IF you atoattack, you will want to complete the autoattack chain.
3. Weapon set: You are partially using the wrong weapons. For power reaper the meta is Greatsword and dagger/sword. The autoattack on dagger can regenerate your shroud.
4. Reaper does more dps to enemies 30k on the golem consistently you are going to be good enough (dps wise) to do a lot of instanced endgame activities. At that point i recommend trying to actually get good at the game itself before trying to max out your own dps.
Edit 1: buff food and utility enhancement: As Jhmi7877 has pointed out below my comment, the right consumables will also drastically increase your dps. You will be able to see the recommended food and utility on the respective build guide on snowcrows. Note that snowcrows will most likely list an ascended version of the food you need. Worry not! You will be able to get an exotic food from the trading post with the same stats. You will however need to look up what exotic food has the same stats on the gw2 wiki or ask in mapchat. Food and utility can be quite expensive so you might want to only use it for raids e.g.
exactly pretty much everything said in this commnent
Food also can increase dps like 2k. We don't know his sigils either. Force + accuracy could help him. Rune too. Relic of fireworks would help as well. Spamming gravedigger under 50% hp is a steady dps. The chilling effect, you get from 'Chilling nova' or shroud 5 or staff 3 or fears, or sword 1 & 4, or focus 5, greatsword 5, so u don't really need to spam auto attacks with greatsword, it's best to just spam shroud auto attack for dps.
Combos also add extra dps, so he gotta do skills in order. He needs to learn about combos.
All of this is great advice.
Other issue is we need to see his gear he could be using wrong gear for class. Like example i play power untamed so i use full zerker gear with Scholar runes. If hes using wrong gear or sigils he will hit like wet noodle. Even if his rotation is good.
I would highlight the last point: Get good at the game itself before trying to max out your own dps.
Knowing how the game works and knowing your class lends to better success in pumping out good DPS. Of course a new person won't be able to optimize their DPS yet, 'cause they need more time and experience to even know how to do that in the first place.
Well I mean you don't have the entire spec unlocked that would definitely help with it
You think that’s the bulk of it?
@@rubeuscubeus A big percentage for sure, the unlocked trait and some Reaper Utility skills gives lot of dmg and some dmg extra procs. So once fully unlocked you gonna feel the difference
@@rubeuscubeusit absolutely will help
@@rubeuscubeus Usually the traits that are in 2nd and then 3rd row give more benefits, especially with Elite specs. Check out the last non-choice trait in necro: Cold Shoulder. It basically gives you 15% increase in damage, since Chill is almost always 100% on an enemy.
@@rubeuscubeusHow could you think it's not it? The second row of traits gives you either 10% flat damage or more crits.
Gee how is it possible to not do more damage with those, I wonder.
i was the number 1 strike and raid benchmark on reaper a few patches ago. A good start is to camp greatsword as you are actually mostly losing dps right now being on axe. also you should hold your greatsword 5 ability until right before you enter shroud as you can cancel the aftercast.. also both wells on your skillbar should also be cast right before gs 5, so it would look something like 7-8-5-f1-autochain in reaper's shroud into reaper's shroud 4, you can actually completely forego reaper's shroud 2 as its not that big of a dps increase and it locks you in place for a substantial amount of time which can be detrimental in some content. also i dont know if you have your relic of fireworks yet, but your greatsword 4 ability should be used whenever its about to run out.. also try to stay in reaper's shroud longer and space out, your reaper's 4 and 5 ability for maximum uptime on firework relic. if you use your greatsword autochain make sure to complete it fully as its a dps increase and it also resets your gs 2 ability which is the highest hitting ability on gs. below 50% opponent hp you want to spam gs 2 and not using gs 1 at all unless you need additional lifeforce, still using gs 3 offcooldown since it give considerable lifeforce generation
'Recently' (a few years ago) Arena Net added little descriptors to the Trait lines that really helps in my opinion. So even without getting a build online, a quick read explains that Spite eats enemy buffs, Curses is all about debuffing baddies, Blood Magic has to do with HP, etc etc.
Not all classes have it but I really love when the traits synergize with each other and the ease of adjusting builds is one of my favorite things about this game.
Grats on the epiphany!
You probably heard that a hundred times already but, doing the story chronologically is really rough ^^, you will have to do Season 1,2,HoTs without mounts or atleast just the free raptor new players get nowadays, and HoT's hero points are rough to solo for new players too, What is did personally years ago was skipping to PoF , got myself the springer and unlocked the rest of my spec then i went into HoT's and whatever else :)
That's a great start for a new player. I don't know the exact rotation you were going for but the skill activation was pretty fast and looked good. The biggest issue I see is that you haven't finished your elite spec. Usually the last choice on a trait line is very significant. You also don't have food/enhancement. Fixing those things will get you over 20k I bet.
"Other then getting hero points"... not having a fully unlocked elite spec is worse then not running it. If you're not willing to go get the hp's then you should drop the elite spec and run core necro or one of the other elite specs if you have it fully unlocked.
This. Drop reaper spec until you have it fully unlocked if you’re not fine with the DPS loss of a half-baked spec line.
One you don’t have a full spec. Two what is your gear? Do you have all power gear? Do you have the proper relic? Do you have all the accessories? What are your runes and sigils?
There is a lot more than just wacking on a golem doing a dps check.
I have been digging watching your journey and discovery of GW2. As a player from GW2 launch I love this game and have always loved the depth and complexity but the simplicity of entry. It is an easy game that is hard to master. The systems are complex but really it comes down to how you like to play. There is no right way per-say but there are some things that will make you better. My advice is as follows.
- Read every tool tip. There is obvious information the casual will completely miss buried in there that will unlock your journey. I am still to this day discovering things I missed.
- Food and Utilities. Sharpening stones and experience food are vital for the solo player and once your in a guild ask for a banner I am sure someone has them and would be happy to share.
- Join a casual guild at first that has a focus on new players. These are your homies and will trip over each other to give you any and all info or even in some cases foot the bill for gear and infusions you may need on your journey.
- Use online build guides. They are a good baseline for a build that will get you started or even help you in advance content.
- Like others have stated, let that auto ride. The final blow is important. Let all animations play out without interruption. That will help you boost your DPS for sure. Most players from other game are used to animation canceling and in GW2 that is a big DON'T DO IT! It kills DPS.
Just my helpful advice or at least I hope its helpful.
Dude just made a video about Eve Online. Someone boost this guy into a cruiser/battle cruiser with t2 guns/drones and we will see how the complexity really hits.
One important thing that i just saw was that you use greatsword 3 then greatsword 4. This might not seem very different than gs4->gs3. But it actually is. you have combo fields and finishers in gw2. your gs4 places a dark combo field on the ground, while your gs3 "whirl"finishes (readable at the tooltip). This creates Leeching Bolts that deal damage and heal you similar to lifesteal. Testing this difference was 33% more with the whirl finisher.
Another was that you don't have some traits unlocked. This means for example that you don't get a +300 ferocity boost while in schroud. This increases your crit damage by 20% and while it doesn't sound like much this is a giant benefit. Your most damaging skills are in shroud and you activate both well of suffering and well of darkness just before going into shroud so they also benefit from that extra crit damage (as you should have 100% crit chance with fury, which might not be the case with exotic gear because you get less precision per piece than ascended).
@luca7675 already mentioned a lot of other things, good luck and hope to see you blast soon!
note that your shourd is a second health bar. If you get slapped during combat while in shroud, you lose reaper uptime as it takes away shroud health. your skill 3 in shroud is a massive 66% damage reduction and gives stability to tank cc's, This means that the skill should be used when you get big damage or cc in a real case scenario
That’s actually a pretty great start for a new player, I mentioned on another video you’re gonna be breezing past the average with your attitude and you’re absolutely proving that right now!
Other people have said as much, but a huge component is gonna be finishing the reaper traitline, you’re leaving quite a lot of dps on the table right now (I’d say like 5-10k)
Besides that, the only thing I noticed as someone who doesn’t play a lot of necro, spam greatsword 2 when the enemy is under 50% hp instead of auto attack loops
Don’t interrupt the auto attack loops you are doing, the third skill in the chain is usually a big portion of the damage.
Hey! Welcome to GW2 I hope you keep enjoying it! Here’s a few tips I’ve got from playing Power Reaper a good while myself.
For rotation on greatsword:
First (as you were) you want to pop 4, then 2, then 3. This way the 2 and 3 can combo with the leeching field produced from 4. You can do 3 then 2 I just prefer 2 first since it has a longer cooldown on high health enemies. (If you wish to pop your wells during this time you’re more than welcome to as well.)
After greatsword, you go into shroud and hit: 3,2,4,5,2 . The reason for this order is 3 first to give yourself Stability. This buff (boon as we call them in GW) makes it so you can’t get stunned or interrupted. 2 skill comes next so you can try to get two of them out before popping out of shroud. Then 4 (spin-to-win) for big damage. 5 lastly for chill damage and giving yourself quickness if you have the trait.
A few other tips I can give:
1.) If on greatsword and enemy is low health, you can spam your 2 skill since the cooldown resets with low HP enemies. If the enemy isn’t low, as others are saying make sure to finish the 3 hit auto attack combo to chill the enemy for that extra bit of damage.
2.) Soul barbs. You’ll see the buff on your bar. You’ll want to make sure to keep that up at all times for the extra damage boost. If you see it’s about to go away, either pop into shroud or if you’re already in shroud, pop out and it should reset the timer for the buff.
3.) This is absolutely more personal preference but for second weapon set I prefer running staff (or dual swords but it’s unlocked in Secrets of the Obscure) The reason staff is nice is because it gives range when melee isn’t readily accessible but it can also put down more combo fields for your greatsword. But of course like I said it is personal preference so play whichever weapons you like best!
4.) Food and utility will buff your damage but it’s not too crazy of an amount for how expensive the food is lol. When you’re ready though I recommend Sweet and Spicy Butternut Squash Soup (I think that’s the name for it) and Superior Sharpening Stones for utility.
Overall I hope some of these tips help!
You're missing 1/2 of your reaper build bonuses. It's not just the skills you unlock, but if you read the tooltips on those green builds choices, the ones you are missing can give 10% bonus damage to chilled enemies, One increased strike damage (which is what your shroud skills do) , One gives you extra ferocity which is a higher crit damage. Besides the fact that those builds are using full ascended gear with all of the infusions that add a bit more power to your build. And IDK if you knew this, but you have 2 tabs to store build set ups on and 2 tabs to store gear on if you want to try out more than one websites build recommendations. (And the gear in those equipment tabs come out of your inventory until you take them off of the tab). Someone who's an end game raider might make some suggestions on your rotation. The snow crows site I was using for my build recommended rotating out of shroud at certain points in the rotation to make use of "soul barbs" which is under the soul reaping green choice where entering and exiting shroud increases damage you do by 10% for a duration. You also had not food and no utility buffs on that parse.
first of all.. get the complete reaper spec, second, switch out your secondary weapon.. dagger/warhorn is what i like.. use food buffs (people always forget about food and utility buffs) dont know what gear you use, but use the right runes and sigils... 2nd greatsword skill is what people spam after enemy is below 50% since it can be spammed without cooldown, but its just high numbers, not high dps.. i dont play much reaper, so i only do about 30-34K.. but just some pointers..
Just go into fractals. 17k is enough for all of them except maybe master tier. And nobody will judge you if you do 17k in Tier 4 either if you just stay alive.
this
I'd rather have the 17k guy knowing how to dodge vs a 40k guy who doesn't
theres a few things thats gonna help with your dps
1. Finish reaper your missing 25% increased strike damage and 300 ferocity for not having reaper completed
2. Replace well of blood with signet of vampirism and spectral grasp for signet of power for added damage
3. In reaper replace Augury of Death trait with Chilling Nova trait because criting a enemy thats chilled will create a frost nova damaging nearby enemies every 3 seconds
4. Use Well of Suffering, Well of Darkness, great sword 4, hop into reaper shroud and use Soul Spiral as your opener.
5. Stay in reaper shroud until Soul Barbs buff is about to expire then exit to refresh it
6. When out of shroud cast wells great sword 4 again and auto attack or use great sword 2 if the enemy is below 50% until shrouds back up and repeat.
7. food and utility buffs will also help
Add all boons, add all conditions to the golem, be well positioned, complete your elite specialization trait line, show your build, runes, and relic.
Remember they use the best of the best: utility, food, infusions, ascended gear, etc.
Make sure you're in the same page, then, is a matter of chunk practice and timing (do not cancel top tier damage skills).
Install ARCDPS, and look if you are dealing the damage your are suppose to inflict with each separate skill.
Having said that you should go from 17K to 30K+. (This just a standing golem, with movement in real combat it's a different story)
Cheers, and happy to see you enjoying GW2.
I was going to write a full list on things you can do to improve on your numbers, but that can be overwhelming. For now, I would say other than finishing the specialization line for reaper and being able to use all the traits and skills needed, the biggest difference might be understanding the skill queue system in guild wars.
Skills that belong in the same "priority" will not interrupt each other on cast. This means that while I am channeling let's say shroud 4 (the spinning) and can press 2 when the channel is about to end to queue it, and your character will cast it as soon as possible. This will help as after you cast a skill, your character will always want to finish the end animation which doesn't do anything but a flourish, and start their autoattack instead.
I don't think any of these are mentioned in-game, and you really have to just have experience in the game to learn about it. From my experience the priority usually follows this line of reasoning.
dodge, weapon swap, and weapon stow >> skills that help you evade or block attacks >> heal skill >> other skills >> 1 on the weapon skill (most have it as their auto attack).
Another thing is waiting for the whole auto attack chain to finish. the last hit of a chain is usually the only reason as to why you're doing the whole chain to begin with as that one hit can sometimes be more than all the other hits in the chain combined.
As a Veteran player, I would suggest that you get Hero points through PoF. Why? They are much easier to get. HoT is known for much tougher and hard hitting Champion HP. Of course once you get gliding, you can join a HP train. Always better in groups. Most of PoF HP can be soloed. You are doing great! I’ve been really enjoying your leveling series. GW2 is really a fun game 👍
"how there can be something absolutely staring me in the face"
like your reaper spec not being finished hahaha love ya bud love your videos
and i love how just absolutely excited you are
basics on reaper that can help you.
GS4 first, it stays on the floor and can be combo'd inside with GS 3 and 2
use your "7" and "8" skills on the open and off cooldown.
open your shroud with 5 into 4 for some combos as well or just so all your enemies are CC'd when you're attacking.
always shroud on your axe set, basically swap from GS to axe, axe 2 and look into a focus off hand and use focus 4 and 5, then shroud, do that rotation and then when you come out you're ready to swap to GS again.
remember you can spam GS 2 after 50% HP too.
also just press buttons quicker, reaper is pretty high apm, alacrity is lost if you don't just press stuff faster.
For a start this is great though and look forward to seeing you progress! Hope I can join for some fractals or strikes in the future! GL!!
PS: use food and utilities, sharpening stones and bowls of sweet and sour butternut squash soup.
Lastly, builds are made to be perfectly optimized online on places like snowcrows. One thing with power builds is they crave 100% crit hit, so it's a dps gain to look into marauder or assassins pieces for the extra precision or different food than mentioned for more precision as well to bump you to that sweet 100%
The first thing to check after build is gear which you don't show in this video so It's hard to judge. Make sure you are running berzerker gear on a power build with a 6 set of runes and a relic of the firework will go a long way. Considering you just capped you can probably ignore hitting crit cap until you get ascended gear to keep gearing simple but eventually you'll want a mix of berzerkers and assasins gear to you cap out at 100 crit with fury.
The most annoying hidden mechanic in doing dps in guild wars is auto attack chains. Both in shroud and greatsword it is very important to let all 3 skills of the chain play out before casting another skill as most of the damage comes from the final hit. Additionally, greatsword auto reduces the cooldown of your 2 skill making it a critical part of your rotation. Honestly I don't play reaper much these days so shroud auto might not be as important but its still damage left on the table
I'm not a Reaper player or a Necro player at all, but the things I picked up are:
- Cancelled auto attack chains. On most classes (at least the ones I've learned) you don't want to stop your auto attack chain halfway, you want to complete it to the end for the biggest hit.
- Random auto attacks inbetween skills. This kind of plays in to the first point of not finishing them, you usually don't want to have random auto's going off inbetween using your other skills.
- Not having the full spec unlocked is a massive hit in dps and just generally what the spec does. The last line of traits in a specialisation is called the Grandmaster Trair and have the biggest effect on your build. If I remember correctly, the Daredevil (Heart of Thorns thief elite spec) grandmaster traits change the way their dodge-roll works, which is a core Daredevil mechanic.
- Lastly, the DPS benchmarks also have food and utility buffs which you don't currently have, maybe worth it to have a look which food and utilities are usefull for your build. I know Snowcrows always states which ones they use.
I don't play reaper, but a general thing I can recommend is food to buff your damage and a utility enhancement. You can get food on the trading post for fairly cheap, (it doesn't have to be ascended food or anything crazy) but it will boost your damage.
A few things I noticed you can improve:
- Fully gear your build. Your reaper traitline isn't complete which just destroys you. Also make sure to run the right gear. I have no idea what you're using but you wanna use exotic level 80 gear with the right stat combination, the right runes, weapons with the right sigils. You can take a look what SnowCrows (a guild with absolute pros who do guides on their webside) suggest using to fix your build/gear that way.
- Start with at least 50% life force (you had literally 0 as you went in = no shroud)
- Avoid Death's Charge (Shroud 2) It animationlocks you and it's overall damage is really ignorable (It does the damage that one auto attack does)
- As soon as you enter shroud press 3+4 to initiate your burst. 3 is just personal preference for me as it gives me self stability meaning I can't get interupted on my Soul Spiral (Shroud 4)
- After Soul Spiral go for 3 auto attack chains as your fireworks relic is still ticking. Then slam down your executioners sythe (Shroud 5) to refresh it and go for at least 3 more chains.
- After that you wanna leave shroud and attack outside of shroud for ~15 seconds till your lifeforce and skills are replenished.
- If boss is above 50% try to work with your secondary weapon set (axe or dagger in mainhand horn in offhand or if you have access to it sword or torch in offhand - ideal setup for most damage would be dagger+sword) - In the video you were using a dagger in your offhand which is absolutely useless since it's more a condi weapon.
- Make sure to understand which weaponskills have more then 20 sec cooldown (shroud included) as this will trigger your firework relic which you want to refresh anytime it's about to run out so you constantly have it
- If boss is below 50% you wanna work more with your great sword as Gravedigger (Skill 2) will recharge anytime you hit something that's below 50% so you can spam it.
- Along with everything mentioned don't forget to dip in and out of shroud as this is the bread and butter. This also means you have to utilize 20s weapon CD skills to refresh your relic which can mess you up when you first learn it. Make sure that you CAN weaponswap from great sword to your secondary set triggering a skill for the relic BEFORE you enter shroud so the weapon swap cooldown ticks off as you do your shroud shenanigans. If you do that you can just do some shroud autos before actually entering your burst as Soul Spiral also refreshes the relic.
- Lastly: Know and use your big damage skills frequently. Two examples would be that you never used Unholy Burst (Axe 3) which is kinda good, you rarely used Gravedigger (Greatsword 2)
- Doing that you should sit at somewhere 20-35k depending on how fast you pull it of, if you've set the testing room correctly with ALL boons and condis (which you did) and if you're using buff food which adds another few thousand damage to you. I usually hit 30k on the golem by doing that.
Hope I could help you a little. Enjoy the game, cheers! :)
I am not a Reaper expert but a couple things you should setup indefinitly:
1. Finish Reaper Spec, your are missing like half of the whole third spec
2. Make sure you have the right Stats, Runes, Sigils and Relic according to your build. I assume you play Power so Berserker Stats, usually Scholar/Dragonhunter Runes, Force and Impact Sigils and the fireworks relic (or thief relic if you want safe sure dps, fireworks does outdamage it though if done right)
3. I could be wrong on this but I am pretty sure Reaper only uses his Greatsword 2 after 50% HP on the enemy. Reaper Shroud might still be a Dps Increase if the CDs are up, but I am pretty sure you dont use any other weapon skills at that point anymore since the CD resets instantly and it does bonus damage against targets below 50% HP. But this might be old news, any Reaper mains will surely correct me if this is wrong by now.
A good little boost to DPS/Sustain is have a Nourishment going and an Enhacement. Yes, there are different kinds with different buffs, check for what you're looking for. They can be relatively cheap to make and sometimes buy off the Trading Post.
1. You have a tendency to interrupt your wells being cast, as well as your auto attacks. You want to make sure to not interrupt your shrouded auto attacks because they reduce the cd of your skills in shroud. Normally iirc it should be (in shroud): 2, 4, 3 auto attacks, 4, 6 auto attacks or so, 4 > leave shroud. But I could be wrong. Basically, You'll need to learn which abilities you can queue after each other without an issue and which ones you can't.
This also goes for healing if you’re looking to be a healer, make sure that you specked into a spec that has passives that increase your healing output
Happy to see you learning about traits.
I…
I can’t help but find it amusing how you figured out how traits work! 💀
But it’s good that you figured it out! Come back to the golem after you’ve gotten all your reaper traits cause he’s not complete.
All the core traits build the foundation of your spec, but the elite spec line is really what adds that “chemical X” to make you more competitive.
ALSO! The goal is 30k DPS on the golem. If you can hit 30k on the golem, then you have a decent understanding of your rotation and that’s enough damage to clear everything as long as you understand the encounter.
The 44k you’re seeing is the BENCHMARK. It’s the peak potential of any spec and it’s unrealistic to obtain that in 99% of actual fights.
Brother, i highly recommend experiencing the game world and its quirks before delving into the depths of hell that is dps honing. Sight see, take in the scenery and story, enjoy the events and the world. And when you've had enough, the depths will be waiting.
Speaking from experience, you risk burning yourself out really fast.
Love to see your enthusiasm tho. ITs a great game with the deepest combat system of any mmorpg xD
Honestly, able to do that much makes you one of the top few players in the game already.
The only thing I can think of is, make sure you have full berserk gear, either full exotics or ascended, for your armor, weapons, and the whole right side of your equipment.
Make sure to not interrupt your autos, those alone can be more than half of your dps. Cast your wells before you go into shroud as their damage tick will increase from the damage bonus’s from going into shroud.
Don’t cast Reaper shroud skill 5 unless the enemy is at 50% or less, just focus one skill 2 and 4, while just autos in shroud. Your rotation for that should be used 2 right away, auto attack until you can use 2 again, then once 2 is finish, then press 4, and 5 if target is lower than 50%
Another tip is, don’t rush yourself. Work on memorized the pattern and speed of your attacks and the order of your buttons. Once you got that rhythm down, then you can speed it up.
Good job over 10k dps is really impressive damage for a new player! If you just keep playing youll hit 50% of the benchmark very soon! My advice would be looking for low intensity builds there are many that are super chill with mostly Auto attacks and clock usually close to 30k dps
Not sure how much of this applies since I cannot see your equips, but:
- gear priority: weapons > trinkets > armor. Trinkets are very important as they hold the majority of your stats after weapons. Often times newer players overlook this.
- you want 100% crit (or close to it) AFTER fury is applied. Otherwise there's wasted stats
- don’t forget relics
- when you get ascended gear, make sure you equip stat infusions. A full set of infusions can add another 100 to your stats
As someone who's just been keeping an eye on all the new people coming into GW2, you're playing it the right way. You started out playing the way you wanted, you're making all the mistakes and the game is becoming much more enjoyable because you see how the ceiling is and you want to reach it. Keep playing, keep learning and keep growing. You'll hit that 45k number in no time. Also the base game is the tutorial. Break into HoT, that'll help get Reaper completed and get your the right traits needed.
First thing I think you should go after is to finish your reaper spec. It will significantly improve your damage.
Not sure what the equip you're running, but the best in slot would be berserker's stats (power, precision and ferocity) with runes of the dragonhunter or scholar. Weapon sigils are also important, you can slot 2 in a two-handed weapon. And lastly, think of the food as another piece of equipment because it gives almost as much stats as your leg armor.
Also don't forget that your trinkets (rings, amulets, etc.) is a big part of your stats; If you can afford it, the laurel merchant sells ascended ones.
In any case, if you're doing 17k, you're doing quite a lot already compared to other starting lvl 80 players, you can do tier 1 fractals no problem
consumables are also very important, meta battle always shows which runes, relic, stats to get to maximize dps, and they pointing out every time that you need also food and maintenance buffs
also looking at your build tab, you have lesser spinal shivers which removes boons and deals extra damage based on boons removed. Snow crows was recommending awaken the pain (gives you more power and less condition damage) in the 2nd row of 3 under spite. And your first choice under reaper you chose shouts siphon health (I don't think you have any shouts) instead of chilling nova which does damage.
On reaper you basically don't want to autoattack unless you are in shroud. Arguably you can autoattackchain on greatsword to refresh greatsword 2 if other skills are on cooldown and shroud and weapon swap are on cooldown as well. Your "9" is just a pull which does no damage, if you want more dps you could replace it, otherwise you dont need to use it unless you want to pull or CC. Your offhand dagger on mainhand axe is not really a dps weapon, it's nice for condi transfer and such, but if you can pick a sword that would make it way better (but ig you cannot take it since you need to unlock the weapon in SoTo). But offhand focus should do more dps than the dagger as well. The shroud is a bit weird without the last reaper trait since it gives you a buff where when you autoattackchain the other skills get cooldown reduction, but ig just shroud 4 is prio 1 and other than that shroud 2 or autoattackchain. Shroud 5 is also nice to upkeep your relic (so only use when relic runs out) but its more effective below 50% target hp where you wanna use it more often.
The Basic concept should be you use your skills on one weaponset 1, weaponswap to the second set and use those skills, place wells and go into shroud for enough time to have your weapon skills reset. Go out and rince and redo, starting with weapon set 2 of course.
And in general rebinding the skills gives way easier access, like pressing everything further than 6 (for me even further than 5) is on the other side of the globe :D You could consider using Q E R F or other close keys for skills and rebind your current binds on those to somewhere else i.e. or use side mousebuttons or mousewheel click or something (some hate it but i.e. I have one side button for heal, q e r for 7 8 9, mousewheelclick for elite and rebound "use" on b so i basically dont have to move my left hand)
As per the guide on Snowcrows, there are pros and cons to power reaper. The cons are: No ranged dps, relies on resource management, requires accurate positioning, forced movement. But the pros are: Plenty of CC, easy to learn, provides self boons, lots of cleave. So even if your main will be reaper, maybe have a range spec or even ranged dps alt available to use when range might be required. The upcoming Oct 8 balance patch provides a bit of dps buffs to necro, too. Not sure how that will impact the power reaper meta build, though, if at all. I don't see much direct correlation. The Transfusion change will, of course, make support necros cry.
Just a voice in the choir but I'd say the most important thing by far is figuring out your opener/first number (first number refers to the number shown in the in-game chatlog when you bring the golem to 75% hp) and memorizing how to replicate that. Also, you should be practicing on the 4mil hp golem, not the 1mil one.
Make sure when you're practicing your opener you give yourself full lifeforce with the special action key before you start your rotation.
You're also missing some very, very powerful traits in reaper itself--a 15% damage modifier, a 10% modifier, and a +300 ferocity bonus in shroud + shroud skill cdr upon completing shroud auto chains. Notably, the 300 ferocity bonus is important for understanding your rotation, and why you always want to enter shroud right after you use your wells. Unlocking the rest of your spec should be your priority atm. I'm sure your gear is also less than perfect, which will also make a huge difference. You should also use food; you don't need to use the best food, but you should use the next-best, since it'll be quite cheap. I'd recommend the dirt-cheap plates of steak and asparagus and hardened sharpening stones. I'd just buy 25 and use them when you feel like your dps matters.
I'd also strongly recommend taking focus instead of dagger offhand until you unlock sword with SotO.
For actual rotation tips, I think the most important recommendation is that you spend as little time as possible autoattacking on dagger while still hitting its 2/3 every time you swap to the weapon. Basically, you want to be in shroud while you dagger skills are recharging. You also want to preface your shroud with wells because of that ferocity trait mentioned above basically every time (outside of the opener, but openers are often exceptions to general principles).
Once you hit 50% you can start filling time on GS with gravedigger instead of extra autos or whatever, and executioner's scythe will get a huge damage boost at the 50% and 25% thresholds, so making sure you play around its cooldown is important. Aside from filling your time on dagger and boosting your well/gs4 damage pulses, executioner's scythe is the reason you're in shroud--especially at low HP%--which is why the cdr trait you don't have is so good.
Hope that stuff helps, even if you don't internalize it immediately.
1:36 this is why you felt like it didnt matter to learn a class like mesmer if you only wanted to play Virtuoso, but you need to understand the core fundamentals of a class because all of the specializations matter.
Most definitely you need to finish Reaper.
I tried re-creating your traits (I can't unlearn Shivers of dread and Cold Shoulder, so that will add some damage)
Without any buffs or conditions and doing a very basic rotation without weapon swapping I got 11k DPS.
Repeating the same rotation but with full Traits I now got 21k DPS (a big part of this was from the last Trait which gives quickness in Reaper form)
With all buffs and conditions I now did 24k with your traits (still getting at least +15% from Cold Shoulder though)
and with all the traits I got about 29.5k
Note that my Necro is mostly using exotic gear (no infusions) and not perfectly optimized stats. I'm also not using consumables
Because of this, I'm missing more than 300 power, ~80 precision (5% crit chance) and ~150 ferocity (10% crit damage) which would be quite the DPS boost.
I could also work on optimizing the rotation, but honestly, 29k DPS is more than good enough for all the content I'm currently engaged in, so I can't be bothered :)
As for the rotation there's better people than me to help you with that.
Although a few tips that may not be obvious to new players is that some skills can be queued. Meaning pressing a skill while the previous is casting will queue them and remove all delay between skill uses. But beware, some skills like channelling abilities will be interrupted instead.
Also instant cast skills like shouts can be used while using other skills without interrupting them.
With that said, If you currently just want to start out with Fractals, I do believe 17k DPS would be fine for all Tier 1 at least (probably also Tier 2). But I would still highly recommend finishing Reaper :)
minmaxing dps checklist:
copy meta dps build for your class from sites like snowcrows or metabattle (or come up with yours if you have gigabrain but not advised) this includes:
-Correct weapons
-Correct Utilities
-Correct specs with correct traits selected
Equipment:
Have correct stat combination
Have correct runes, relics, sigils
Have all ascended (exotics is fine for some time but you want to move up eventually)
Have stat infusions (super expensive for what they are worth, you don't need to bother)
Consumables:
Have utilities and food
Know your rotation and practice it on golem
Training golem only
-Put all conditions on golem
-Put all boons on you
feel free to add something I forgot
Finish the reaper skill tree and make sure youre using food, ideally ascended, and utility buffs.
For reaper Cilantro Lime Sous-Vide steak and
Potent Superior Sharpening Stone.
You can also use Bowl of Sweet and Spicy Butternut Squash soup if you cant make Ascended food. Its only slightly worse. It is worth leveling up cooking to make your own Ascended food though as its not tradeable and is actually cheaper than the alternative despite being better.
If you don’t copy the build exactly as it is on the site, the DPS drops significantly. In most builds, one of the secrets is always ensuring 100% critical chance, no more and no less, or 100% condition duration, no more and no less (in all conditions or just bleeding, for example, on Mesmer). Some builds fill this gap with food and utilities. So, by making a build somewhat similar to the one on the site and covering these key aspects, it already helps a lot.
Exactly and most power builds use scholar and berserkers sets reason i keep telling him he might need to change his gear.
You only showed half the build. Your gear(stat) are very important including rings accessory backpiece the runes and relic. Still very important.
Now in regards to skills you press a lot of skills which don't really increase dps and should be used for their utility. Generally speaking if let's look at reaper shroud. The 5th skill is a pull and deals some cc. You want to keep it for ccing the boss same for 3rd skill you want to keep it for fear which again is a cc. 2nd skill is more of a gap closer in case the boss moves. You could theoretically use some these skills for increased dps but generally keeping it simple will give you more success.
Dealing the 3rd autoattack chain with melee weapons is the best thing you can do for dmg.
Entering and getting out of reaper shroud every 15 second increases your dmg duel to a trait, so don't stay too much in either form.
One last thing is the combo system. Most of the skill have either a combo finisher or a combo field. You want to put down a combo field. And then do finishers over it. For example reaper skill 4 is a combo field your 2nd and 3rd utility skills are combo field. And for combo finishers you have greatsword skills 2 and 3. Btw after the boss is below 50% you want to use 2nd weapon skill instead of autoattack. Because it if connects it is resets deals a lot of dmg and it's a combo finisher. Also also combo fields/finishers can be used with other party members. Your numbers are higher with other players spamming near you( but in open world boss also moves or you have to avoid dmg so it balances out)
If you want an easier experience you can use a rotation without weapon swap and camp GS instead. It's a minimal dps loss (if at all), or even a gain in some fights (HTCM (second hardest fight in the game)) since you can use your weapon swap for stacking sigil of cruelty.
On another note, once you unlock "Chilled to the bone!", I'd switch my ult to that, since it is a bit more reliable CC (Flesh Golem can die) even though you lose a few hundred dps.
Golem is great at practicing rotations if you are playing a class that uses them. Keep in mind though most fractal bosses require you to move around and do some mechanics, hence why different bosses have different benchmarks and why people prefer some classes over others for certain bosses.
If you are determined to stick with necro (reaper)
1. finish unlocking all of the spec
2. Make sure you have the correct runes, sigils, and relic (99% of the time its thief or fireworks for dps)
3. Get to 100% crit chance with food, utilities, gear and fury boon
Ive been playing core guardian hammer and get up to 30k autoattacking. If the rotation is too hard or the gear/food is too expensive to get its okay to play something easier and come back to learn necro.
17k dps is good for barely playing the game and the majority of the endgame content only needs at least 10k dps to complete them. I would recommend the following to increase your dps if you want to improve it:
1. The builds online would give you food options that you can use to boost your stats like sous-vide steak for power, flatbread for condi, etc. Don't forget Utilities as well like Superior Sharpening Stone!
2. Be sure to have the right gear stats like berserker and/or assassin for power to reach 100% crit, Vipers for Condi, etc. This also includes picking the right armor runes, weapon sigils, and relic.
3. Exotic armor is good enough for the majority of endgame content, but Ascended/Legendary would give you the most stats increase, and you can add special infusions to the ascended/legendary gear to increase your stats further (and be flashier in your Fashion Wars gaming)!
4. The traits are very helpful with increasing DPS as you've seen and if you learn your rotation & practice you can find the right skill rotation that would benefit the most with your traits.
Instead of piling on you, I want to commend you for documenting and sharing your learning process.
Besides the hero points needed. What gear are you using? Are you using jewelry (amulet, rings, earrs, backpack, relic)? What about the runes and sigils? Reapers also wants to be in shroud most of the time.
Btw, the first level of fractals you don't really need to be optimal, so you don't have to worry about starting in fractals, but at least make sure to have a full exotic gear (it's cheap) with proper runes and sigils and you should be ok. Necro (specially reaper) is one of the classes that you can smash anything on sight and you'll get decent enough DPS, so the most likely culprit for your lack of DPS is the traits and the gear.
- Until you unlock offhand sword, go dagger warhorn for your second weapon set. It has more lifeforce generation and better auto attack dmg when GS is on cd.
- What are your accessories looking like? They hold a lot of your stats so if you're missing any, that's a big chunk of dps.
- Your utilities and elite look good, but I prefer "you are all weaklings" over spectral grasp. But grasp is good too, especially for grouping adds.
- Below 50% hp, your greatsword 2 skill doesnt have a cd so I wouldnt be autoattacking. After 50% hp you really only wanna use wells and a couple shroud abilities outside of greatsword 2.
- idk if you have the trait yet, but dipping in and out of shroud gives you big buffs on reaper, so you wanna keep that in mind. Go into shroud roughly every 10 seconds.
He's gonna have to power run the expansions LOL. He needs heart of thorns or path of fire or end of dragons to get the hero points he needs without spending 3 days collecting 1 hero point at a time and then he needs to do Season of the Obscure to unlock the sword.
@@jrafel1707 He already got a ton in HoT the first day he hit 80. He just need to join a HP train for like 30min and he'll be good
omg, you need to do an hp train with our lords and saviors. basically there's a few guys that will speedrun hero points in the dlc maps on a schedule, for tips. you just follow them around the map and get 100% of the hero points in the dlc in ~40 mins. true gw2 legends and part of the alt leveling experience.
You can do Fractals how you are don't worry about that, high end engame you will need to look into Sigel's, Runes and Relics and alot of other small min max tricks. also fully utilizing another weapon to swap into but for now you don't need to worry about things like that, you will learn all that as you progress through more content and expansions you have plenty to do and are more than capable of doing it as you are
having the full spec will help alot and also food/utility helps to
Biggest thing that stands out to me you need to finish your auto attack chains before you go into another skill. The other thing that will help is by finishing the reaper unlock so you have all the traits.
Ascended equipment, food, utility, and combo field, which will help understand the rotation in a build
Oh yeah, all three specializations are active at once. It's a huge part of what makes the GW2 customizability so high.
Been saying if you are going a power build you need full berserkers gear and trinkets and scholar runes. Every power build goes that set up. I am a power untamed berserkers adds a lot of power as for Scholar runes them up your crit chance. Every power reaper i know uses that gear set up too. Even if your rotation is spot on if your gears all over the place and runes you will still hit like a wet noodle.
Farm Heart of Thorns content it gives you free stat selectable exotic armor. First map. Look at the gear your builds using buy correct runes trinkets and a stat selectable back piece. Buy a recomended relic too if you see a slot fill it. Every build online tells you what should be equiped for peek performance. Do HOT POF or any other content for Hero points each HP gives you 10 points which will fill out reaper faster.
A easy way to get rings if got 70 laurels is laurel vender look for berserkers stats rings. buy one of each they are ascended so best in stats too.
Also combo fields. This is less important in group context, because you'll just be activating combo fields constantly at all times anyways, but in a solo context... reaper shroud 5, then reaper shroud 4 in that order, and you'll see exactly what I'm talking about.
the dps suggested on the benchmarks usually are on the best conditions lvl 80, full spec on unlocked, ascended equipment and many many tries, that being said
what equipment are you using? I believe this build should use full berserker, I would guess you don't have ascended but with exotic you should get close enough, check you have all runes, sigil and relics.
Regarding the rotation, on reaper after the enemy drops to 50% you want to camp skill 2 on longsword, maybe stop to drop some wells and occasionally changing to shroud to spam 2 and 4 or 5 if cc is needed, and quickly come back to longsword. (I could be wrong but pretty sure skill 2 on longsword autoreachard after hitting an enemy below 50%)
Rube, you should collect hero point first to complete one of your elite spec trait. I would suggest you to collect hero point from Path of Fire maps if you want easier. Or if you want it in order, you can get it on HoT but a lot more harder, you need bring friends
If you're going for straight dps, there are some skills on reaper that you can kinda just not use. GS 4 for example doesn't do much damage but blinds and is good when pulling groups and GS3 isn't all that special unless you need the extra vulnerability stacks. When you're in reaper shroud, I usually open with 2 > 5 > 4 > 3 while casting 4 if i think i'm going to get hit or interupted, or i need extra defiance break from the fear. the 1 shroud skill will lower your cooldowns after this rotation so they should be up and ready next time you enter shroud, but 3 and 1 are your weakest shroud skills :) Don't forget GS2 has no CD when used on someone below half health
Personally i dont even equip elite specs until they're maxed, or at worst i have the last trait i need in column 3.
Youre missing 3 of the 5 passives on that spec, youre likely better off using a base necro spec that has a full passives.
"Core" build guides exist for basically this part of the game, and will be good to get you your hero points.
Hero point trains are highly recommended in HoT, because some of the combat challenges are extremely brutal, and a lot of the others require masteries to get to, which commanders can teleport you to.
17k is not bad considering you're missing at least 3 key things from this: final reaper traits, food, and utility. For instance, the final reaper trait Reaper's Onslaught will cause your auto-attack shroud sequence to increase the effective DPS of Death's Shroud (#2 shroud skill) by 20%. Plate of Jerk Poultry can increase your strike damage by 15% of base damage. The utility primer can easily add another 4.5%. Those alone could add almost 50% DPS without doing anything else.
Then the question becomes what armor, weapon, runes, sigils, trinkets, backpack, and relic are you using? What's your critical chance at? If it's only at 50%, that's leaving 33% of your dmg on the table.
Then of course, then finally the rotation could be an issue. I'm not familiar with Reaper's rotations, but there may be sequences of abilities or not letting rotations complete that could be causing reduction. However, for most groups, 10k is perfectly acceptable especially for a new player. Getting yourself constantly over 20k would definitely put you above most casual players and 40k+ is where you'd strive to get.
Get yourself the arcdps addon, which shows yours and other peoples (that are in a squad or party with you) damage at all times.
That instant feedback is invaluable when you're trying to improve.
Read what your skills and traits actually do. You can look at rotation guides but generally it can be a good idea to simplify the rotation and build it from the ground up, adding more and more complications (for slight dps boosts) as you get better at it.
Make sure your gear is in order. Might be a good idea to let an experienced player or your stream/youtube have a look at it.
Don't worry about the fractal rush. There will be more of those in the future and you definitely shouldn't be doing endgame content when you haven't even unlocked your reaper specialization.
I always take benchmarks with a huge grain of salt.
Those guy have maxed.... EVERYTHING. Full best in slot gear, food and utility buffs, which you average gamer wont do.
Merely being aware that you have room for growth, and looking to do something about it tells me you'll do well making progress.
Well , you don't have the entire Elite Specialization unlocked , this affects you when you enter in Shroud cause , one of the Traits you get helps you reset the skills cooldown of your shroud Reaper as you finish a Chain of auto-attacks , and you are been confused for some buttons and the speed to cast it so a real quick remind to train : everytime time in Greatsword you use 5 > 4 you press imediatly the 7 > 8 cause this will cancel the animation of your 4 from the Greatsword , helping you deal a better burst , and just a reminder but you can play saftly with only the Greatsword and still do some good dps , just remember to catch the combo (5 > 4 > 7 > 8 > F1) to start the shroud burst everytime is off cd in GreatSword
For the Shroud Reaper combo is pretty simples : When you enter the Shroud (F1) immediatly press 2 and do 2x auto-chains (which is 3 melee blows but twice in a row) , use the 2 again and start spinning with 4 , wait the animation to end and use the 2 , then use the 3 two times and finish with 5 .
so the sequence is pretty simple to understand but a little hard to memorize , just to make thinks more easy if you didn't understand , will be like this :
(F1 - 2 - 2xAuto-Chain - 2 - 4 ..... 2 - 3 3 5 - F1)
Have your entire reaper spec unlocked. Make sure your armor stats and superior runes match the build youre going for. Make sure you have the right weapons and sigils for your build (your build may also require you to swap weapons in your rotation), pressing your skills quickly amd in the right order are just as important as anything else.
what everyone else said, unlock the full spec and doing 17k without full spec is already alright the dps numbers u see online are from people with maxed out everything on every slot with sigils, runes utility and food. If you're able to get kinda close to those numbers without food and utility you're fine
Quick way to improve might be finishing off the reaper spec. Use a build guide it will help alot, sometimes I watch lord hizen for pve builds he might help with your damage
Watch out for skill cancelling. Entering you Shroud and weapon swapping will cancel the animation of whatever skill you are channeling. And auto attack chains matter.
You are also using axe/dagger as your secondary weapon set, which isn't optimal.
Getting the last traits in Reaper will also boost you up, and your gear of course matters as well.
If you are using the build from Snowcrows, then there should be a full rotation to follow.
You have to finish your elite specialization, you're missing alot of dps due to It only being partly filled.
If Its too hard to solo, some people randomly do Hero Point trains on LFG. Just click on HoT, or PoF In LFG every once In awhile.
get arc-dps, makes you spot the dmg way quicker, do you use the right sigils? Get some dps food (even cheap options), and yes, the skills and skilltrees matter a lot! A and with reaper you basically only need the gs, never switch, except for precast signets
Small tipp..(just 200 commenst here already lol) you can play a bit of Wvw and get your hero points in no time. When reaper is full you can try several reaper specs and should be setup better
complete your 3rd spec line, but ppl already suggested that. So my oder suggestion would be, if u dont use your utility 9, and you're applying 25 stacks of might with the golem, switch it for signet of spite for more power damage. But outside the golem, you can use the grasping hands or a shout that provides might, like You are all weaklings.
aside from what everyone else said, I'm not sure what gear you're running but you need full ascended berserker gear with scholar runes and probably thief relic with ascended food and utilities.
For a more accurate result, you want to set the golem to 4mil health instead of 1mil, since it dies too fast otherwise and can actually inflate your numbers :O but yes, not having the full spec unlocked and no food and utility is the immediate glaring issue I can see. Good luck tho, you’re doing great!
You absolutely NEED to finish the Reaper traitline. As others have mentioned it will give you Ferocity (higher crit damage), a flat strike increase of 10%, and the grandmaster trait causes your 3rd auto attack in shroud to partially reset your cooldowns in shroud. This lets you spam shroud two more often. You also get to refund small amounts of Life Force while in shroud, meaning you get to stay in your high-DPS form for longer.
You also will get access to the rest of your utility and heal skills. Right now you have almost no Life Force build up for shroud which is keeping you from staying in for as long as you could be. The Reaper utilities and later traitlines will help with that. Further, there’s a bit of a misunderstanding on how the rotation works here. First, you seem to not really know why certain skills are in order. Others have mentioned Combo Fields, which are less important on powerReaper than elsewhere but still important. Greatsword 4 and all your Well Utilities put down a Dark field which you’ll want to use with Whirl finishers for Leeching Bolts. A good way to see this is to do Greatsword 4-5, Both Wells, then go into Shroud and immediately cast skill 4. When you do this as an Opener to your rotation you’ll see your DPS start out likely much higher than where the benchmark ends up.
Secondly, one of the largest damage increases on the build comes from Soul Barbs, the first trait in the second column. Anytime you go INTO or OUT OF shroud you gain a bonus 15% damage to all sources for 15 seconds. Much of the reaper rotation revolves around swapping in and out of Shroud to maintain this buff. Spend too long on your weapons and it’s a DPS loss, spend too much time in shroud and it’s a DPS loss.
Finally, pay attention to how often you let the activation bar of a skill fill to half way before starting a new skill. In this case, you’re often restarting your auto attack chain and interrupting it with higher priority skills. Ideally, the auto attack chain should only ever start when you should be doing it, but in your example it’s starting constantly. Avoid skill interruption as a general rule. A lot of skills can be buffered by starting the next skill during the end of a skills cast time. This is why people recommend Greatsword 4-5, because 4 has a really long aftercast delay that can be cancelled with another skill. In this case it’s beneficial. Shroud 4 is a long channel time (spin to win attack) and interrupting it at any point will cancel the rest of the hits from the animation. Thus, an example of when you don’t want to do this.
My best advice is summarized thusly: finish your traitlines and get all the correct skills for the build. Elite specs are strong, but with only 1 trait they are weaker than a full core build. Learn what your buttons do and HOW THEY COMBO INTO EACH OTHER. Power builds are all about burst, and proper combinations and orders are how you do that. Finally, learn what skills can and can’t be cancelled favourably or negatively and learn which skills can be safely buffered.
Put that all together with proper Runes, Sigils, Relic, and Food/Utility and you should be able to get close to 80-85% of the benchmark in Exotic gear, 90-95% of the benchmark in Ascended gear.
well seeing there are People who think not unlocking the whole traitline is not a big deal explains some PUG experience I had before 😂
you want to get your whole traitline and just follow stuff you see on build sides like snowcrows for example. Rest comes from experience and knowing the fights. if you hit around 35k thats enough for most of the content.
Also Idk if you have a macro Mouse but I highly suggest keybinding your abilites if not. reaching for 6789 for example mid fight is bad. Set up you keybinds so you can move around easily and feel comfy pressing buttons.
GL hf in Tyria ^^
heart of thorns will award you 10 hero points per hp point in hot so think of it like doing the expansion maps to unlock the hero points alternatives wvw has a vendor that can allow you to buy hero points from expansion maps, as for dps youll likely not hit dps top ends until you max out the elite spec with reaper i recommend paying attention to critical hits so precision ferocity power this will make your reaper for extremely deadly, because reaper for has extremely high burst i try to make myself sustainable outside of reaper form to quickly recover reaper shroud, the faster i can fet back into shroud the better
Other people have been giveng great advice. I would also encourage you to run some events and fight some world bosses. Soloing champions is fun and great practice. You might want a second build just for that so if it's too much just focus on your dps build for now.
below 50% hp u use GS 2 more since it does more dmg amnd resets itself ... also traits u have to unlock, they give u big buff... and basicly u use only shroud 4 and autoattack most of the time using signet will give u more power, and popping wells u forgot about those, just a few to keep it simple
17k isn't that bad tho because you need at least 15k+ to do all content so your good there. Advise is still getting all Reaper nodes which you mentioned and use the combos that snowcrows uses and switch Axe/Warhorn to Dagger/Sword as advised on snowcrow. Overall your getting there but practicing and learning how to use your skills is a must.
To start, aim for 30-35k. Food/utilities will add 2k dps (ignore infusions till mucccch later but they can add 500-2k depending on the bench)..
If your traits and rotation is fine, I think its your gear.. even with a slower rotation you should be hitting 25k. As a reaper you'll want all Power/Berzerker stats.
And read the skills/test which are interuptable.. I'm awful at reading skills 😂
Well benchmarks are usually with 100% full gear. At this point you're only in exotic which is about 10% dps loss, you don't have infusions which is another 4%, you don't have food/utility for another...10%, You don't have your full spec unlocked, Which included bonus damage against melee range 10%, and bonus damage against chilled enemies 10/15%. Grandmaster trait also gives skill CD on auto attack for your shroud for the Strike variant of the build. Auto chains are important. But just in Stats you don't have and traits you don't have that's a 45-50% jump you could expect to see by getting those things. You didn't show your gear so it's hard to say with that, Runes/Sigils are important as is the relic slot. I believe someone sent you the relic during one of your streams but I don't know if you're weapons have the sigil of force +accuracy on both sets. Or if you have a full set of dragonhunter runes on your armor
I suggest unlocking the full elite spec before using it in the build. You're loosing a lot of dps with the current setup. Also use the correct gear and weapons for the build you are following otherwise you are lot less effective using the same build.
and lastly, read your tooltips! even if you use a premade build, read things and understand how your build works. Lots of the best builds have 'conditional' damage bonus traits. Alot of the times, you can't meet these conditions consistently solo, but in groups its almost passive. depending on what sort of content you're doing you can adjust the build...
Example: +10% dps when your health is above 90% -- in a group with a healer, you dont have to think about this, it should just always be active...
but in open world or solo stuff, lets say you dont have the sustain to consistently stay above 90%... another trait you can swap that trait out for gives you lifesteal on every crit! you lose the 10% damage bonus, but you weren't really using it when solo anyways!
Explore builds, try things. One of my fav things is this game is making a build my own. I like to take really strong raid builds and adjust them for other content.
all that being said, you're on the right track. Doing 17k without food buffs, without a complete elite spec, and probably not optimal gear, is actually pretty impressive. I see worse DPS in strikes and raids all the time
First of all, complete your build. You need all of the traits and skills correctly placed. Check your gears, sigils and runes (stat infusions are not a priority). Food and utility also are important.
You didn't show your gear, but is your RELIC correct?
I struggled with dps for a long time, because the idea of a rotation is a bit misleading. What you must be aware is:
1. What are your highest DPS skills? Arcdps is allowed and its graphs can be really useful to understand that.
2. What's the key mechanic of your profession? Reaper must go in shroud a lot, as an example.
3. Do you get more damage if using a skill after one or a set of other skills?
4. Is there any buff from traits or relics that you must be aware of and proactively trigger?
I usually prefer practical training over the golem, because it's more fun and realistic...
Don't bother about benchmarks, nobody expects you to achiev them. You can clear any fight in the game if your squad does 10k dps. Keep in mind that Snowcrows people have thousand hours of experience in realistic combat scenarios with a certain profession. They have knowledge and muscle memory to extend their dmg to the limit. Also, that number is in a controlled scenario where they could obtain an average dps over a limited period of time, so it's obviously inflated.
Reaper unlocks easy mode for GW2, whith those concepts in mind you will be fine.
a couple thousand DPS is definitely doable. so 17k is completely fine.
the game (fractals included) usually isn't so much about standing in one spot mashing buttons just trying to hit as much damage as possible. it's more about timing of the skills, knowing when to use them, positioning, dodging, mechanics, ect. knowing this or not knowing this is what is going to make a fight easy or hard, not hitting 40k dps.
You didn't state your gear. While you don't need Ascended, it helps to know you have the correct stats and if you're reaching critical chance cap- you want 75% before Fury so you get 100% critical chance. As most build guides chooses gear as Ascended, if you're running Exotics, you'll have to make some chances, likely an extra piece of Assassin's rather than mostly Berserker's.
My question is why the focus on DPS? reapers main tool is chill. maximise chill, and let the other DPS classes worry about numbers.
Getting the rest of reaper as well as the correct weapons for the build - greatsword and dagger/sword. For open world, you can use anything you like, but if you're trying to hit the bench, you need to copy-paste from snowcrows. But I wouldn't advise going full Berserker gear in the Hot maps. No, actually, for the sake of content, please do
I am loving watching your journy SO much.
Yes, join an HP train, or grind out some WvW and get those hero points, you sweet, innocent summer child ❤. Your build is not yet complete 😂
You dont HAVE to do this, btw. If you're tryna take your time with the story and expansions. 17k dps is enough for fractals when you're starting out.
And raid are TECHNICALLY expac content, and for the first few wings even that dps is enough to get through :D
I know your following the story and all but go do a quick Hero Point train in either HoT PoF or End of dragons one of those 3 expansions the hero points u get there are 10 per challenge not like in the core world 1 per challenge and with a HeroPoint train its super fast and easy then just unlock the whole Reaper spec and enjoy :)
pro reaper tip.. if you have it chilled to the bone is a superior choice to a flesh golem,,, it has far more break bar power,, is aoe and you don't need a tank,, you have a huge health pool and in shroud your health don't move. I command on a reaper doing metas,, one of the funny parts is when people stick to the tag oblivious to their surroundings as I stand in puddles face rolling the bosses in shroud as my little zombie followers fall dead around me haha
food and ulitity items will probably push you past 10 k
then there's also getting better at not intrerupting your sword auto chain if it's not completed
In the first 25seconds I could figure out why u can't get you dps up, you didn't fully unlocked your reaper spec and are only using it for the great sword. That's a big red flag. Only equip the spec after you have it fully unlocked. If you don't wanna get the hero points then go back to core reaper. Find a dps build for it. It will be way better than incomplete reaper.