Tera Online PvE Reaper High Damage and Mobility Build
Tera Online PvE Reaper High Damage and Mobility Build.
The reaper is a light armored class which specializes in a pair of scythes with mid-ranged offensive damage-dealing capabilities. The class is only available to Elins.
The main traits of the reaper are mobility and survivability through dodging.
Reapers have a wide variety of area of effect attacks to slay multiple foes and the special ability to avoid death and uses powerful combos to do massive amounts of damage.
PvE Reaper Build – Weapon Rolls
These are your two option for a Visionmaker weapon.
If you have Schisma or Dreadnaught, I suggest you roll the following:
- Top-line:
- 9.3% Enraged Damage or 9% Attack Speed
- Bottom-line:
- 6% Damage or 6.9% Back Damage
- 7.2% Cooldown Reduction
- 9.3% Enraged Damage
Top-line roll: 9% Attack Speed vs 9.3% Enrage Damage
For all intents and purposes, Attack Speed is better than Enrage. Here are a couple reasons why:
- In the new dungeons, Kalivan’s Dreadnaught, Forsaken Island, and the upcoming Dreadspire 2, bosses are not permanently enraged. What this means is that you won’t benefit from top line Enrage roll 100% of the time.
- The new Glyphs for Reapers gives them “infinite rotation” as can be seen here:
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqI9sAxf-2A[/embedyt]
- You will not get penalized for burning through your main skills faster because Shadow Lash will always be off CD (Of course, you need to have good management of your skills in order to have infinite rotation). Keep in mind that this “infinite rotation” is not actually practical in real boss fights except for the last boss in Forsaken Island. In real boss fights, you will be dodging attacks which will change your rotation. This is just to show that if you are not running out of skills with no interruption, then you should not be running out of skills when you are fighting bosses that require you to constantly re-position.
- In many situations, Attack Speed can help you finish casting a hard hitting skill like Sundering Strike, Grimstrike, Whipsaw, or Shadow Burst before a boss turns. This is especially relevant in the Knockout Patch as certain bosses turn as a part of their skill set (e.g. 1st and 2nd boss FI and even 2nd boss KD) or throw out a lot of secondary aggro (2nd boss SCHM, Perimos). In short, Attack Speed is better for bosses that require a lot of repositioning (3rd boss SCHM, Darkan) and for bosses in the upcoming Dreadspire 2.
- Attack Speed Top-line is amazing for Shadow Reaping. Attack Speed Top-line should allow you to execute more Shadow Reaping rotation compared to Enraged Top-line.
Is Cooldown Reduction a good Top-line roll for Reapers?
No, never roll CDR Top-line on a Reaper weapon. Here are the two reasons why :
- Shadow Reaping is a crucial part of a Reaper’s DPS. CDR does absolutely nothing for Reapers during Shadow Reaping. Even with 9% Top-line Attack Speed and all of the consumables popped including Lein’s Dark Root Beer (+20% ASP for 10 Seconds), you will never run into CD issues on your skills which means any further addition of CDR is completely useless during Shadow Reaping
- With the new glyphs added in the Knockout Patch, you have essentially infinite rotation. (Note: You do need a single Bottom-line CDR roll on your weapon). If all of your main skills go on CD, Shadow Lash, glyphed for 25% CDR, should always be up and will act as a buffer for your main skills to come off CD. CDR Top-line hurts your Shadow Reaping damage, but it also affects your damage outside of Shadow Reaping because you won’t have enough attack speed to take advantage of that extra 7.2% CDR.
PvE Reaper Build – Armor Rolls
The following gear will act more as a guideline for your rolls. If you have higher or lower tier gear, then gear rolls should look similar. If you have a non-Visionmaker gear with only 3 bottom rerollable stats, aim for the first three stats shown.
Grimstrike is the best chest roll because it is the most powerful skill out of all the possible chest rolls. Most of the other options are utility skills or DPS skills that are weaker than Grimstrike.
Weapon and Glove Etchings
If you decide to go with Attack Speed Top-line, go for Keen etchings on both your gloves and weapon. Reapers, along with all of the other classes that do not have a high priority skill that is guaranteed to crit have to use a full crit build in order to output a good and relatively consistent DPS.
If you decide to go with Enraged Top-line, I suggest going for one Energetic III, and one Keen (if you cannot afford one Energetic III, temporarily settle for a Keen II). The reason why you need an Energetic III with a Top-line Enraged is to mitigate the necessary Attack Speed you are missing to get proper back time.
You don’t want to constantly be in a situation where you have to re-position mid rotation because of the lack of Attack Speed. Being constantly disrupted mid rotation is going to hurt the overall flow of your rotation.
Crystals
Weapon Crystals
Pounding vs. Forceful
Forceful is slighty stronger than Pounding with a Priest composition. The only disadvantage you have when using Forceful is during the beginning stages of a fight. Most of the time, Cable Step → Shadow is used as an opener to gap close and you would have to crit on Cable Step for your Forceful to activate, which is unlikely.
If you do not crit on Cable Step, this means you are losing DPS on Shadow Burst due to the fact that Forceful was not activated. If you are using Forceful, I would suggest opening with Pendulum → Whipsaw.
Jewelry
When running with a Mystic, I highly suggest switching 2 Edgetock pieces for 2 Galleon pieces due to Mystic’s Aura of the Merciless that gives a significant boost to your Crit Factor.
With a Mystic and best-in-slot gear, your Crit Factor should total 296. At this high of a Crit Factor, running 2 Edgetock would probably hurt your DPS because your skill damage will be lower and it is likely that you will crit as much as a 3 Corvette + 2 Galleon set up.
Accessories
The following gear will act more as a guideline for your rolls. If you have higher or lower tier gear, then gear rolls should look similar.
Brooch
It is necessary for any player to have two brooches: one Empowered and one Quickcarve. If you cannot afford a Superior Brooch, then obtain Simple Brooches from dungeons like Kalivan’s Dreadnaught Normal Mode or Channelworks.
Quickcarve will be your main brooch because Attack Speed and Crit Rate have better synergy with Shadow Reaping. Using Quickcarve brooch during Shadow Reaping will allow you to execute more rotations and increase your chance to crit the majority of your skills during Reaping. If you can only afford one superior brooch, then pick yourself up a Superior Quickcarve Brooch.
PvE Reaper Build – Glyphs
These glyphs are for all PVE purposes. You can use this for normal runs and high score runs
Why Blazing Double Shear glyph and not Cable Step CD glyph?
There are two reasons:
- Blazing Double Shear glyph will give Double Shear a 20% boost in DPS. Generally, you will be able to utilize this glyph effectively in a run. This glyph is also crucial during the Slaying Shadow Reaping Combo (Spiral → Grim → Shear → Grim → Sunder).
- Cable Step does not increase the attack speed of Shadow Lash. It only increases the initial cast time of Shadow Lash. In fact, casting Shadow Lash by itself might be as fast or even faster than Cable Step -> Shadow Lash depending on how far you travel with Cable Step.
PvE Reaper Build – Rotation
A lot of Reaper guides out there always state the following rotation as a Reaper’s main rotation:
Spiral → Shear → Grim → Sunder → Spiral → Pend → Whip → Shear → Grim → Cable → Shadow Burst → … etc.
WRONG. If you play Reaper based off of this rotation, you are not maximizing your DPS.
So what should your rotation be? The answer to that is:
It depends… In fact it’s actually pretty complicated to give a concrete answer because the rotation you use depends on what the boss is going to do.
Skill Priorities
Before giving a guideline on rotations, we have to talk about skill priorities so that the guideline makes sense. Here is the skill priority:
(Pendulum → Whipsaw) / (Cable → Shadow Burst) > Grimstrike (and Grimstrike Resets) > Sundering Strike > Double Shear > (Cable → Shadow Burst) > Shadow Lash > Death Spiral > Smite
I will explain why Cable Step → Shadow Burst is one of the highest priority further down this section.
Why is this the priority list?
- Pendulum → Whipsaw has to be the highest priority because it is one of your best and fastest application of a hard hitting skill.
- Before the Knockout Patch, Grimstrike and Grimstrike reset priority would have been below Sundering Strike. However, ever since the Triple Crit Rate Glyph buff to Grimstrike, it is much more important to prioritize this skill. In every fight, Grimstrike should be your skill with the most damage dealt due to its crit and reset factor.
- If my Grimstrike resets and Sundering Strike is up, should I use Sundering Strike or keep spamming my Grimstrike?
The priority list says to use Grimstrike until it goes into CD. If you reset so many times that you end up losing a cast of Sundering Strike, then that’s okay because the damage you would have gained by resetting Grimstrike would have been greater than a single cast of Sundering Strike. Also keep in mind the Grimstrike resets also act as a buffer. So if you reset enough times, you may be able to skip a Shadow Lash rotation which means more casts on your main skills. In addition, Sundering Strike is naturally cast after Grimstrike, so it makes more sense that Grimstrike is a higher priority than Sundering Strike.
- (Cable Step → Shadow Burst) has also been pushed down on the priority list, but its use is a little bit more complex. The reason why (Cable Step → Shadow Burst) is listed as one of the highest priority is because of distance. Sometimes, when you start a boss, the tank is usually the first one in. (Cable Step → Shadow Burst) allows you to gap close much faster than running up behind the boss then start attacking it. Again, it only becomes the highest priority if you are too far from the boss.
- The purpose of the priority list is to determine your opening move and to determine what rotation you’re going to use in case multiple skills with high priority are off cool down.
Animation Cancelling and Powerlinks
Although low on the priority list, Death Spiral has an important role in your rotation. It serves two purposes: to re-initiate combos and to cancel animations. Make sure you always have a skill that can cancel Shadow Burst’s and Sundering Strike’s animation lock.
Being stuck in a Shadow Burst’s or Sundering Strike’s animation lock is a DPS loss. Cancelling these two animations will also give you a more fluid rotation. Try to avoid being locked in a skill animation before you start Shadow Lash. It is a relatively high down-time on your DPS. Occasionally this will happen.
Shouldn’t I use Death Spiral to Powerlink Grimstrike?
As stated above, it is much more important that Death Spiral is used to serve for re-initiation for combos and to cancel animations. The only time I would suggest intentionally using Death Spiral for power links is when your Shadow Burst is on CD.
The reason why I did not touch upon Powerlinks extensively (mainly Spiral and Shear Powerlinks for Grimstrike) is because Powerlinks are naturally integrated within rotations. Due to the way skills are chained, you’re always going to have a Powerlink active for Grimstrike. The duration of the Powerlinks are also quite lengthy.
There are more important things to worry about, such as positioning and skill management, and that is what I tried to emphasize in this guide. You’re not going to out-DPS another Reaper by pulling off more double Powerlinks on Grimstrike.
You’re going to out-DPS another Reaper by getting more skills off, based on how you position and how you manage your skills.
