Power Reaper of Condi Scourge: Most fun, versatile, powerful, etc

[Davi.4920]

As title. About to hit level 80 with my necromancer and my final class i've got to 80! (woo!)

 

I have access to viper and power stats and so was wondering which would be more worthwhile to play as in PoF. I will have enough HP once i've run through the jungle to level one spec fully. So wondering what peoples thoughts, opinions, etc were. :)

[Arzurag.7506]

Most people will tend to recommend viper-reaper or viper-scourge due the great strength of conditions.

I recommend to think about what appeals to you the most, DoT or direct damage. Keep in mind: Reaper favors power damage or is supposed to do so, will probably be fixed eventually and scourge is more condition based, though I saw some power-scourges running around.

 

I personally play as power-reaper because scourge does not appeal to me that much, so you just need to know what you prefer.

Oh and I forgot to mention that raids and pve are different worlds, group-support + decent damage is always recommended and some raid-builds aren´t made for open world.

[Davi.4920]

> @Arzurag.7506 said:

> Most people will tend to recommend viper-reaper or viper-scourge due the great strength of conditions.

> I recommend to think about what appeals to you the most, DoT or direct damage. Keep in mind: Reaper favors power damage or is supposed to do so, will probably be fixed eventually and scourge is more condition based, though I saw some power-scourges running around.

>

> I personally play as power-reaper because scourge does not appeal to me that much, so you just need to know what you prefer.

> Oh and I forgot to mention that raids and pve are different worlds, group-support + decent damage is always recommended and some raid-builds aren´t made for open world.

 

Thank you for your reply :)

 

Its tricky. I like the sound of both. What first made me want to level my necro was seeing a Reaper going into shroud and there greatsword. I guess I might be answering my own question. I've heard of power scourges too. I wonder how that works.

[Coffietire.2783]

Power reaper is more beginner friendly than condition scourge. However with a lot of new enemies in the crystal desert spreading soft crowd control, scourge in general is favored on the new maps.

[Zero Solstice.9754]

If you're trying to do generic open world PvE and low/mid-tier fractals, then go ahead and play whatever you want and have fun with. In high-end fractals, you can still generally get away with playing whatever you want in terms of style (meaning Power or Condi), but you should use something more streamlined. For Tryharding and Raids, you should probably go with the Viper's specs, but it really is up to you for the most part. Reaper has generally better survivability than Scourge does, but Scourge has more instant access to useful utility such as Path of Corruption and Transfusion.

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

If it's PoF maps then scourge will have the upper hand because of his F2 - low cooldown condi conversion to boons. There's a lot of slow going on with PoF mobs, especially in Desolation map. Being able to quickly cleanse it (or better yet convert it to quickness in scourge's case) is a huge boon there.

 

That being said if you run into something tougher solo, reaper is the better call, scourge suffers in 1v1 scenarios from life force shortage and being much more squishy.

[pah.4931]

Reaper is life. Reaper is death.

[Druitt.7629]

Reaper's not meta in many respects, if that's what you're looking for. But I really enjoyed playing Reaper (mainly story, open world) for a long time. And it has the best look/immersion in the entire game. You turn into the grim reaper, complete with scythe. You carry a greatsword -- I picked a curved-blade skin that's amazing. Several staff skins were absolutely made for Reaper, and your staff turns into a scythe as well in combat.

 

Don't get me wrong, I've switched to Scourge and like the gameplay even better. And it will probably be meta in more situations and is less selfish than Reaper. So you really can't go wrong either way. As several have said above, Scourge is probably better in the new PoF areas. (HoT areas are annoying, gotta say. But Reaper is cool!)

[Davi.4920]

Thanks all for the replies. I decided on Scourge Condi and I must say I am having a great time!

[Druitt.7629]

Yeah, Condi Scourge is a blast. Playstyle-wise I prefer it to base Necro (a lot) and Reaper. I've gotten as far as the sand dog mount (forget it's official name) and I'm feeling about as tanky as Reaper but with a lot more variety of play and more room to grow. (I have a lot of growth ahead of me in learning to use barriers well, for example.) Not to mention that ANet has for years seen Shroud as some kind of secret weapon and felt the need to keep it from being fun, so a mostly-shroudless play style is liberating.

[Davi.4920]

> @Druitt.7629 said:

> Yeah, Condi Scourge is a blast. Playstyle-wise I prefer it to base Necro (a lot) and Reaper. I've gotten as far as the sand dog mount (forget it's official name) and I'm feeling about as tanky as Reaper but with a lot more variety of play and more room to grow. (I have a lot of growth ahead of me in learning to use barriers well, for example.) Not to mention that ANet has for years seen Shroud as some kind of secret weapon and felt the need to keep it from being fun, so a mostly-shroudless play style is liberating.

 

I've been using the trait that makes one giant shade rather than 3 small ones to get used to it. Do you use that as well? I didn't know if the 3 smaller shades were able to overlap as it were. But yeh its fun and I love the whole sand theme too :)

[Drekor.5217]

> @Davi.4920 said:

> > @Druitt.7629 said:

> > Yeah, Condi Scourge is a blast. Playstyle-wise I prefer it to base Necro (a lot) and Reaper. I've gotten as far as the sand dog mount (forget it's official name) and I'm feeling about as tanky as Reaper but with a lot more variety of play and more room to grow. (I have a lot of growth ahead of me in learning to use barriers well, for example.) Not to mention that ANet has for years seen Shroud as some kind of secret weapon and felt the need to keep it from being fun, so a mostly-shroudless play style is liberating.

>

> I've been using the trait that makes one giant shade rather than 3 small ones to get used to it. Do you use that as well? I didn't know if the 3 smaller shades were able to overlap as it were. But yeh its fun and I love the whole sand theme too :)

 

The damage from manifest shades overlaps so if you have several out it's a substantial DPS increase over sand savant (not even counting the 33% more torment damage or burning stacks).