If you’re here, well, welcome to what’s essentially a Reaper starter guide. You probably need help with at least one of these two things – Making sense and setting up the Reaper initial skills, or figuring out your starter Reaper rotation. Well, if that’s the case, lemme slice it up for ya. BTW RPR unlocks in Ul’dah.
In a nutshell your Reaper initial rotation revolves around building up Soul Gauge with your basic moves, then (this may sound confusing) “spend soul gauge to gain soul reaver stacks”, which is the more powerful half of your rotation.
I PLACED THE LEVEL OF THE SKILL BESIDE THE SKILLNAME SO YOU CAN EASILY FIND THEM!
While I could list the initial Reaper skills by level, I think discussing them by logical “grouping” is better.
RPR Initial Skills: Soul Gauge Builders
In the case of both single target and AoE, you will want to maintain your debuff on enemies at all times, while building Soul Gauge through pretty much any action you take here.
Basic Single Target (Soul Gauge Builders)
Slice L1 – Waxing Slice L5 – Infernal Slice L30: Basic 1-2-3 combo that generates Soul Gauge.
Shadow of Death L10: applies Death’s Design, which debuffs target to take more damage from you.
Soul Slice L60: OGCD that vies a significant amount of Soul Gauge.
The above is your bread and butter single target skills, your AoE skills, listed below, are like exact mirrors of them!
Basic AoE (Soul Gauge builders)
Spinning Scythe L25: Nightmare Scythe L45: Basic 1-2 AoE combo that generates Soul Gauge
Whorl of Death L35: applied Death’s Design in AoE, which debuffs target tot take more damage from you.
Soul Scythe L65: OGCD that gives a significant amount of Soul Gauge.
As you can see, they were kind enough to make the single and AoE versions very similar to each other.
RPR Initial Skills: Soul Gauge Spenders / Soul Reaver
The short of it is using up Soul Gauge for skills that give Soul Reaver. Then, use up Soul Reaver for more powerful attacks.
Soul Gauge Spenders: Single Target
Blood Stalk L50: Uses Soul Gauge. Single target strike and gives you 1 Soul Reaver.
Gallows L70 & Gibbet L70: Uses Soul Reaver. Rear and Flank bonus respectively. Using one will transform Blood Stalk into an enhanced version of the “other one”. Gains Soul Gauge as well.
Ok so for Soul Gauge and Soul Reaver, this minigame is pretty cool. Basically you go Blood Stalk (uses Soul Gauge – gains Soul Reaver) into Gallows or Gibbet (Uses Soul Reaver). Then the next time you get here, you will use “Blood Stalk” to Gibbet or Gallows (the reverse of whatever you used the first time).
Blood Stalk changes name into either “Unveiled Gibbet”, or “Unveiled Gallows” inversely to which one you chose. This is pretty much irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, and I think only serves as “reminder” for which of the two you should be using next.
Soul Gauge Spenders: AoE
Thankfully the AoE version of the spenders is also very very similar.
Grim Swathe L55: Uses Soul Gauge. Cone AoE that gives you 1 Soul Reaver.
Guillotine L70: Uses Soul Reaver for a cone AoE attack.
The AoE version of doesn’t have that fancy little positional swapping minigame, but it’s very similar. Enter the phase with Grim Swathe, and use up Soul Reaver with Guillotine.
Reaper Misc. Skills (CD’s, Utility, etc)
DPS Cooldowns
RPR has no DPS centric cooldowns at L70.
Mobility
Hell’s Ingress L20: forward dash (L74: that leaves a Hellsgate, and gives you Treshold).
Hell’s Egress L20: backward dash (L74: that leave’s a Hellsgate, and gives you Treshold).
At L74 these skills “evolve”. They allow you to teleport back to your initial position. The forward and backwards dash share a recast, and even better yet, the “opposite” one you didn’t use becomes Regress (the backtrack teleport skill). Talk about hotbar saving! I just thought it was worth mentioning, as it affects your initial binds.
Each of the dashes gives you an instant Harpe, which is your run of the mill ranged attack.
Ranged Attack
Harpe L15: Ranged attack with a cast time. Almost never used unless desperate.
Defensive
Arcane Crest L40: Give your self a shield for a short duration.
Reaper L70 Initial Rotation
To sum it all up and give you a look at the RPR starter rotation as a whole. Here’s a short summary of the single target and AoE rotations of your Reaper at L70 after your whole starting skills setup.
Weirdly, it’s a lot more simple than you imagine, when stated as a whole…
Reaper L70 Rotation – Single Target
Keep your debuff on the enemies via Shadow of Death
Build Soul Gauge via 1-2-3 combo or Soul Slice when it’s up.
Have 50 Soul Gauge?
Blood Stalk (Gain +1 Soul Reaver) – Gallows or Gibbet.
Next time you’re here, use Gibbet or Gallows (opposite of previous use)
Reaper L70 Rotation – AoE
Keep your deuff on the enemis via Whorl of Death.
Build Soul Gauge via Spinning Scythe – Nightmare Scythe combo. Soul Scythe if up.
Have 50 Gauge?
Grim Swathe (Gain +1 Soul Reaver) into Guillotine.
Enemies that die with your debuff give you Soul Gauge which is very good in AoE and dungeon run scenarios. You’ll have a lot more gauge than usual.
Summary & Outro
Reaper might seem a little complex at first glance, simply becuase you’re at such a high starting level and have a lot of skills to consider… but take a look at the rotation segment. If you take a little time to understand all the skills with the initial setup – the final rotation can be summarized pretty damn easily!
Welp, that’s it! I hope we helped you out getting your Reaper started, setting up your initial skills and getting your starter rotation down pat! Have fun on the rest of your Reaping!