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Comments
1. CD = Cooldown
2. Slaying is when you use a Fine Slaying Niveot in place of your Fine Pounding Niveot. Slaying crystals increase your crit power when you are below 50% HP. Because of this, they typically used for doing the fastest run possible (high score runs). When a Reaper does a Slaying run they can't use whipsaw b/c it heals them, and they want to stay below 50%. Thus, the slaying rotation was born. Redstrike gives you the rotation for Slaying while you're in shadow reaping. I'm not gonna go into the Slaying rotation while you're out of shadow reaping though. I've not mastered it enough to consider my thoughts on that topic useful at this time.
3 & 4. Ok so both of these are from the same section in his guide and it seems you have taken them out of context (totally understandable), causing some confusion. First off, I felt similar about pend starting out. You HAVE to be close enough to the boss when you cast it so that your whipsaw reaches. It takes time to get used to the ranges on those abilities. I promise you that, once more familiar with the ranges, you will rarely (if ever) miss a pend -> whip combo again. And no shadow steps needed! Also, if you didn't know, you move forward while casting grim & sunder. Just press the (Walk Forward) button while casting them. This is useful after a Pend -> Whip (especially while in shadow reaping) opener b/c it will put you right at the back of the boss again, in perfect position for the next set of skills. You have to be precise with your movements on Reaper, b/c if you're off by a little bit (pend too far back) you might miss a skill. Or, if you're TOO close to the boss during certain skills (whipsaw, sunder and grimstrike might, but I don't really recall it happening), they MIGHT go thru the boss and not count the damage.
As for what Redstrike said in his guide, he is referring to when to use Opener (A) Pend -> Whip and when not to use it. He is saying that if you know the boss is not going to turn around for at least 5 seconds, then you use Opener (A) because you should have enough time to finish pend -> whip - > shear -> grim -> sunder before you have to reposition. If you use opener (A) and the boss turns around while you're in the middle of casting the pend -> whip part of the combo, you start to hit the front of the boss. If you use anymore skills after that, you will be hitting the front of the boss (front crit). You don't want to front crit so, like he said, you will have to use 2 stacks of shadow step to reposition. This is because you don't want to keep hitting the boss's front (huge DPS loss), so you have to get to the back of the boss asap. The quickest way to do that is 2x shadow step (which is what he was referring to). He specifies "2" shadow steps b/c after pend -> whip displaces you (and then the boss turns to face you), 1 shadow step will probably not be enough to get to the boss's back again. You always want to be at the back of the boss (back crit) for max DPS potential b/c monsters are weaker from behind (you may already know that).
No, you don't want to use shadow step during shadow reaping unless you absolutely need to dodge a mechanic or get to the boss's back.
5. I doubt Redstrike uses chain skills. I don't use them. You have to adjust your rotation constantly during a fight. IMO it's better to just take off all chained skills and put your own skill-chains (based on the priority system) together during a fight.
6. Use the same rolls for Slaughter as the Dreadnaught rolls in Redstrike's guide. They are optimal. Typically you're gonna have the same rolls on all your PvE gear, just more rolls on VM gear (b/c it has an extra, 5th line to roll). Look at the part of the guide where he shows the jewelry sets. He also shows his (unbuffed) stats with full crit jewelry set (for priest only party) & 2 power 3 crit (for duo heal / mystic only party) set. That should give you a general idea of what your stats will look like as your gear continues to get better. As long as you follow the rolls/etchings/glyphs 100% from his guide, you will have the proper stats to get the job done right.
Sure thing. Lmk if you need clarification or have other questions.
Sounds like a good plan. Thanks for the help and the homework. I'll keep you updated as necessary. I'm sure i'll have a ton more questions. I usually play in the mornings Central standard time, so I'll work on it more in the AM.
You da man, Chi Sau.
Spiral seems to be a pretty useless skill to dps and as you guys said just serve as a filler to cancel long animations and a GS buff.
Analizing Redstrike's infinite rotation - amazingly told move by move here, btw - he cancels first shadow burst. Fine. But then he cancels Grim strike second, which is odd to me because Sundering strike seems to be more slow and worst animation than grim.
Am i wrong?
During the part of the clip you are taking about, Sunder was still on CD. B/c of that, he didn't need to save the 2nd death spiral for it. As a result, he chose to use it as a buffer between shear -> grim and pend -> whip. You don't need death spiral between the two though, but you can use it if u wish. Death spiral, with its 2 stacks, is on a short enough coooldown that you can fit it in often. Your main priority for death spiral is to have it ready to cancel burst/sunder but, if those are on cooldown, you can use it in other places to help with the flow of your rotation.
Okay, so I've been working pretty hard on this rotation, and I'm happy to say that it is finally smooth.
I have a quick question: how do I know if I have my glyphs set up right? Is there a guide that can help me with that? (link?) I'm not sure I understand the concept of glyphs in the first place.
Edit: I don't know why my DPS isn't very high. Like when I run demo factory or some other dungeon they run the DPS meter and mine is on the lower end. I feel like I'm doing something wrong with some things outside of rotation.
thanks!
If your rotation is ok, then it's probably other factors like crit factor and power stats, gear and jewelry rolls, usage of bravery/canephora, crit power scrolls, nostrums and charms.
Glyphs: you can set them up however you want, but there is really only one best option for each class, apart from healers. http://www.essentialmana.com/redstrikes-advanced-reaper-guide/#glyphs
Glad to hear things are smoothing out.
Copy Redstrike's glyph page. Glyphs serve the purpose of making your skills better. Some glyphs boost damage on a skill. Some glyphs make you cast skills faster . So on and so forth. The goal is to pick the glyphs that will give you the most improvement to your gameplay. Read the glyphs descriptions while you copy Red's page and you'll see why those glyphs are crucial.
Remember you're not in VM gear so, while you can do respectable damage, you won't be doing a huge amount yet. What's the best dps you've done on DFNM last boss?
Also, double check that your rolls/crystals/etchings EVERYTHING from Red's guide. Also, try to be attacking 100% of the time, unless you need to dodge a mechanic. Always have charms and nostrum/crit power scroll as bare minimum consumables.
Having all that + the rotations you have been working on are all you really need. The rest is just practice/experience.
Keep working at it. Took me some months to really get skilled at Reaper. Might be sooner/later for you, but you're asking the right questions.
Sounds like a good plan. I don't have all the glyphs yet, so I can't copy them perfectly, but I did my best to accommodate the rotation where certain glyphs were lacking. (where can I get the ones I'm missing?)
Quick question: How come there are 5 different "glyph sets," and how does that work? phrased differently, how does rearranging say, glyph set 1 differently than 2 and 3 make a difference?
thanks again!
Your glyph sets are just 5 different pages of the same glyphs. You can make one page your PvE glyphs, another for PvP glyphs, so on and so forth. It just makes it easier to switch between glyph pages, rather than having to edit your page every single time you want to switch.
That makes lots of sense. So whatever page it is currently on is the one that's active I presume.
One more question for now: How do you run a dps meter? sometimes I'll see others do it after a run but idk how to do it myself.
Even though I've put in serious hours with this game, good grief I feel like a such a newb haha. Sorry if these are stupid questions.
What server do you play on @ChiSau ? Maybe we can play together sometime. I'd love to learn from the best!
I'll send you a PM about the meter.
Mastering a class takes time, but you're well on your way. Just keep it at.
I'm on MT. Name is Chi.Sau, but I'm not the best =P