Reaper - Spectral Onslaught - MetaBattle

The community gave this build a rating, making it second-tier: Good

Expansions required: Heart of Thorns builds

Difficulty: Normal

This build was last updated on January 18, 2026 and is up to date for the June 2, 2026 patch.

Overview

A high damage PvP Power Reaper built around the 夺魂灭屠 trait, augmented by Spectral skills for proper Life Force management to decimate teamfights.

Skill Bar

Staff

Utility

Optional

Skill Variants

Heal

症状吞噬 - better condition management, worse Life Force generation.

Utility

For the optional slot:

"死亡将临！" - frequent access to unblockable attacks and AoE boon removal.
鬼灵铠甲 - stun break, defense against direct damage, and great Life Force generation.
鬼灵圆环 - area denial that can save your life and has nice synergy with 死亡恐惧 (if taken).
黑暗法池 - great sustain tool that can help both you and your team survive longer.
腐蚀毒云 - excellent anti-projectile skill which also brings 中毒 and 虚弱 spam to the table, further mitigating damage as well as enemy healing.
鬼灵缚爪 - CC and Life Force management.
"弱者退散！" - short CD stun break with instant AoE 虚弱 application makes this a great defensive skill especially against power-based specs.

Elite

巫妖形态 - long CD burst skill that could help you mop up kills.

Weapons

Some people prefer playing with Greatsword instead of Staff, giving up range and utility for more burst and some protection vs melee provided by 夜幕降临. Take 暗影疾速 on Soul Reaping when playing with Greatsword. Overall GS is considered to be less competitive of an option than Staff though.

Template Code

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Specializations

Variants

死亡迫近 is a significant damage increase against low HP targets but you lose out on some important boons.

Specialization Variants

Replace Spite Spite with Blood Magic Blood Magic for higher sustain if necessary:

Equipment

Staff

Empty slot

Sigil

Axe

Focus

Sigil

Rune

Amulet

Relic

Equipment Variants

Amulets

劫掠者项链 - more forgiving option with higher HP and Life Force pool in exchange for doing a bit less damage.

Runes

学者符文 - if you can afford to give up some mobility for more damage.

Usage

General

Spectral skills, Staff marks and Focus 4 are going to be the main Life Force (LF) builders.
- Even at maximum LF you can consider using 鬼灵铠甲 before entering 夺魂之幕. Both the 保护 and the extra LF from incoming attacks are going to increase the time you'll be able to spend in shroud.
- Spam 灵魂抓攫 as much as you can if you're not at the Life Force cap.
There's more to 鬼灵影步 (SW) than just being a stun breaker with a bit of LF management, this skill allows for quite a bit of creativity. For example:
- Activate SW ⇒ jump off a cliff while being chased ⇒ 鬼灵逆行 when your enemies jump after you.
- Activate SW ⇒ break line of sight ⇒ cast "严寒刺骨！" ⇒ teleport back at the very end of the channeling (this makes it harder to avoid and reduces the chance of getting interrupted, although the outcome is going to be a bit luck based).
- Activate SW ⇒ 暗蚀传越 (if using Flesh Wurm) ⇒ teleport back when they catch up to you. This works for stomping downed enemies as well, the channeling isn't interrupted by either of these teleports!
For mobility use the following sequence:

夺魂之幕 (also applies 迅捷 from 暗影疾速 when playing with Greatsword)
死亡冲刺
解除夺魂之幕 just before Death's Charge finishes (the ending of DC brings your character to a halt, which can be cancelled by dropping out of shroud early)

"严寒刺骨！" has a very distinct animation which makes it easy to avoid, if you feel like that's going to happen then stow your weapon to cancel the channeling. This is also great for fake casting - you can use the skill, cancel it immediately with weapon stow (the whole animation will still play, potentially baiting out dodges or other defensive CDs), and send it only on a CD of 5 seconds.
恐怖之爪 is one of the best burst skills in the build. Try to use it when you have a fair amount of 威能 stacks, 急速, and preferably 易伤 on the target.
Keep using "灵魂夺取！" even out of combat to build Life Force.

Damage

Axe/Focus is the burst set, Staff is more of a defensive/utility one.
刺骨恶寒 is one of your strongest burst skills but only against targets with 3 or more boons. Try to use this when 智慧法印 is active for a guaranteed crit.
恐怖之爪 always does good damage but scales up against targets with 易伤.
噬灵盛宴 works best against low HP targets but it's also the only AoE skill on this set, so if you really need cleave damage then the HP doesn't matter, just use it.
Staff has low damage except for 腐烂印记, but usually that skill should be kept for defensive purposes as it's one of your few condition management tools (unless you really want to greed and get a kill).
凛冬印记 is great at snaring targets and applying healing reduction via 中毒

Shroud

Most of your burst comes from 夺魂之幕, where your damage is further increased by 致命洞察 and 夺魂灭屠.
Opening with 惊惧魔甲 is very common, as it helps getting your damage off uninterrupted while the damage reduction helps you stay in shroud longer.
- 惊惧释放 is the chain skill of this slot. This should only be used when either A) you need an emergency CC, or B) Infusing Terror is about to expire.
死亡冲刺 should be used in the field created by 处决镰刀 for the 冰霜光环 whenever possible.
灵魂漩涡 should primarily be used on CC'd or downed targets (as 中毒 reduces the resurrection healing coming from their allies), but thanks to the permanent 急速 while in shroud this skill is now much easier to land without any real setup.
处决镰刀's a single target skill for the most part as it only stuns one target. 惊惧释放 can 恐惧 targets long enough to prevent enemies from dodging this skill.
Use auto attacks when eveything else is on CD.
Burst combo example: 死亡冲刺 (gap closer with good impact damage) ⇒ 惊惧释放 ⇒ 处决镰刀 ⇒ 灵魂漩涡

Greatsword variant

夜幕降临 is the only thing that justifies taking Greatsword, its strength is arguably on par with Well skills. Nightfall is fairly versatile and useful in many sutations, especially when it comes to surviving vs melee players or 1v1ing on point (but that's not your main role).
The auto attack chain is just way too slow and will barely (if ever) be used.
掘墓剑斩 suffers from the same problem as the auto chain, but at least it hits way harder. This will mostly be used as a downed cleave skill when Shroud is on CD, but if you're feeling lucky you can try to use it for bursting in regular combat especially against bunkers. Much easier to land with some lingering 急速 from 夺魂灭屠.
死亡漩涡 is excellent for stacking some vulnerability/life force.
黑暗抓攫 is a decent CC but can be hard to land against moving targets.
After unloading skills 3-5 spend most of your time in Reaper's Shroud waiting for weapon swap to come off CD.

Top Streamers

Twitch: Mijo
Twitch: Notoriousnaru

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