Live Letter Reaper Impressions

[MagiusNecros]

Have at it folks.

[Reksanden]

Looks cool af, and the gauges don't seem that simple at first glance. Fast as fuck too - I'll definitely be levelling it after BLM.

[Tharne]

Looks cool af, and the gauges don't seem that simple at first glance. Fast as fuck too - I'll definitely be levelling it after BLM.

From what I understood : You use a first set of Gcds to build the red gauge, using Ogcd spender on red gauge unlocks the use of a second set of Gcds to build the blue gauge and then use that one to go into super fast fusion mode.

[StriderShinryu]

RPR looks as expected, though the interaction with a party member is a bit of a surprise.
Doesn't look bad, per se, but doesn't look like anything that will get me to play it until I've levelled everything else I want to first.

[Styrmwyda]

Looks really cool, though I do hope there is an option to not have your glamour replaced in "Void mode" (not sure what the official term is called). Perhaps replace it with a red aura or something.

[Dyvid]

I need to find a new job to play I guess.

[ItMe]

I'm glad to see the voidling does in fact act as an install super ~

[Ailuron]

hmmm Hrothgar hats..

[Arkdra]

Might actually be fun to play but not impressed with what they showed. Seems too weird and fiddly at first glance but it might all come together once I have it in my hands and spend time on a dummy.

[Lyth]

This is really interesting.


Overview:
Soul (red): Fills through basic combo. Used to power oGCD attacks with Avatar. Each Avatar ability seems to cost 50 Soul.
Demonic Scythe: Stacks are gained by using an Avatar ability and last for 30 seconds. Most Avatar abilities give you 1 stack, except for Gluttony that lets you use two. These let you use your positional combo. The next step of your combo is dictated by the one you used last (Empowered Gibbet/Empowered Gallows buffs).
Shroud (blue): Fills through positional combo steps, killing enemies with Death Sign (your damage up debuff), or through consuming Offering of the Dead stacks during your raidwide buff. Lets you transform to do your main burst window.
Lemure Souls: You gain 5 of these when you enter into Shroud form. They look like flames. Every time you consume a flame, it leaves behind a purple orb. You can consume two purple orbs for an oGCD.

You have two main resources: Soul (red), and Shroud (blue). Soul fills quickly through your base combo and is used to power your oGCD attacks with your Avatar. Your Avatar grants you Demonic Scythe stacks, which in turn lets you use steps in your positional combo (Gibbet/Gallows). Your positional combo then lets you gain Shroud, which lets you do your burst window. You can alternatively gain Shroud from your raidwide buff, Arcane Circle, by consuming Offering of the Dead stacks.

Your base combo is Slice (300) > Waxing Slice (380) > Infernal Slice (460). Each step gives you 10 Soul. Your AoE combo is Spinning Scythe (140) > Nightmare Scythe (180). Harpe is your standalone ranged attack. Death Sign is a debuff that you have to keep up on mobs which buffs your damage by 10%. There's a single target and AoE way to apply this. Killing mobs with it active gives you 10 Shroud each.

Soul Scythe (460) and Soul Slice (AoE - 180) give you 50 Soul upfront, but are on a 30 second recast timer with 2 charges (shared between both abilities). You typically follow this up with an Avatar ability. Gluttony (500, AoE) is your priority but has a recast timer of 1 minute. This gives you two Demonic Scythes. Your other Avatar abilities, Stalk Swathe (400) and Thief Swathe (180, AoE), give you only 1 Demonic Scythe. This is used to power your positional combo. One thing that I don't understand about this is that Stalk Swathe seems to change to a new action (Gallows Claw) depending on which positional buff is up, but I can't tell what the difference is between the two other than the icon. I'll have to have another look at that in more detail.

Your positional combo consists of Gibbet (flank) and Gallows (rear). You need Demonic Scythe stacks to use them. Each gives you 460 potency at baseline, but they also give you a 1 minute empowered buff that tells you what positional to use next for bonus potency (520). You basically alternate between these as you gain Scythe stacks. These are really important because they are your baseline way to build Shroud. Guillotine is the AoE equivalent (200).

When you enter Shroud form, it upgrades many of your actions to new ones. The standard rotation for this window appears to be Upgraded Gibbet, Upgraded Shroud, oGCD, Upgraded Gibbet, Upgraded Shroud, oGCD, Communio (finisher).

In terms of raid buffs, you have Arcane Circle, a raid buff that increases everyone's DPS by 3% for 20 seconds every minute. For every unique party member that lands a hit during the first 5 seconds of this window, you gain 1 Offering of the Dead stack, to a maximum of 8. You consume these to put out Plentiful Harvest, a big AoE. You also have a mini-TBN (10% of max HP) that you apply to yourself. If it breaks, everyone gets lifesteal for 15 seconds.

Breakdown:
The Reaper job demo starts from around 02:46:50 on Twitch.

02:47:05: Soul Sow. This puts up an unlimited duration buff that can be consumed later to perform Harvest Moon, which replaces the action when the buff is up. Because it's used out of combat in this instance, it's instant cast. You'll see later on when he uses it that it normally has a 5 second cast in combat.

02:47:16: Arcane Circle. This is a raidwide party buff that increases party members' damage by 30 seconds. You'll see that three new buffs appear. From left to right, these are:
1) Ritual Circle (5 seconds): Lets you make an Offering of the Dead. This gets consumed on the first GCD you execute with it active. You can get 1 stack from each party member.
2) Offering of the Dead (6 seconds): Lets you collect Offering of the Dead stacks from party members, which you use to execute Plentiful Harvest.
3) Arcane Circle (20 seconds): 3% damage up.
You don't get to see how Offering stacks/Plentiful Harvest work here, because Ritual Circle falls off before he gets to use a weaponskill on the dummy. Which is important, because this will give you the 50 Shroud needed to transform, as you'll see later.

02:47:21: Death Sign. This puts a 30 second debuff on the target that increases your personal damage by 10%. If the target dies with this on, you gain 10 Shroud. The AoE version of this is Whirl of Death.

02:47:24: Soul Scythe: Weaponskill (460 potency, +50 Soul). This gains charges every 30 seconds and shares charges with its AoE form, Soul Slice (180 potency, +50 Soul). The maximum number of charges that you can have is 2.

02:47:28: Gluttony: Avatar Ability (500 potency, -50 Soul, +2 Demonic Scythe stacks, 60 second recast). This is the only Avatar ability that I see that grants you two Demonic Scythe stacks. This allows for the positional combo to be used two times in a row.

02:47:30: Gibbet: Weaponskill, flank positional (460 potency/520 if empowered, -1 Demonic Scythe stack, +10 Shroud, +Empowered Gallows). The rightmost buff here (1 minute duration) is Empowered Gallows, which means that you should use Gallows as your next Demonic Scythe move. This is subtle, but you can see that it also changes Stalk Swathe (Row 2, Action 5) to a different action, Gallows Claw.

02:47:33: (Empowered) Gallows: Weaponskill, rear positional (460 potency/520 if empowered, -1 Demonic Scythe stack, +10 Shroud, +Empowered Gibbet). The Empowered Gallows buff gets consumed and is replaced by Empowered Gibbet (1 minute duration), telling you to use Gibbet as your next Demonic Scythe move. But we're out of Demonic Scythes for the moment. This also changes Gallows Claw back to Stalk Swathe (Row 2, Action 5).

02:47:39: Harvest Moon: Spell (600 potency AoE, range 25y, radius 5y). This consumes the Soul Sow buff that was applied pre-pull. (Replaced by Animal Crossing. Just kidding.)

02:47:42: Gap extender: Ability (20 second recast, shared recast with Gap closer). Propels player backwards a fixed distance. This converts your gap closer to a portal action for 10 seconds that lets you teleport back to where you previously were. It also grants a 15 second buff that causes the fist icon to light up (Row 1, Action 3).

02:47:49: Slice. Weaponskill (300 potency, +10 Soul). First step in your standard combo.

02:47:51: Waxing Slice. Weaponskill (380 potency, +10 Soul). Second step in your standard combo. Note that Death Sign falls off the target dummy here.

02:47:53: Infernal Slice: Weaponskill (460 potency, +10 Soul). Final step in your standard combo.

02:47:56: Slice again. That fist buff falls off unused.

02:48:01: Waxing Slice again.

02:48:04: Infernal Slice again.

02:48:08: Arcane Crest (Ability, 5 second duration, 30 second recast). This prevents damage up to 10% of your max HP (mini-TBN). If the barrier breaks, you and nearby party members gain an Activated Crest buff for 15 seconds that gives you all lifesteal.

02:48:09: Stalk Swathe: Avatar Ability (400 potency, -50 Soul, +1 Demonic Scythe - cannot boost your total to 2).

02:48:11: Gibbet again, from the flank to consume the Demonic Scythe just generated. Stalk Swathe's action gets swapped for Gallows Claw again.

02:48:14: Soul Scythe again, to gain 50 Soul.

02:48:18: Stalk Swathe again, although this time it's been changed to Gallows Claw because of Empowered Gallows being up. The animation is different, but I'm not sure what's changed.

02:48:22: Gallows again.

02:48:24: Soul Scythe again, to gain 50 Soul.

02:48:27: Stalk Swathe again, +1 Demonic Scythe.

02:48:30: Gibbet again. Finally at 50 Shroud!

02:48:54: Transformation time! Lemure Shroud, 30 second duration, 15 second recast. Lemures are restless spirits of the unburied dead. You get 5 flames (Lemure Souls) on your gauge. Avatar abilities are not usable while this is active, unsurprisingly. It looks like this upgrades your Demonic Scythe combo (Gibbet and Gallows) and replaces them with two new actions. The other thing that it does is replace the Stalk Swathe ability (Avatar) with some new action that looks like an oGCD that you can weave between each step. It also looks like you replace Thief Swathe, which is the AoE version of this.

---

02:51:42: Soul Sow again. Note that because he hasn't left combat, there's now a 5 second cast for putting up this buff instead of it being instant cast.

02:51:49: Arcane Circle again.

02:51:52: Soul Scythe again. Note that when he uses it this time, he catches the Ritual Circle effect (leftmost buff) from Arcane Circle. This consumes the buff and gives him a stack of Offering of the Dead. He can continue to collect Offerings from other players as long as the Offering of the Dead buff (second buff from the left) is up. Offering of the Dead stacks up to a maximum of 8 (one from each player).

02:51:53: Gluttony again. +2 Demonic Scythe.

02:51:54: Gibbet.

02:51:56: Gallows.

02:52:00: Plentiful Harvest. Line AoE (520-800 potency, depending on number of Offering of the Dead stacks consumed, +50 Shroud if at least one stack consumed). This, coupled with Arcane Circle, allows you to jump directly back into Shroud form again.

02:52:02: Lemure Shroud again. Note that it only consumes 50 Shroud, leaving 20 Shroud still on the bar.

02:52:05: Shroud version of Gibbet. Doesn't seem position dependent. Doesn't change the actively ticking Empowered Gibbet buff, either. Grants an additional buff that matches the icon for the Shroud version of Gallows. Consumes 1 Flame, turning it into a purple Orb.

02:52:07: Shroud version of Gallows. Again, doesn't seem position dependent, but consumes the buff that was just applied, and consumes 1 Flame, turning it into a second Orb. When this happens, the oGCD button lights up.

02:52:08: Shroud version of Stalk Swathe. oGCD, consumes two purple Orbs.

02:52:09: Shroud version of Gibbet.

02:52:10: Shroud version of Gallows.

02:52:11: Shroud version of Stalk Swathe.

02:52:12: Communio: Spell (1000 potency, 1.3s cast time, 2.5s recast, 1 Lemure Soul). This is the finisher for the Shroud window and uses up your last flame (and orb). It also ends the Shroud effect regardless of how much time you have left. Interestingly, Empowered Gibbet is still up, ticking away until you get back into your standard Demonic Scythe combo.

02:52:18: Harvest Moon again. You can see that this has some range to it.

---

02:52:39: Soul Slice again. +50 Soul.

02:52:57: Gluttony again. +2 Demonic Scythe.

02:52:59: Gibbet.

02:53:01: Gallows.

02:53:04: Soul Slice.

02:53:05: Stalk Swathe. +1 Demonic Scythe.

02:53:07: Gibbet.

02:53:12: Lemure Shroud.

02:53:16: Shroud Gibbet.

02:53:18: Shroud Gallows.

02:53:18: Shroud oGCD.

02:53:19: Shroud Gibbet.

02:53:20: Shroud Gallows.

02:53:20: Shroud oGCD.

02:53:21: Communio.

---

02:54:00: Gap Closer. This time, the Gap Extender button changes to the portal icon, ready to bring you back to your starting point if you press it again in the next 10 seconds. I note that the 15 second fist buff shows up again.

02:54:05: Soul Slice.

02:54:06: Gluttony. +2 Demonic Scythes.

02:54:07: Gibbet.

02:54:09: Gallows.

A lot of the remaining two minutes seems to be just variations on this.

Now that we have the basic vocabulary down, let's have a look at the action trailer again.

Action Trailer:
1. Soul Sow.
2. Harpe.
3. Gap closer.
4. Death Sign.
5. Soul Scythe.
5. Arcane Crest. Player takes damage and Activated Crest buff gets applied to Reaper and Bard.
6. Thief Swathe.
7. Gibbet.
8. Arcane Circle. Bard shoots the Hexeyes and the Reaper gains an Offering Stack.
9. Soul Scythe.
10. Gluttony.
11. Gibbet.
12. Gallows.
13. Gap extender.
14. Harvest Moon (consumes Soul Sow).
15. Portal back.
16. Plentiful Harvest (consumes Offering stacks).
17. Lemure Shroud.
18. Upgraded Gibbet.
19. Upgraded Gallows.
10. Upgraded oGCD.
21. Upgraded Gibbet.
22. Upgraded Gallows.
23. Upgraded oGCD.
24. Communio.

All in all, this looks surprisingly complex. The core gameplay flow seems straightforward enough, but I don't think that many people will intuitively grasp how it's put together without some external guidance. There's about 4 resource systems here, with multiple rolling buff icons. I'm surprised that they kept the Demonic Scythe stacks and the Empowered Gibbet/Gallows buff icons separate from the UI elements, as this is the sort of the thing it's there for. Even the raid buff window requires some thought and the stacks you gain from teammates allow you to jump into another Shroud window.

I chuckled when I read the earlier comment about this being too fiddly. It was either going to be dismissed as that or 'lol mind-numbingly easy', so you can see that the dev team gets flak regardless of what they do. Kudos for them taking a risk on it. Enjoy it while can if you're one of the few weird players who actually likes job complexity (instead of the majority who just brags about it and promptly turns tail at the first hint of a challenge), because I envision this is going to be simplified down to a shadow of what it presently is faster and harder than GNB's 'revamped' IR combo (111111).