Lost Ark Hunger Reaper Build

Best End-Game Reaper Build in Lost Ark

The Reaper class has been one of the most popular classes in Korean Lost Ark ever since its launch due to her aesthetically-pleasing skins and action-packed skills. Her playstyle involves generating an identity gauge as fast as possible and maintaining it throughout the raid. You can play reaper however you like, whether you want to make her a piano DPS or a burst DPS. But generally, she has decent synergy skills and high mobility, making her deadly on the battlefield. In this guide, I'll discuss the entry-level build for this popular class.

What is Lunar and Hunger Reaper?

All the classes in the game involve their core engravings which are called Class Engraving for their build. For reapers, here are the two engravings:

• Hunger (aka Thirst): Chaos Meter +30%. Atk. Power +25% when the Chaos Meter is full.
• Lunar (aka Moon): Swoop Damage +160% instead of the Swoop Enhancement effect that stacks every 1s upon switching to Persona Mode.

As you can see, Lunar Reaper has higher damage than Hunger Reaper. However, Hunger reapers provide consistent damage with little to no adjustment on skill rotation. Hunger reapers are piano classes such as Reflux Sorceress that uses skills on cooldown as much as possible. Lunar Reapers have a higher damage ceiling in the hyper-end game if you land all your skills to the enemy.

Note: Hyper end-game means having the max gem, tripods, and gears in Lost Ark. Currently, western Lost Ark is planning to reach end-game in December (Brelshaza Update).

Skill Build for Hunger Reaper in Lost Ark

Reapers have three different variety of skills: Dagger, Shadow, and Swoop skills, and each one of them have importance in your gameplay:

Dagger (Green): These skills have the lowest damage ceiling yet provide a synergy buff for your teammate. It also helps lower the cooldown of your high-burst skills (red).

Shadow (Purple): These skills provide crowd control and excellent mobility on the battlefield. On top of that, these skills also give you the most identity meter in your skill rotation.

Swoop (Red): These skills have the highest DPS in your skill tree.

It's also worth mentioning that her identity gauge lets her transform into two modes: Chaos and Persona mode. Chaos mode is primarily built for Hunger reapers since it revolves around dealing fast damage in her most agile form without transforming. On the other hand, Persona Mode makes you a stealthy assassin looking for an opportunity to strike the enemy at the back. Now that we’ve covered everything you need to know to use their skills, here are the builds that you need in the end-game content:

Note: These are the skill tripods that you need to invest on to have 10-15% damage increase in your overall DPS ceiling. But ideally, maxing out all your skill tripods benefit you in the hyper end-game.

Awakening Skill

For this build, it's highly recommended to use Lunar Eclipse: Cadenza as your ultimate ability since it provides you identity gauge and deals more damage than the second one. However, the downside of opting for this skill is its slower animation. Alternatively, you can use Solar Eclipse: Requiem to deal safe damage or single out one target among the mobs in a certain game raid.

Gameplay

• Nightmare and Shadow Vortex leaves a debuff of 12% defense reduction with your tripod. Nightmare is also one of the best counter skills in the game that allows you to teleport into the enemy.On the other hand, Shadow Vortex allows you to reduce your swoop skills cooldown by 1-5-1.9 seconds.
• Distortion is the primary mobility skill that allows you to reposition while ignoring collisions with the boss.
• Shadow Storm is your primary identity gauge generator and offers the boss decent damage.
• Dance of Fury, Rage Spear, Silent Rage, and Glowing Brand is your highest DPS skills that need precise attention. Missing these skills will cost you much of your DPS but less punishable as a Hunger Reaper.
• Remember to always be at the back of the boss under certain conditions: Your gauge is filled up, and your swoop skills are ready to use.

Skill Rotation

Gauge Generator

Lunar Eclipse: Cadenza 

Shadow Storm

Nightmare

Shadow Vortex

Chaos Mode Rotation (DPS)

There is no specific combo, and choosing which to prioritize is situational. So don't worry if you have to mix up your DPS rotation.

1. Rage Spear
2. Silent Rage
3. Glowing Brand
4. Dance of Fury
5. (Optional) Use Green or Purple skills to maintain chaos gauge

Note: Use Shadow Vortex on cooldown to use your skill tripod and proc Quick Recharge to refresh your skills quickly.

Stats Priority

Reapers need Specialization and Swiftness for maximum cooldown reduction and skill damage. As for this build, there are two viable stat distributions:

Balanced: This build is the most popular since it has the balance of Specialization and Swiftness. Specialization scales the damage of your Swoop skills, while Swiftness provides movement speed, attack speed, and cooldown reduction.

Accessories

x1 Swiftness and Specialization Necklace

x1 Swiftness Earring

x1 Specialization Earring

x1 Swfitness Ring

x1 Specialization Ring

High Swiftness

This build sacrifice a huge damage potential of your Swoop skill because of lower Specialization. In return, you get more cooldown reduction and can spam skills frequently. This build is more Reapers who want to use their Raid Captain engraving. To achieve this, you only need one Swiftness and Specialization Necklace. And investing in Swiftness Accessories on the rest.

Engravings For Reaper

Mandatory 

Hunger: As mentioned above, this engraving provides flat 25% damage when Chaos Mode is active.

Ambush Master: Most of your skills involves in utilizing back attack modifiers. This engraving is perfect since it provides 25% back attack damage.

Damage Engravings

Grudge: Reaper is one of the squishiest classes in the game, comparable to Machinist or Deadeye. Having this engraving gives you 20% more damage but receives incoming 20% damage from the boss. This could cost you your life in most of the raid, and I highly advise you to engrave this when you're ready.

Cursed Doll: Provides you 16% Atk. Power at the cost of a 25% healing penalty. This is a much safer option if you're just a beginner DPS.

Optional Engravings:

Raid Captain: This synergizes well with your build since it provides additional damage without penalty. Swiftness classes usually opt for this engraving since it provides 45% Outgoing damage based on your Move Speed bonus.

Adrenaline: Having a low cooldown helps you build a stack and maintain a stack as your identity meter. This will help compensate for your low crit rate since it provides 15% Crit Damage and a little Atk. Power increased.

Keen Blunt Weapon: This is optional and could be useful in the end game.

Engraving Setup

Standard Build

Hunger (LVL 3)

Grudge (LVL 3)

Ambush Master (LVL 3)

Adrenaline (LVL 3)

Raid Captain (LVL 3)

Optimal Build

Hunger (LVL 3)

Grudge (LVL 3)

Ambush (LVL 3)

Cursed Doll (LVL 3)

Raid Captain (LVL 3)

Adrenaline (LVL 1)

Conclusion

Reaper is an exciting class that is for both beginner and advance Lost Ark players that wants to feel like a ninja. Their mobility skills are the best in the game that will let you land your back attacks efficiently. However, reapers are competitive classes, and making them your main character could cost you a lot of gold. This is because you need to gear your reaper to beat some other classes in the meta, such as Igniter Sorceress, Taijutsu Scrapper, or even First Intention Wardancers.