Reaper DPS Rotation, Openers, and Abilities - Dawntrail 7.0 (2024)

Last updated on Jul 04, 2024 at 00:00by Ellunavi8 comments

On this page, you will learn how to optimise your opener and rotation inboth single-target and multi-target situations. We also cover the use ofyour cooldowns, to ensure you can achieve the best use of them every timeas a Reaper DPS in Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail (Patch 7.0).

Reaper has two general openers.

This opener will more-or-less be our running standard. It will align us with 3rd GCD buffs across the raid.Gemdraught (Tincture) is still optional here, as we get a better Gemdraught window at the 2 minute mark.

1. Soulsow anytime before the pull.
2. Pre-cast Harpe when there is 1.7s left on the countdown.
3. Use Hell's Ingress if the boss is out of melee range after the cast goes off.
4. Shadow of Death → Late Weave Gemdraught(Tincture) *
5. Soul Slice → .5s Delay* → Arcane Circle → Gluttony
6. Executioner's Gibbet
7. Executioner's Gallows
8. Soul Slice
9. Plentiful Harvest → Enshroud
10. Void Reaping → Sacrificium
11. Cross Reaping → Lemure's Slice
12. Void Reaping
13. Cross Reaping→ Lemure's Slice
14. Communio
15. Perfectio → Unveiled Gibbet
16. Gibbet
17. Shadow of Death
18. Slice → Gemdraught(Tincture) will end here
19. Soul Slice → Unveiled Gallows
20. Gallows

If you have high skillspeed or high ping and find that Plentiful Harvest clips your GCD, you can move the Soul Slice that happensafter Perfectio to before Plentiful Harvest at minimal loss.

*Delay the Arcane Circle about .5s; if this would cause you to clip your GCD then don't delay it here, it can be corrected more easily at the 2-minute burst.

*Gemdraughts (Tinctures) are preferred at the 2-minute mark, but shorter fights may not allow for two gemdraughts if you use it that late.You can optimize your gemdraught in the opener by doing one of the following:

• If you can triple weave, using gemdraught between Arcane Circle and Gluttony is better.
• If your party doesn't have a lot of raid buffs, you can move the second Shadow of Death to after the Soul Slice.When you do this you only use Arcane Circle after Soul Sliceand double weave gemdraught into Gluttony after the second Shadow of Death.
• You can also use the gemdraught as recommended in the priority above at minimal gemdraught efficiency loss.

Reaper can be played as a priority system and be an effective damage dealer inany party. This isn't the recommend style of play, as optimizing your 2 minute burst window is better.Below is the basic priority system:

1. Use Executioner's Gibbet or Executioner's Gallows if you have an Executionerstack.
   • Use Executioner's Gibbet if you have the “Enhanced Gibbet" buff.
   • Use Executioner's Gallows if you have the “Enhanced Gallows" buff.
   • Use either if you have no buff.
   • These are positionals, please check the tooltip to hit the right positional or use True North when executing them.
2. Use Gibbet or Gallows if you have a Reaverstack.
   • Use Gibbet if you have the “Enhanced Gibbet" buff.
   • Use Gallows if you have the “Enhanced Gallows" buff.
   • Use either if you have no buff.
   • These are positionals, please check the tooltip to hit the right positional or use True North when executing them.
3. Do not let Ideal Host fall off without using Enshroud.
4. Do not let Perfectio Parata fall off without casting Perfectio.
5. Do not drop your combo. Combos last for 30 seconds, so make sure you use Waxing Slice or Infernal Slice if your combowill drop.
6. Maintain the Death's Design debuff at all times by using Shadow of Death.
7. Use Arcane Circle on cooldown.
8. Use Plentiful Harvest if you have Immortal Sacrifice stacks.
9. Use Soul Slice if you have 50 or less Soul.
10. Use Gluttony if you have 50 or more Soul and it is offcooldown.
11. Enter your Enshroud phase if you have 50 or more Shroud or have the Ideal Host buff.
    • Start with Void Reaping or Cross Reaping followed by Sacrificium.
    • Alternate these two weapon skills four times.
    • Use Lemure's Slice in between every other weaponskill.
    • Use Communio to finish the phase.
    • Eg: Void Reaping → Sacrificium → Cross Reaping→ Lemure's Slice → Void Reaping→ Cross Reaping → Lemure's Slice → Communio
12. Use Harvest Moon if the target is about to jump or die andyou still have the Soul Sow buff up.
13. Use an Unveiled action variant if you have 50 or more Soul and 90 or lessShroud.
14. Use your combo actions ( Slice, Waxing Sliceor Infernal Slice) as fillers.
15. Use Harvest Moon if you are not in melee range of the targetand have the Soul Sow buff up
16. Use Harpe if you are not in melee range of the target.
17. Use Soulsow if the target is untargetable for 5 seconds ormore.

1. Use Executioner's Guillotine if you have an Executioner stack.
2. Use Guillotine if you have a Reaver stack.
3. Do not let Ideal Host fall off without using Enshroud.
4. Do not let Perfectio Parata fall off without casting Perfectio.
5. Do not drop your combo. Combos last 30 seconds, so make sure you use Nightmare Scythe if your combo will drop.
6. Maintain the Death's Design debuff at all times by using Whorl of Death.
7. Use Arcane Circle on cooldown.
8. Use Plentiful Harvest if youhave Immortal Sacrifice stacks.
9. Use Soul Scythe if you have 50 or less Soul.
10. Use Gluttony if you have 50 or more Soul.
11. Enter your Enshroud phase if you have 50 or more Shroud.
    • Use Grim Reaping 4 times.
    • Use Sacrificium once.
    • Use Lemure's Scythe in between every other Grim Reaping.
    • Use Communio to finish the phase.
    • Eg: Grim Reaping → Grim Reaping→ Lemure's Scythe → Grim Reaping → Grim Reaping → Lemure's Scythe → Communio
12. Use Harvest Moon if you have the Soul Sow buff.
13. Use Grim Swathe if you have 50 or more Soul and 90 or lessShroud.
14. Use your combo actions( Spinning Scythe or Nightmare Scythe) as fillers.
15. Use Harpe if you are not in melee range of the target.
16. Use Soulsow if the target is untargetable for 5 seconds ormore.

Whenever you obtain a Reaver, your next weaponskill must be one that spends aReaver ( Gibbet, Gallows, and Guillotine). Using any other weaponskill will immediatelycancel the Reaver buff. The same applies to the Executioners granted by Gluttony and theirrespective skills.

Reaper has an odd-timed rotation so Gluttony will not alwaysneatly fit into the same off-GCD slot. It drifts a little bit every minute. If you are using an optimized Double Enshourd burst,It will be forcefully drifted. If this would cost you a Gluttony usage it is better to do Single Enshroud burstsand keep Gluttony on cooldown.

You want to start using your AoE abilities / weaponskills when there are threetargets or more.

You should use Whorl of Death to apply Death's Design on two targets if youare about to Enshroud as Communio, Sacrificium, Gluttony, Harvest Moon, Perfectio and Plentiful Harvest all have splash damage.

As a Reaper you will want to use Grade 1 Gemdraught of Strength.Ideally you want to use it at your 2 minute burst, but if the fight allows youthree gemdraughts then you should use one on the opener instead.

Harvest Moon has a very long range making it best usedwhenever you are forced out of range. It also deals a good amount of AoEdamage so hitting two or more targets with it is preferred aswell. If thefight is full uptime and single target then you will want to use it beforethe fight ends.

When you use Arcane Circle you and your party will receive onestack of a buff called “Ceremony Circle” and you will receive a buff called“Bloodsown Circle”. Whenever someone uses a damaging spell or weaponskillwhile under the effects of Ceremony Circle the stack will be consumed and itwill give the Reaper one stack of Immortal Sacrifices. You cannot use Plentiful Harvest until Bloodsown Circle has worn off, whichmeans you only use it once for every cast of Arcane Circle.

Plentiful Harvest also grants you two buffs called Ideal Host and Perfectio Occulta.Ideal Host allows your next Enshroud to be used without consuming gauge.Perfectio Occulta will change into Perfectio Parata after your next Communio. Allowingaccess to Perfectio.

Harpe has a cast time of 1.3 seconds and won't apply itsdamage until a few milliseconds after. This allows us to cast it pre-pull withoutsacrificing anything or early pulling the boss.

If you are looking to get the best damage out of Reaper you will want to lookinto squeezing as much damage into your party's buffs. You can do this byperforming multiple Enshroud phases during the two-minutebuff window. Normally, because of Enshroud's cooldown, it is difficult to gettwo uses in raid buffs but if you time your Shadow of Deathrefresh appropriately you can extend the duration of Enshroud and push all theheavy-hitting abilities into buffs. The best way to do this is by refreshingyour Death's Design debuff near the end of its duration rather than letting itstack up to full in between burst phases.

Double shroud will be the more common and accessible burst sequence availableto Reaper. There are a number of variants to this sequence and most of themwill depend on your situation but below is an example of how the standard sequence will look:

1. There are less than 7-8s remaining on Arcane Circle'scooldown.
2. Use Combo Action** → Enshroud
3. Use Shadow of Death
4. Use Void Reaping
5. Use Shadow of Death → Gemdraught(Tincture) → Arcane Circle*
6. Use Cross Reaping → Lemure's Slice
7. Use Void Reaping → Sacrificium
8. Use Cross Reaping → Lemure's Slice
9. Use Communio
10. Use Plentiful Harvest → Enshroud
11. Use Void Reaping → Sacrificium
12. Use Cross Reaping → Lemure's Slice
13. Use Void Reaping
14. Use Cross Reaping → Lemure's Slice
15. Use Communio
16. Priority System:
    1. If the you are in combo and the action you use before starting this burst sequence was NOT a combo action,you will need to use Combo next.
    2. Perfectio.
    3. If you are in combo, and you didn't have to use the above combo action in the Priority, use your combo action here.If you are not in combo then you can skip this step.
    4. If you have less than 50 soul and/or Gluttony is not up, use Soul Slice.
    5. Gluttony
    6. Executioner's Gibbet / Executioner's Gallows to consume Executionersfrom Gluttony.

Don't be intimidated by the Priority above, it is simple in execution once you do it enough times. The biggest thing to look out for is if you have to start the burst on a non-combo action.In a full up-time fight this happens at the 8 minute burst where we have to start our burst after a Reaver spender. Always prioritize maintaining your combo, if you delay at any point in this burst it is better to finish it withyour combo action than Perfectio, as the combo timer will be really tight otherwise.

Even if you do not use a Gemdraught(Tincture), it is important that Arcane Circle falls into the second oGCD slot. If you are having trouble timing that without the gemdraught, then just replace the gemdraught usage with Leg Sweep or Arcane Crest to help you get the timing right.

If you are fight timings cause you to lose GCDs or you will hit the 10 minute window of a fight,it is recommended to not use the odd minute enshroud and bank gauge for the above burst. IE don't use the 50 Shroud gauge you getat the 9th minute and use it in the 10th to do the same burst as above. If you feel uncomfortable holding onto gauge that long becauseof potential deaths, then you will need to play Reaper as priority when resources don't allow for the above burst.

Planning an optimal usage for Harvest Moon will add a bit ofextra DPS during a boss fight. When trying to figure out how to use itconsider the following cases in order:

1. Multi-target situation in a fight, if you can hit 2 or more targets.
2. If you have to disconnect for more than one weaponskill, Harvest Moon can replace a Harpe
3. During buff windows if it would replace a Slice.

Perfectio is another ranged tool at our disposal. Not utilizing it in the buff window in orderto replace a use of Harpe will almost always be a DPS gain. There are further optimizations you can do suchas planning a single Enshroud window and using Plentiful Harvest after. This will allow you to carry Perfectio Occultafor 30s which will in turn let you carry Perfectio Parata for another 30s, granting you an extended window to use Perfectio as a ranged GCD.This require meticulous mapping and should only be done after careful considerations.

Due to Gluttony being stronger, if it would costus a usage before the 8 minute mark in a fight, it is recommend to play Reaper as a priority andignore the Double Enshroud burst windows. This comes at a big netDPS loss if not utililzed in situations where Gluttony and its subsequent Executioners would be lost.We recommend consulting the Balance Discord for fight specific optimizations that would force this change.

Given the flexible nature of Reaper, mapping out encounters is the best way tooptimize: Linked below is a planner that can be used for such a reason: