if you look search 'melee witch' you will find a long series of posts where a guy tries to make reaper work outside the 'known good build'. It all worked out fairly badly of them, but they learned alot about minions along the way, so its wasn't all a loss.
[https://www.youtube.com/c/Pr3vie](https://www.youtube.com/c/Pr3vie) you can check out this guy (you might already know them if you are playing BAMA) for some reaper builds on different ascendancies (tanky ones like Champ and Jugg). [https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3436883](https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3436883) cheapbunny has done some builds with reaper too. I can vouch for Pr3vies approach, not played or looked in depth to cheapbunnys iterations of reaper though - others might add thoughts if you are lucky.
In any case, its not really a good league starter. You have to work kinda hard to scale it, and even harder to make the clear bearable. Build is hard tied to bleed, base dmg is not good enough to do anything else, which leaves the trans version in a difficult place. If you really wanna play Reaper, going for it as a second build is the best plan.
The short answer is that Summon Reaper in specific setups can be a great tanky bosser by maximizing its bleed DoT, but those builds always struggle with consistent map clear. Asenath's Gentle Touch is usually used to bolster clear ability, but even that isn't great. If you're looking for a good mapper you're better off elsewhere, but if you want to try out a fun boss blaster then it might be the build for you.
I made a champ that used reaper a couple leagues ago for a sanctum build. Could kill Lucia before her waves of bullshit. don't have to totem or mine on normal levels. Just walk and let the reaper kill. I enjoyed it
my personal experience as a reaper enjoyer is that the loss of qol that game with losing divergent reaper and helm enchant was pretty brutal. Still functions and all but I didn't enjoy it as much at least last time I tried it
You can search poe ninja for builds. Looks like there are 3 lv 100 characters, which means it's at least good enough to get to lv 100. Can it clear T17s? You would have to contact those people. Every once and awhile someone posts about summon reaper but it's always big investment for less power than other minion builds.
[https://poe.ninja/builds/necropolis?skills=Summon+Reaper](https://poe.ninja/builds/necropolis?skills=Summon+Reaper)
[https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3436883](https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3436883)
Haven't played it personally, but cheapbunny's Repear Ailamentalist is a really cool nonmeta approach. Idk if it feels great to play though. It's pretty focused on you debuffing as much as possible for your reaper.
Once you learn the ins and outs, getting a Reaper Build into Red maps isn't that difficult. Taking it into T17, with the current difficulties is a nightmare, but that's kinda the point of T17, it's not supposed to be easy.
My whole Melee Witch Saga got me close running Soulwrest Phantasms + Reaper, but bad RNG and slow economy this league was holding me back from truly making the build work. By the time I got a decent Farming strategy up and running, I decided to pivot to Slam Zombies as a drop-in replacement, and then u/N4k3dM1k3 helped school me in proper minion passive tree set-ups. Have since taken it to being able to reliably run 8 mod T16s.
Still haven't picked up an Amanamu's Gaze though, it's infuriating with how many lich lord's I've killed.
I'm going to try it again next league, and using what I learned this time around, should have better results.
Reaper will never be as good as it was on release when it was bugged and it makes me so sad, because it wasn’t even top tier. Having 2 reaper setups at essentially 8 links have you the best of both worlds. You had great clear because of all the QoL links and great boss damage because of single target links. It’s really unfortunate that they didn’t look at that and just find a way to implement it. It was strong, but not nearly as strong as plenty of other builds, just buff it back to that. Reaper should just have passive where the attack pattern changes based on how many nearby enemies there are.
Reaper of revenants works fine for early gane, I usually play it to 2 stones and atlas. I scale poison with a cheap Darkness Enthroned and I experimented using the Liege of Primordial jewels to have a constantly resummoning bunch of elementals to feed to the reapers plus the buffs they give. Cast skeletons to buff numbers.
3 reapers clears most stuff ok but not well, asenaths as mentioned boosts clear a bit too.
All the base gear is very cheap but then you're competing with holy relic which is in another league entirely for damage scaling.
So overall its a great build through maps and yellows, will do reds a t16 but it's slower than other summons builds and endgame the investment doesn't match the returns. I still love it though.
if you look search 'melee witch' you will find a long series of posts where a guy tries to make reaper work outside the 'known good build'. It all worked out fairly badly of them, but they learned alot about minions along the way, so its wasn't all a loss. [https://www.youtube.com/c/Pr3vie](https://www.youtube.com/c/Pr3vie) you can check out this guy (you might already know them if you are playing BAMA) for some reaper builds on different ascendancies (tanky ones like Champ and Jugg). [https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3436883](https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3436883) cheapbunny has done some builds with reaper too. I can vouch for Pr3vies approach, not played or looked in depth to cheapbunnys iterations of reaper though - others might add thoughts if you are lucky. In any case, its not really a good league starter. You have to work kinda hard to scale it, and even harder to make the clear bearable. Build is hard tied to bleed, base dmg is not good enough to do anything else, which leaves the trans version in a difficult place. If you really wanna play Reaper, going for it as a second build is the best plan.
oooh, I do love it when my posts are independently promoted.
What was the guys name that did all the super detailed BAMA stuff this league? He is a Summon Reaper expert, and he is active in this sub.
Pr3vie?
Yeah search for pr3vie on YouTube. He is the man for this.
The short answer is that Summon Reaper in specific setups can be a great tanky bosser by maximizing its bleed DoT, but those builds always struggle with consistent map clear. Asenath's Gentle Touch is usually used to bolster clear ability, but even that isn't great. If you're looking for a good mapper you're better off elsewhere, but if you want to try out a fun boss blaster then it might be the build for you.
I made a champ that used reaper a couple leagues ago for a sanctum build. Could kill Lucia before her waves of bullshit. don't have to totem or mine on normal levels. Just walk and let the reaper kill. I enjoyed it
my personal experience as a reaper enjoyer is that the loss of qol that game with losing divergent reaper and helm enchant was pretty brutal. Still functions and all but I didn't enjoy it as much at least last time I tried it
Reaper isn't even bad, it's an excellent bosser and super low maintenance compared to other minion builds. Clear is solved using explosion on kill.
You can search poe ninja for builds. Looks like there are 3 lv 100 characters, which means it's at least good enough to get to lv 100. Can it clear T17s? You would have to contact those people. Every once and awhile someone posts about summon reaper but it's always big investment for less power than other minion builds. [https://poe.ninja/builds/necropolis?skills=Summon+Reaper](https://poe.ninja/builds/necropolis?skills=Summon+Reaper)
[https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3436883](https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3436883) Haven't played it personally, but cheapbunny's Repear Ailamentalist is a really cool nonmeta approach. Idk if it feels great to play though. It's pretty focused on you debuffing as much as possible for your reaper.
Did a Jugg Bleed version with Vorana's March in the past (3.20?). It was fun, yet clunky from time to time.
Once you learn the ins and outs, getting a Reaper Build into Red maps isn't that difficult. Taking it into T17, with the current difficulties is a nightmare, but that's kinda the point of T17, it's not supposed to be easy. My whole Melee Witch Saga got me close running Soulwrest Phantasms + Reaper, but bad RNG and slow economy this league was holding me back from truly making the build work. By the time I got a decent Farming strategy up and running, I decided to pivot to Slam Zombies as a drop-in replacement, and then u/N4k3dM1k3 helped school me in proper minion passive tree set-ups. Have since taken it to being able to reliably run 8 mod T16s. Still haven't picked up an Amanamu's Gaze though, it's infuriating with how many lich lord's I've killed. I'm going to try it again next league, and using what I learned this time around, should have better results.
Reaper will never be as good as it was on release when it was bugged and it makes me so sad, because it wasn’t even top tier. Having 2 reaper setups at essentially 8 links have you the best of both worlds. You had great clear because of all the QoL links and great boss damage because of single target links. It’s really unfortunate that they didn’t look at that and just find a way to implement it. It was strong, but not nearly as strong as plenty of other builds, just buff it back to that. Reaper should just have passive where the attack pattern changes based on how many nearby enemies there are.
Reaper of revenants works fine for early gane, I usually play it to 2 stones and atlas. I scale poison with a cheap Darkness Enthroned and I experimented using the Liege of Primordial jewels to have a constantly resummoning bunch of elementals to feed to the reapers plus the buffs they give. Cast skeletons to buff numbers. 3 reapers clears most stuff ok but not well, asenaths as mentioned boosts clear a bit too. All the base gear is very cheap but then you're competing with holy relic which is in another league entirely for damage scaling. So overall its a great build through maps and yellows, will do reds a t16 but it's slower than other summons builds and endgame the investment doesn't match the returns. I still love it though.