When to start doing Reapers and what level of Reapers do you do?

I am currently on life 39 or so. 3 Paladin and all the rest in racials trying to complete all of those. Anyways I have started to mess with reaper levels and I currently have 7 reaper points. Its not much but when I used to play reapers it seamed like I would die very quickly so I just played it safe and do almost everything on Elite. The problem is some quest I never run into one reaper and then another I run into 6 total and usually die. It seems random and that sucks for trying to level. Elite I almost never die and reaper its like 50-50 depending on what shows up. Some reapers hit me and I cant heal it seams and others seem to just be a hard monster but not much else. I have read the DDO Wiki on it but I want advice from here.

Anyways I have done the fire caves on Korthos Island at Reaper level 3 and survived lol. I do a few reapers on other quest but my experience is if there are traps or lots of magic hitting monsters dont do it on reaper. Im just looking for advice on what level do most people do reapers and HOW TO PREPARE for them. Heres some info on how I play.

I almost always SOLO very rarely join groups.

I only level to 20 then reincarnate.

I always run Paladin to 15 then 5 levels of Fighter now.

I have tomes of plus 7 on everything stat.

Anyways I see people saying they run like level 7 reaper and some say "im getting ready to do such and such at reaper level 10 if anybody wants to join."

What do you guys run, what level do you start and about what level do you start doing higher reapers? Is it a group thing or solo thing after reaper 1 or 4 or such?

I start reapers at level 3/4 whichever I begin questing at (eat tokens/do solos and quests that can't be reapered to get there). If I'm in a hurry to get back to 30 and am soloing, I'll run R1/2/3 depending on which toon and which class.

If I'm running with my Wife, we do R3/4 depending on quest and our classes.

If in a group we usually run R4 to level.

The key is to try it and do the highest level reaper you can with minimal slow down. As you get more reaper points, run quests that felt easy last life on 1 R higher. You want as much reaper XP as you can without slowing down. For our mains thats R2/3/4 depending on the quest and the classes we are running. On less mature toons its often R1.

Most R6-10 groups are running epic/legendary quests. We run R6 to R8 with most groups at end game. We can do R10, but in most quests with our groups its enough faster to do R8 that we do that instead.

I am a fairly casual reaper runner (18 reaper points). I tend to run R1 (solo) up to and including Ravenloft and then the Gianthold quests. I find Sharn a bit too hard and you should note that after lvl 10 dungeons the carnage reapers hit like trucks.

You can always run dungeons on lvl+4 to get easier reaper points and still get most of the xp. Also just stay at R1 on the low level quests as increasing the reaper level does not add much in the way of xp.

It should be noted that the older quests are much easier than the newer expansions.

Doing this should net you around 60k reaper xp per life.

If you are just dipping your toe into reaper, going low and easy tends to be the best way.

Yeah it can be a little annoying when you get a particularly nasty spawn of Reapers, but as you get better at it you'll raise your threshold of what "nasty" looks like

- There's no point in running more than R1 if you're just doing Heroic leveling. R2+ gives you more RXP, but it will slow you down more than that's worth. Once you're comfy in soloing R1, then you're "done" for leveling intents and purposes, and more Reaper points are just gravy. The only time to move up to R2+ for leveling is if its literally just as easy as R1

- Stay pure Paladin. There's no real benefit of splashing /5 Fighter at L15. More Paladin gives you CSW at 18 (and those last 2 levels matter), and gives you more Paladin levels to scale your Ex Smite, Angelskin, Righteous Command, and LoH. You shouldn't have free points to drop into Fighter trees anyway, and there arent too many feats that are that useful outside your first six.

- The biggest issue with solo R1 is self-healing, so make sure you load up as much Hamp as you can. Crown of Butterflies from 5-20, if you dont have one already. Be liberal with the LoHs too, especially once you get extras in Sac Def. You'll die trying to "save them" far more often than you'll die for having used them all up.

- Second most useful stat is Dodge, so make sure you're using Med armor, taking MDB bonuses in Sac Def, and investing enough Reaper points to hit your cap while in Reaper mode.

- AC is also useful for leveling, so dont sleep on those bonuses either

- Magic traps: carry a Large shield to equip while you run through. You'll get double MRR against them, and you should have a lot of MRR to begin with

- Plague Reapers: these are really the only ones that should pose a threat to you, so keep an eye out for them. Try to circle around and keep another mob between you and them, and hit them with your Strikethrough. They wont hit you with their Healing Curse effect if they're constantly trying to path around other mobs to get in melee. 1v1 you should be able to facetank them though. Spam your Ex Smites on them, and they should drop pretty quick.

- You should be able to UMD Shield scrolls for quests where you know there's nasty MM casters (eg Flame Skulls in Amber Temple)

- Harper Pin + PLIS is a useful combo to have on your hotbar. You wont need it often, but when you do its a huge difference maker, when you're facing a CC-heavy fight. Those can often go south fast in Reaper.

When to start?
When you can.

What difficulty?
I honestly suggest start with R1, then if you feel it is too easy (generally it is when you feel that you are doing better than when on elite due to RPs) bump it up and find that difficulty that gives you the balance of Challenge and Speed you are looking for. Keep in mind that at R5 there is a boost in the types of Reapers and the higher you go the less Solo friendly it becomes.

I currently run in a TR group (4+) that we run R4 - maximizes the speed but keeps some challenge. I have a static group that we run R2, but we are a casual group and it is more for the company than it is for grinding xp. Solo I generally run R2.

Start ASAP. R1 really isn't that much harder than elite.

Do as high as you can "comfortably". I generally run heroics r2, just because the juice really isn't worth the squeeze higher than that, epics r3-4, (again more than that the extra rxp just isn't worth the added diff) and then all legendary 6+ for the juicy xp. (melees I usually floor at 6, ranged and healer at 8)
You probably won't want to do 6+ legendary till you get some points, but r1 should be allright.

I started taking the last 5 lives as Fight at about life 20. It appears to me to do more damage and I can level from 15-20 in 2-3 days anymore if I play. i think I did it in 1 day actually about a month ago.....ive been stuck at home alot lately. I use 2 handed greatswords only and load up on the 30% attack speed on my first level then work my way up to +3 more critical hit in the tree. I decimate stuff I feel way quicker than just 20 levels of straight paladin. I strongly recommend anybody just leveling to 20 paladin and reincarnating to try it. Just one level of fighter gives you a 30% attack speed several times per quest which just mows downs mobs. If I was playing to 30 I read its much different.

Anyways good info on reapers. I will stick to R1 which is most of what Ive been doing if I can pull it off.

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Originally Posted by copper305

I started taking the last 5 lives as Fight at about life 20. It appears to me to do more damage and I can level from 15-20 in 2-3 days anymore if I play. i think I did it in 1 day actually about a month ago.....ive been stuck at home alot lately. I use 2 handed greatswords only and load up on the 30% attack speed on my first level then work my way up to +3 more critical hit in the tree. I decimate stuff I feel way quicker than just 20 levels of straight paladin. I strongly recommend anybody just leveling to 20 paladin and reincarnating to try it. Just one level of fighter gives you a 30% attack speed several times per quest which just mows downs mobs. If I was playing to 30 I read its much different.

Anyways good info on reapers. I will stick to R1 which is most of what Ive been doing if I can pull it off.

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You can get haste boost in VKF, no need to take fighter levels.

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Originally Posted by copper305

I am currently on life 39 or so. 3 Paladin and all the rest in racials trying to complete all of those. Anyways I have started to mess with reaper levels and I currently have 7 reaper points. Its not much but when I used to play reapers it seamed like I would die very quickly so I just played it safe and do almost everything on Elite. The problem is some quest I never run into one reaper and then another I run into 6 total and usually die. It seems random and that sucks for trying to level. Elite I almost never die and reaper its like 50-50 depending on what shows up. Some reapers hit me and I cant heal it seams and others seem to just be a hard monster but not much else. I have read the DDO Wiki on it but I want advice from here.

Anyways I have done the fire caves on Korthos Island at Reaper level 3 and survived lol. I do a few reapers on other quest but my experience is if there are traps or lots of magic hitting monsters dont do it on reaper. Im just looking for advice on what level do most people do reapers and HOW TO PREPARE for them. Heres some info on how I play.

I almost always SOLO very rarely join groups.

I only level to 20 then reincarnate.

I always run Paladin to 15 then 5 levels of Fighter now.

I have tomes of plus 7 on everything stat.

Anyways I see people saying they run like level 7 reaper and some say "im getting ready to do such and such at reaper level 10 if anybody wants to join."

What do you guys run, what level do you start and about what level do you start doing higher reapers? Is it a group thing or solo thing after reaper 1 or 4 or such?

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A first lifer barbarian with a hireling can start soloing r1 as soon as you grab tier3 of blood tribute, so 8 action points in aka level 3?

With my main character who is an epic 3xcompletionist and has 8 racial points, I run everything on r1 while doing my racials now and I feel guilty, I should be running at least r2 but I feel that r1 is the fastest time vs reward for heroic.

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Originally Posted by copper305

I almost always SOLO very rarely join groups.
I only level to 20 then reincarnate.

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Originally Posted by helpfulguy1234

Start ASAP. R1 really isn't that much harder than elite.

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The main reason to run R1 instead of HE is that it's actually easier once you have some RXP, most especially for casters (the souls pretty much ensure you never run out of SP).

As to when and how many skulls, R1 whenever you feel comfortable with it. Don't shy away from joining an R1 group, for instance, if it's doing what you want to do or trying something solo on R1. You'll be plenty strong enough if you're normally fine solo'ing elite.

RXP in heroics is too small for me to bother with more than R1 there, but I do usually bump it to R4 when in epics before doing higher reaper at cap.

I agree with most everyone else. R1 for pretty much all heroic content unless you're grouping (which you state you're very unlikely to do). I feel like once you get about 10 reaper points, R1 is about as easy as elite, plus the xp is better. My experience is all with casters the past few years and I do imagine melee would be harder. Occasionally you do get a dungeon with an obscene number of reapers, but usually it's pretty reasonable with 1-2 per dungeon.

Reapers are relatively easy to crowd control in R1, which may give you an edge. This is probably a little harder on a melee. Are you more cha or str based? Couple options that come to mind are stunning blow if you can spare the feat (no idea how effective this option would be or if it'd even work), or perhaps more effective would be 'greater color spray' from the feydark illusionist enhancement tree (it'd be an 11 AP investment. If you're high cha, this is a tree where you can get cha to attack and damage, which would make the investment easier to justify).

I think running on R1 you can do the quests 1-2 levels higher and still get good xp (example: level 7 quest on normal you can run at level 10-11 and still get as much or nearly as much xp as lvl 9 toon on elite)

One final note - I really dislike hirelings, but R1 usually does feel easier with a healer hireling following you around. The heal debuff is pretty harsh, so nice to have full heals hitting you.

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Originally Posted by copper305

I only level to 20 then reincarnate.

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This is holding you back a bunch. Level to 32, farm out a decent set of endgame gear, and then join groups for reapers. A couple legendary quests at cap will give you more RXP than doing all your quests leveling 1 to 20 on R1 would. The reason people level in r1 isn't for RXP, it's for higher amounts of regular XP to level faster. Get into the habit of getting 32 every TR and then running all the quests for 1st time RXP bonuses and you'll build up your points quickly. My 1st lifer on HC was at 26 reaper points after 1 round of running the various quests at cap on r4 (with a 50% XP pot running).

^ I agree with this. Farm reaper pts at cap. They are really much easier to get at that point. Most of the people with over 100 reaper pts do all their first time bonuses on r6+. I had a first lifer get up to 21 (enough for the extra 100 hp from barricade) relatively easily.

When running reapers while leveling, don't forget ghost touch. You will need that to have a chance against reapers. Kill fears as fast as you can, they can quickly turn your run south no matter what reaper level you are running.

And oh yeah, if you haven't seen a Doom reaper yet, look forward to that experience :) they are crushers if you don't have a dedicated tank who can handle them. I keep my dodge high and a hood from night revels just to deal with them.

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Originally Posted by copper305

I am currently on life 39 or so. 3 Paladin and all the rest in racials trying to complete all of those. Anyways I have started to mess with reaper levels and I currently have 7 reaper points. Its not much but when I used to play reapers it seamed like I would die very quickly so I just played it safe and do almost everything on Elite. The problem is some quest I never run into one reaper and then another I run into 6 total and usually die. It seems random and that sucks for trying to level. Elite I almost never die and reaper its like 50-50 depending on what shows up. Some reapers hit me and I cant heal it seams and others seem to just be a hard monster but not much else. I have read the DDO Wiki on it but I want advice from here.

Anyways I have done the fire caves on Korthos Island at Reaper level 3 and survived lol. I do a few reapers on other quest but my experience is if there are traps or lots of magic hitting monsters dont do it on reaper. Im just looking for advice on what level do most people do reapers and HOW TO PREPARE for them. Heres some info on how I play.

I almost always SOLO very rarely join groups.

I only level to 20 then reincarnate.

I always run Paladin to 15 then 5 levels of Fighter now.

I have tomes of plus 7 on everything stat.

Anyways I see people saying they run like level 7 reaper and some say "im getting ready to do such and such at reaper level 10 if anybody wants to join."

What do you guys run, what level do you start and about what level do you start doing higher reapers? Is it a group thing or solo thing after reaper 1 or 4 or such?

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A few words of advise......

1.) Reaper Mode in Heroics is primarily to accelerate heroic XP. Do hardest skull that doesnt slow you down on your build. Most groups, even PUGed will be r4+ and be super fast. rXP is miserably low no matter in heroics.

2.) Why not go to at least lvl 30 and ETR? Epic PLs are the best ones and super fast to get by comparison to heroics. Esepcially doing Racials, the best strategy is to do 1-2 ETRs for each Racial TR. Primal (HPs) and Divine (PRR) are very beneficial even in heroics.

3.) Level 30+ quests are the holy grail to farm rXP. Join a PUG and run r8+ on as many as you can for the first time in Legendary Reaper Mode for 8k+ XP per quest. You are fine if you ran same quest in heroic, but run first time on higher difficulty to take advantage of that first time bonus.

I am a sub optimal player. Goofy builds, I recently did a repeater war chanter for example(it worked). To echo what was already stated, R1 is what I run for better regular XP. Personally I enjoy the random reaper difficulties, I had 4 sets of glowing eyes spawn at level 5 on the final mob. For some that occasional difficulty is too frustrating. For most, I suspect, quick progress through leveling quests is the name of the game. R1 increase in difficulty is meager, under poor build and play skill there is very marginal increase in difficulty.
I recommend new players take internet advice on builds, or ask a person they group up with. Secondly, those newer people/characters ought to play around reaper 1 difficulty. That level of game difficulty rewards(yup even 300 RXP is worthwhile) players with extra build options. One of DDO's strongest selling points, MOAR options.
Vets and noobs will gladly join R1 group postings over any non reaper option.
Hate it if you want, R1 is the normal difficulty of the game.

I have 54 reaper points and have ran less than 60 quests at cap for rxp. I never stay at cap, sadly. If you are desperate for RXP, carebear it to 32 and hop into reaper groups for a few weeks. The rxp at cap is insane for new toons/players.

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Originally Posted by jskinner937

3.) Level 30+ quests are the holy grail to farm rXP. Join a PUG and run r8+ on as many as you can for the first time in Legendary Reaper Mode for 8k+ XP per quest. You are fine if you ran same quest in heroic, but run first time on higher difficulty to take advantage of that first time bonus.

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Yes lvl 30+ quests are where the real reaper xp is. But R8+ will be miserable as melee with few RP. I was more often dead than alive (rez timer) when I joined those R8/10 groups as a new melee. It turned me off reapers for a long time when I tried it. R4 is more reasonable for legendary reaper beginners and still huge rxp compared to heroic. Or R6 but expect to die very often.

Echoing the previous replies here really, but you should be able to run R1 starting at the lowest levels with reaper mode, aka borderlands. Make sure you’ve got a ghost touch item (ethereal weapon from borderlands is fine for a few levels) so you can hit the dang things, but a paladin should be able to chew them up quickly with smite and survive with the combo of damage mitigation from heavy armor and saves. if you’re in heroic or epic there isn’t much utility to running more skulls than 1; the reaper xp difference is marginal, but the heroic xp boost sure is sweet.

One thing I’d caution you on - don’t be surprised or just stop running reaper mode entirely if you die a couple of times; sometimes you have bad luck with multiple reapers spawning in the same group and you can die quickly since you don’t have much in the way of CC. In general newer content is more challenging on reaper because it’s more challenging at the base level. So I wouldn’t jump into heroic reaper Saltmarsh, Feywild, or Isle of Dread as your first experience. Start out with something like Caged Beast or Treasure Hunt at level 3 or Kobold’s New Ringleader at level 4 or 5 just to get the feel for it and figure out how to deal with the different types of reapers.

While the advice to run at cap is sound, don’t overlook the utility of the 4 level heroic and 6 level epic window where you can still gain full or nearly full reaper XP. If you’re just grabbing easy reaper XP, most of the older content is trivial at R1 at 3 levels over. Even if you stay on the 1-20 cycle for the most part, you’d rack up a decent number of reaper points in only a few TRs.

Maybe there should be a Reaper trainer in Keep on Borderlands and at the Wayward Lobster in Harbour?
Is there any in-game explanation of Reaper mode/Reapers? Closest I can think of is the vendors in Hall of Heroes...?

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Originally Posted by JollySwagMan

Maybe there should be a Reaper trainer in Keep on Borderlands and at the Wayward Lobster in Harbour?
Is there any in-game explanation of Reaper mode/Reapers? Closest I can think of is the vendors in Hall of Heroes...?

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ddowiki.com gives pretty clear explanation of both the reaper mode mechanics and the rxp mechanics. I do not see a need for an in-game explanation, as reaper is an advanced mode and at this point, most will start researching for more info.

I know you said you only solo but if you're looking to accumulate reaper points you're really opting to play the reaper point accumulation game in super hard mode by not grouping. So I'd encourage you to PUG some. It's so much more efficient and you're always going to be able to group a much higher skull than you can solo. Well maybe with the exception of super top players/builds who can solo high skull. But even for them its going to be more efficient to group.

But really the best plan is while leveling, do the highest skull you can do fast without slowing you down much. But the main RXP is at end game. Even after you use up first time bonuses you can really earn a lot by just sitting at cap and pugging mid to high skull endgame quests. The reaper XP at endgame content like Isle of Dread is really juicy even without first time bonuses.

It's really important to push skulls once you get to endgame though or you'll be old and grey before you ever get anywhere. The difference in reaper XP between low skull and higher skulls is huge.