How To Improve As Reaper — Dawntrail 7.3

A fundamental way to improve your damage is to ensure you are always casting. Keep your global cooldown rolling and use ranged abilities whenever you cannot stay in melee range.

Try to maximize the time spent within melee range. Most ranged spells deal less damage, and staying away for too long also causes you to lose auto-attacks. It’s always smarter to play safe — dying is a massive DPS loss — but as you learn a fight, pay attention to where you can safely gain extra uptime.

Reaper only needs to perform around ten positionals every two minutes, so aim to hit them consistently. You have a bit more flexibility compared to other melee jobs, and can always use True North if needed.

When accepting a resurrection, avoid attacking until you’re certain no damage is incoming; give your healers a moment to restore your HP. Before re-engaging, make sure Death’s Design is active on your target. If possible, save resources for when the weakness wears off and go back with your normal rotation afterwards.

It’s fine if Arcane Circle comes off cooldown but you don't have enough gauges for a burst window. Always prioritize using it on time to align with raid buffs. The Plentiful Harvest gained from it will guarantee one Enshroud inside buffs. Afterwards, try to identify what caused the resource delay and whether it could have been avoided with better GCD uptime — even if that requires using ranged tools — or if it was simply the gauge breakpoint showing itself.

Unless a specific encounter requires otherwise—or you know how to calculate non-Standard rotations—follow the Standard rotation outlined in this guide. While Reaper offers great flexibility, its rotation can easily drift into potency or alignment issues if adjusted without proper planning.

Small mistakes often add up to significant DPS loss. Tools like XIV Analysis can help you review your logs and identify areas for improvement.