Hunger Reaper Gearing Guide for Lost Ark

With a focus solely on Chaos Mode, Hunger can evenly build Specialization and Swiftness for general use or prioritize Swiftness for a faster playstyle at the cost of damage. Entering Chaos Mode requires building two bars of gauge initially and does not constantly have to rebuild like Lunar Voice, so Specialization is not heavily prioritized. The bonuses from Swiftness help with lowering cooldowns, faster skill casts and overall mobility. Hunger does suffer from low initial critical rate, which can be increased via gearsets, cards, engravings, tripod options and party synergy.

Card selection for Reaper is shared across both engravings. While Reaper has critical rate tripods on its Swoop skills, using Lostwind Cliff is still a good choice if you do not have Light of Salvation at 18 Awakening. When playing Hunger, your stat distribution is more weighted towards Specialization and Swiftness. This requires the use of Adrenaline to further increase your critical rate and Lostwind Cliff is another +7% bonus on top of that. However, it should be noted that if you opt to take tripods that do not increase your critical rate; both Adrenaline and Lostwind Cliff lose value.

With this being said, another option is to use the Three Umar Families at 15 Awakening to increase your Back Attack damage. This leaves three card slots open for a variety of options. Defensive card sets help with Reaper's low Effective HP. Forest of Giants is a 3-card set that increases healing items' recovery and defense when Awakened. This card setup is fairly niche and makes your ability on hitting Back Attacks even more important. If you are unable to obtain Three Umar Families, Lostwind Cliff or Light of Salvation, it's better to use HP card sets over anything else. An HP cushion is better than nothing and could be the difference between living a hit or getting this year's "Floor MVP" award. The undeniable best card set would be to obtain Light of Salvation at 18 (or 30) Awakening. It takes quite a bit of time and luck to obtain, as you cannot truly brute force cards like you can with other things in the game.

Reaper's engravings are fairly straight-forward, with different options depending on your stat distribution and skill tripods. Staying in Chaos Mode does increase your critical rate, move speed and attack speed, which provides synergy with some engravings. Reaper's stat build focuses either on high Swiftness or balanced between Swiftness and Specialization.

• Grudge is a standard damage engraving. As a DPS you should be using this as an immediate slot-in for your setup.
• Master of Ambush is a staple for Earth's Entropy users. While there is initially a learning curve for when and where to get Back Attack uptime, with practice and fight familiarity comes a huge DPS increase when using this engraving.
• Raid Captain can be used as an alternative to Cursed Doll, especially with high Swiftness builds. Additionally, the tripod Tailwind on Distortion can further increase your move speed before using your main DPS skills.
• Cursed Doll further highlights Reaper's squishiness but can be used regardless of stat builds unlike Raid Captain.
• Adrenaline can help with Hunger's low critical rate. With low cooldown skills, Adrenaline isn't hard to build nor maintain. Pairing this with card bonuses, skill tripods, party synergy and Chaos Mode's buff gives Hunger a respectable critical rate.
• Keen Blunt Weapon is rather niche and must be paired with Adrenaline to really get any good mileage out of it. While this engraving can work, it's still less of a priority than Cursed Doll or Raid Captain in terms of consistency.

Starting out in Tier 1 and 2, you'll use the Seraphic Oath and Marvelous Earth gear sets. Upon being able to use Legendary grade gear, you can use the Boisterous Elemental and Unyielding Will sets. In Tier 3, Chaos Dungeons will provide you with throw-away gear that you'll transfer into Legendary gear after reaching 1370. A primary focus is to use the Preordained Diligence to further increase your critical rate until you can reach 1445 and obtain Relic grade gear. After reaching 1445, Earth's Entropy is the best gear set to use, providing critical damage, critical rate and Back Attack damage.

Hunger can utilize a 50:50 distribution of Swiftness and Specialization. Aside from moments where you cannot upkeep your Chaos Mode, high Specialization is not needed as you will not be constantly building and spending gauge like Lunar Voice. Swiftness grants faster cooldowns and opportunity to use Raid Captain. Generally, this build provides good output as Specialization scales your Swoop skills' damage. The Swiftness paired with a tripod on Shadow Vortex that reduces the cooldown of your Swoop skills and skill runes such as Quick Recharge ensures constant usage of skills. Building high Swiftness gives Hunger more of a piano-type playstyle. You'll be using skills very frequently and always have something up. While the lower Specialization means less damage on Swoop skills and gauge generation, you'll be using skills way more often. Although, it should be mentioned that if you are unable to DPS on the boss due to downtime, the effectiveness of this build drops.

• 50:50 Swiftness / Specialization
  • Swift/Spec Necklace
  • 1x Swift Earring and 1x Spec Earring
  • 1x Swift Ring and 1x Spec Ring
  • Spec/Swiftness Bracelet

• High Swiftness
  • Swift/Spec Necklace
  • 2x Swift Earrings
  • 2x Swift Rings
  • Spec/Swiftness Bracelet