Soul Reaping



Soul Reaping is the Necromancer primary attribute, so only characters that are primary Necromancers can put points into Soul Reaping. It works by giving the character "X" energy whenever creatures die near you, where "X" is the Soul Reaping attribute rating.

Guild Wars Description
"For each (Attribute) point of Soul Reaping, you gain 1 Energy whenever a creature near you dies. As of the update on June first, Spirits will only give Necromancers half energy when they die. Example: You have 8 in Soul Reaping. A spirit dies, therefore you gain four energy. The reason behind this was the shadow spike builds using spirits as energy management and having a virtually unlimited energy at all times."

General Description
The main purpose of Soul Reaping is to keep boosting your energy as your team kills things. Generally, for normal adventuring play, a rating of 4, 5, or 6 (including rune and scar bonuses) is plenty. In 4v4 PvP Soul Reaping is less useful as you will typically see far fewer deaths. In 8v8 PvP deaths will generally occur fairly often as there are 2 times as many players and various NPCs on the battlefield, making it wise to commit 8 or more points in Soul Reaping.

Soul Reaping will give you energy when players, NPCs, pets, minions or spirits die, though with a recent skill balance, spirits only offer half the energy when they die. For Soul Reaping it does not matter if the dead creature was allied to you or an enemy.

The image to the right shows the approximate area within which Soul Reaping works.

Associated skills
There are no skills that use Soul Reaping in the Prophecies Campaign. The first Soul Reaping skills were introduced with Guild Wars Factions. However, this attribute still has few skills linked to it.

ArenaNet has commented on community forums that it had deliberately avoided linking skills to Soul Reaping because they felt its effect was stronger than that of other caster primary attributes. Interestingly, Ornhelm Brightaxe, a collecter in Droknar's Forge, and Alton Thorne, a collecter in Lion's Arch, has an item that includes halving casting and recharge times of Soul Reaping skills.