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 point of Soul Reaping, you gain 1 Energy whenever a creature near you dies. You gain half that amount for Spirits. You can only gain Energy this way every 5 seconds.

The above information has been updated with the change from Anet in April, 2007.

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 headgear bonuses) is plenty, while higher values are recommended for minion masters, and for builds focused on Soul Reaping skills. In 4v4 PvP Soul Reaping is less useful as you will typically see far fewer deaths. There are more deaths in 8v8 or 12v12, making it useful to commit 8 or more points in Soul Reaping.

Soul Reaping provides energy when players, NPCs, pets, minions or spirits die (though spirits only provide half as much energy). Soul Reaping triggers on allies or enemies (or neutrals, such as wandering animals).

The image in the top right corner of this page shows the approximate range of Soul Reaping, which is roughly the same as the spirit (issued from rituals) range.

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, with only 5 skills, 3 of which are elite, Soul Reaping has fewer skills than any other attribute. Although it is hard to establish a pattern with such a small skill count, two Soul Reaping skills are related to energy management, two inflict direct damage, two inflict degeneration or delayed damage and four relate to death, corpses or low Health.

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 collector in Droknar's Forge, and Alton Thorne, a collector in Lion's Arch, have items that include halving casting and recharge times of Soul Reaping spells.