The Withering Scythe

Reap does 25% of current health as true damage to the direct target plus 25% as radial blast to nearby enemies, none of it scaled by Strength.

It is amplified by Reap's own vulnerability debuff, viral (up to 4.25x at 10 stacks) and Roar.

To one-shot a lone enemy you need to reach 100% of current health through some combination of those.

Packed crowds one-shot at lower numbers because each nearby corpse adds its blast.

Dark Propagation lets Sow spread the mark itself; Shadow Haze spawns extra Reap shadows and adds the flat crit-chance buff to your primary.

1.

Activate Gloom for the slow.

2.

Cast Sow to mark enemies.

3.

Cast Reap to kill the marked and debuff the survivors.

With Roar active, the combo is 1-2-1 or 2-1-1.

4.

Sow and Reap kills fill the Death Well.

When full you can enter Shadow at any time.

5.

Optional: enter Shadow to group with 1 and DPS with the claws.

If Shadow dies you just Sow-Reap to recharge and re-enter.

6.

If you die as Sevagoth, aim at enemies and spam 2 to consume five souls and revive.

Duration barely matters because Dark Propagation carries Sow; keep it 80% to 130% so Gloom's drain stays sane.

Neutral Efficiency is fine with Equilibrium plus a Synth Deconstruct pet feeding Gloom.

Range 145% to 175% for Gloom, no higher or enemies get stuck slowed in the next room draining your energy.

Strength drives the vulnerability, the crit buff and the Gloom slow.

Transient Fortitude, Umbral Intensify are the Strength, with Molt Augmented and shards behind them.

Stretch is Gloom range.

Primed Flow is the pool.

Equilibrium is the energy.

Catalyzing Shields shrinks the shield pool for the Reap and Sow gate loop.

Brief Respite aura feeds that gate.

Shadow Haze, Dark Propagation are the augments that make the nuke self-spreading.

Transient Fortitude becomes Rolling Guard if you own four Tauforged strength shards.

The aura and exilus are open.

Molt Vigor over an arcane if you have no shards yet.

Reap costs 25 energy and Brief Respite alone gives about 0.7s of gate off it; Sow costs 50 and gives the full 1.33s.

Just spamming Sow and Reap keeps you alive.

Secondary Fortifier on a primer steals overguard for status immunity.

Gloom near the slow cap stops enemies shooting at all.

Shadow is a free extra shield-gate and health bar with no energy cost.

Pick one.

- If you do not use Shadow, subsume over 4: Roar for the no-viral one-shot, Silence for a Gloom-extended 40s stun and Acolyte lockout, Nourish for viral and Gloom energy.

- If you do use Shadow, subsume over 3, and only passive-aura abilities work while Shadow is out: Silence with Savage Silence (700% stealth multiplier on the claws), or Eclipse with Total Eclipse (aura buff reaches Shadow).

Molt Augmented for Strength, Arcane Concentration for the Duration a low-Duration build wants back.

Arcane Energize is a strong swap for Gloom's drain.

Madurai for 40% Strength and cast speed, and it is the Cascade meta.

Vazarin for endurance i-frames.

Shadow Haze's flat crit chance suits low-crit, high-multiplier weapons: Sporothrix, Kuva Nukor, Ocucor.

Epitaph is the signature weapon and works as a primer with Secondary Fortifier.

The Sow and Reap shield-gate loop, Gloom's slow, and Shadow as the failsafe.

It fails if you run out of energy with Gloom down and no Shadow charge, and to Eximus and Thrax who ignore Gloom through overguard.

Equilibrium plus a Synth Deconstruct pet covers Gloom's ~240 energy/min drain.

Arcane Energize is the backup.

Bosses and single Eximus without priming.

The nuke wants density.

Managing Gloom drain plus the gate plus the Sow-Reap order is a lot at once for a new pilot.

A max-shard endurance pure-nuke build with Roar.

A dedicated Shadow claws build.

A shield-tank Adaptation variant for sub-level-500.

Strong: level-independent nuke, top-tier slow, a free second health bar, buffs your primary.

Weak: density-dependent, boss-blind, Shadow interrupts the combo flow and costs extra forma to build.

Players who want a nuke that ignores enemy scaling entirely and a built-in revive.