Introducing, Reapers! These weapons, commonly known as scythes, are the love children of spears and axes, sitting somewhere in-between their damage and range. Reapers are probably the most polarizing weapon class among the Souls community, since they require a very skilled user to bring out their true potential. They also possess the amazing ability of bypassing shields with their attacks, but as a tradeoff, you have to be extremely accurate with your aim. So they’re often chosen for their looks rather than their practicality, but that’s not to say all of them are bad. Let’s take a look at all the reapers in DS2 and see which ones stack up.
9. Scythe of Nahr Alma
The first in line of disappointment, is the Scythe of Nahr Alma. You may look at this weapon’s innate dark damage and average scaling and think “Hey, I’m a hex-based build. This looks exactly like something I’d want.” And you wouldn’t be totally wrong. The main downfall of this weapon, and the reason that it sits at the bottom of this list, is that it simply gets outclassed by a few of the other scythes. If you really want to use a scythe for your hexer build, I recommend skipping this entirely and going for others from this list. But it still gets a mention here – I mean, we are ranking them all! How to get: Rank 3 in the Brotherhood of Blood covenant, or bought from Hag Melentia after killing Titchy Gren.
8. Silverblack Sickle
Next in line we have a reaper that suffers a similar fate to our previous one. Depending on what you prefer, this could be ranked either better or worse than Narh Alma. You’d be trading range in favor of slightly better damage, scaling, and other minor stats such as weight and poise damage. So this sickle is anything but sick. One good thing about it though, is its hand-axe like moveset. It’s a forward-oriented weapon that many casters are familiar with. How to get: Dropped by Grave Warden’s in Undead Crypt.
7. Great Scythe
The glory days of the Great Scythe being the best dex weapon in the game are long gone. The transition from Dark Souls 1 to DS2 took a heavy toll on this reaper’s repertoire. If you don’t want to be doing half, or even a third of your normal damage, you must be perfectly accurate with your swings. Adding to that difficulty, the followup attacks have a different range and hitbox, one-handed or two-handed. For those reasons I’d recommend taking some time to familiarize yourself with the weapon first, unless you want to be running around hitting like a wet noodle. From damage to looks, it feels like everything got gutted. Yet in the right hands it can still pose as a sizeable threat. How to get: Sold by Titchy Gren, or dropped by Parasite Spiders.
6. Great Machete
As the strength-scaling cousin of the Great Scythe, this knife-on-a-stick functions mechanically similar to its predecessors. What I mean is that the Great Machete carries the same “sweetspot” curse, making it somewhat hard to use. I’m only ranking it higher than the scythe due to its better moveset, and its very useful sweeping attack, making it extra handy against groups of enemies. How to get: Dropped by Undead Jailers.
5. Crescent Sickle
And here we’ve got a good choice for the scythe-lover that wants to dish out some magic damage. With the minimum requirement of 12 Intelligence, the base magic damage at +10 is 150; meaning you don’t even have to heavily invest in an unwanted stat, should you wish to put your levels elsewhere. Infusing this with a faintstone further increases the magic capabilities of the sickle, in both base and scaling form. How to get: Rank 2 in the Brotherhood of Blood covenant, or sold by Chancellor Wellager in New game++.
4. Full Moon Sickle
Now we’re getting to the meat of the topic! The Full Moon Sickle comes in rocking the highest bleed stat, not only out of all the DS2 reapers, but out of the entire game. Hitting your opponent a few times is guaranteed to leave them bleeding. If you want to speed up the process, infusing this with a bleed stone will rocket the base 160(bleed damage) to an insane 230, swapping the B scaling in Dex with a C. Wearing the Shadow Gauntlets and the Crest of Blood further increases this bleed-sanity, making an instantaneous bleed possible just from 1 power-stanced attack. How to get: Dropped by Artificial Undead and Crescent Sickle Phantom.
3. Bone Scythe
The best DS2 reaper to use for physical damage, also happens to be the second (and top) in Strength scaling. With 40 points in Strength, you end up with a very strong +460 physical. Paired with fast attacks and a good range, this scythe excels at dispatching all sorts of foes. Despite being in 3rd place in this ranking, there isn’t much else to be said about it. The Bone Scythe really is simplicity at its best. How to get: Trade the Covetous Demon Soul to Straid of Olaphis.
2. Scythe of the Forlorn
Our semifinalist is a very interesting weapon. The Scythe of the Forlorn comes in with base physical, dark, and bleed damage, right from the get-go. Just like the Forlorn Greatsword variant, this weapon is at its peak when infused with bleed – making the dark scaling higher than that of a dark infusion (weird right?). The damage also scales with your hollow status, getting the most out of it when you’re a literal Wretch. Also note that wearing a Ring of Binding will let you get the max boost here, while keeping most of your health intact. How to get: Talk to Straid of Olaphis after killing four Forlorn, and then kill another one wielding a scythe.
1. Scythe of Want
In first spot, and the reaper that you should fear the most, is the weapon of the Queen. It rightfully earns the “want” part of its name, since it’s considered to be the single-best scythe in the game, in my opinion, for both PvE and PvP. With a base of 260 in physical and 200 in dark damage, plus a great moveset and an above average range, the Scythe of Want cements its place above all else in this category. It doesn’t even require any of that hollow nonsense! The worst part about this weapon is how late in the game you’re able to get it (spoilers, it’s from the final boss!) How to get: Trade Soul of Nashandra to Weaponsmith Ornifex.
