Halves current health, yes. Astral Stair has enemies who use that ability on you.

However, if you're looking to kill reapers, you're better off with the evolved laurel. You can kill reapers with the infinite corridor (evolved clock lancet), but success isn't guaranteed. You'll need to keep the reaper frozen for 20-30s or it'll kill you. By comparison, the crimson cloak (evolved laurel) retributive damage *WILL* kill the Reaper, and you will have nothing to fear from the reaper (or anything else for that matter), since incoming damage is capped at 10.

Favorite layout for any survivor is 2 weapon slots, with the second being the laurel, and Silent Old Sanctuary for the first-pick arcana.

Originally posted by LostSoul:

Halves current health, yes. Astral Stair has enemies who use that ability on you.

However, if you're looking to kill reapers, you're better off with the evolved laurel. You can kill reapers with the infinite corridor (evolved clock lancet), but success isn't guaranteed. You'll need to keep the reaper frozen for 20-30s or it'll kill you. By comparison, the crimson cloak (evolved laurel) retributive damage *WILL* kill the Reaper, and you will have nothing to fear from the reaper (or anything else for that matter), since incoming damage is capped at 10.

Favorite layout for any survivor is 2 weapon slots, with the second being the laurel, and Silent Old Sanctuary for the first-pick arcana.

I actually managed killing him using the following ......

I did the Mission to get the character allowing me to start with the Freeze Ability.

I then Picked him as my starter and selected Stage 2 as my starting.

I collected both rings and trinkets on either side of the map (gold and silver ring, left and right trinket)

I managed to evolve them both giving me the the Lancet and Shroud.

Further for my abilities and passives I was lucky. I rolled the cats, Weapon Cooldown and Area with extra projectiles.

The WHOLE screen was filled with cats fighting, and my Freezing fired so fast, I kept the Reaper in a Frozen state until he was dead.

I was about level 95ish

Yeah, as I said, you can kill the reaper with the infinite corridor alone (more or less). It's just not reliable since it's essential to keep him frozen or he'll kill you. By comparison, the shroud will do it 100% of the time. It just tends to take longer, since the damage it'll deal to the reaper, while substantial, won't scale with the Reaper's health the way the corridor does. And Reaper health scales by a sizable amount for every level you've got.

So if you have to pick between them, pick the shroud. You'll have no trouble surviving until the reaper arrives, and no trouble killing the reaper once he does. Don't get me wrong, I love the corridor, but in exchange for being more powerful, it's less reliable.