The Reaver

[Sigurd]

I've been looking at the catacombs character builder, and the Reaver class appears to be pretty damn powerful... 2x spec points, meaning you can have a spec of 6 parry, 39 flexible weapons, 42 shield and 50 "reaver soulrending" which gives you of course the base stun, 39 style, and every spell available to the Reaver... now, looking at those spells, we have...

Drain life shout.. presumabley transfers life to the reaver like the sorc spell?

DoT shout... not much at 23 per tick but on top of the damage mr. reaver is doing in combat, plus his drain life shout and...

PBAoE DD shout.. this only seems to be 35 DD but that might be a mistake?

And... an increase spell chance shout, so don't bother trying to resist any of those spells..

And a 15 dps self weapon buff shout (!) that's double the final paladin weapon chant...

And finally a Hinder Absorbation shout... presumabley to flexible weapons?


And now to look at some of the other Reaver stuff... chain, evade 1, large shields, protect 3 etc., pretty standard stuff... but that's basically the same defensive capabilites as a warrior, correct me if I'm wrong but no other hybrid tank gets evade, right?


Now, all this could be wrong of course, and ideally I'd like anyone who has played a Reaver in the US to correct me, or mention things such as hitpoints... I'm guessing Reavers have about as much as paladins... but to me this looks like the class Albion has been waiting for - finally a decent class on par with the best the other realms have to offer - I'd like to see an assassin come up on top against one of these maniacs... looks like these anti-paladins will be the new flavour of the month

On a final note, it might be good to point out that saracens can become Reavers, so the blocking/evading rate would be evil...

 

[old.Niljindil]

I saw a log of a reaver fighting a shield/parry armsman where the armsman didnt fight back.

The reaver lost..how?

Shield reverse procs...

Sad isnt it?

 

[old.Niljindil]

Originally posted by the_chimera
correct me if I'm wrong but no other hybrid tank gets evade, right?

Champions get evade

 

[klavrynd]

And... an increase spell chance shout, so don't bother trying to resist any of those spells..

i thought this was a "concentration" spell, so you cant interrupt the next spell, but then again , what do i know


have you noticed how albion's hybrid gets 2.0x specpoints and mid's reaver only gets 1.5 ? Presumably to get on-par with friar and since mid is the melee realm, hybrids should totally get the shaft...

 

[Flimgoblin]

umm...

Drain life shout.. presumabley transfers life to the reaver like the sorc spell?

Take a minstrel shout, remove some damage, give back some hp - it's quite nice.

DoT shout... not much at 23 per tick but on top of the damage mr. reaver is doing in combat, plus his drain life shout and...
PBAoE DD shout.. this only seems to be 35 DD but that might be a mistake?
And... an increase spell chance shout, so don't bother trying to resist any of those spells..
And a 15 dps self weapon buff shout (!) that's double the final paladin weapon chant...
And finally a Hinder Absorbation shout... presumabley to flexible weapons?

That's the necromancer - not the reaver.

 

[[DK]hakke]

Originally posted by Flimgoblin



That's the necromancer - not the reaver.

um.. no?

Drain Life Shout 1 4 8 13 19 26 32 41 50 70

Damage over Time Shout 1 6 12 18 23 29 35 42 49 2

Direct Damage Shout [PB] [AE] [C] 2 5 10 14 21 26 33 40

Hinder Dmg Potential Shout [PB] [AE] [C] 3 8 13 20 27 35 45

Increase Spell Chance [Self] 3 7 12 21 31

Buff Melee Dmg Shout [Self] 4 4 9 15 22 29 36 44

Hinder Absorption Shout [PB] [AE] [C]

 

[Tilda]

reavers are a little gimped atm, but by the time they start reaching 50 here they will have been ungimped on US servers.
their main problem is their lack of survivability.
either the hits or their con don't increase as they level afaik.

Tilda

 

[Flimgoblin]

Originally posted by [DK]hakke


um.. no?

mehh, it's early...

Forgot they gave a DoT shout to the reaver just as it left beta So the spell list looked like necro spells to me... need more coffee.

Reaver has two shouts, some useless debuff chants (that rarely last for the full pulse) and an amusing power-draining stealther-finder pbaoe.

They seem OK, nothing 'uber'.

 

[Exinferis]

okey you gotto spec 50 flex weapons to get the last style its ubar

seen screenshots where they do 800damage each 3 secs or something like that

 

[old.Vae]

http://www.cryptofalbion.com/ http://www.emeraldcircle.com/reaver_guide.htm

Try these links for decent info on the Reaver as the info on this thread so far has been a bit misleading.

Basicly Reavers make good caster protectors due to uncovering stealthers with Wrack. If an enemy ignores you to hit the casters you can hit him with superb rear and side positionals / or use slam and the positionals. If the enemy goes for you then the casters kill him.

They do not make good tanks like armsmen or paladins - The biggest problem they have is that they lack hit points due to not gaining con as they level. The lifetap helps make up for this a bit but they still need a bit of buffing hence the comment above that they are a bit gimped.

They are more comparable to light tanks like the merc but since they rely on parry/block chains or side/rear positionals they are not as viable in the merc role of charging through the enemy as a caster killer

Spec wise you have some choices to make. 50 Soulrending gives all the spells which are great. However although the reaver appears powerful at lower levels the soulrending spells don't scale well so a powerful Thid char is not the same at lvl 50.

50 Flex gives the superb style Leviathan which is a rear based attack with good damage AND a 200 point lifetap proc. They also have a decent side style as well but most of the rest of their styles are parry or block based and there is no decent anytime.

42 shield gives slam - what more can I say.

Hence the problem - you can't have all 3 so which do you drop? (oh and leftover points go into parry)

 

[Elrond/Ruffting]

Originally posted by the_chimera
to me this looks like the class Albion has been waiting for - finally a decent class on par with the best the other realms have to offer

You already have friars? albion certainly doesn't need another stupidly overpowered class.

 

[Sharma]

Re: Re: The Reaver

Originally posted by Elrond/Ruffting


You already have friars? albion certainly doesn't need another stupidly overpowered class.

sure we hit hard, but cant do dick to anything with range.

 

[klavrynd]

sure we hit hard, but cant do dick to anything with range.

like every other tank...

 

[Flimgoblin]

Originally posted by klavrynd


like every other tank...

cept they die faster to nukes...

 

[StormriderX]

/em boggles at the thought of parrying with a whip 0_o

 

[Alrindel]

I don't really know anything about the class, but I can say that I played Albion on Guinevere for a few days last week, and although I saw necromancers everywhere I went, reavers were few and far between. Anecdotally, at least, it doesn't seem to be a popular class.

 

[Tigerius]

What I've heard and seen it's more or less an ubergimp class, same problems that apply to Paladins, forced to spend a shedload of spec into their class defining line, suffering from hybrid melee table that mixed with a defensive spec is useless damage, as well as hybrid HP table meaning poor defense after all, wasting stat points into casting stat and on top of that lacking a good anytime. To counterbalance all these disadvantages compared to any normal tank they get a series of spells, certainly not useless but which Mythic has overcharged them for (Spellcasting tank, always bound to be overcharged for spells out of sheer paranoia how overpowered it could get) and underpowered both at once and in the end are little more than emergency damage to make up for that which they don't produce in ordinary melee.

Dmg adds, DoT shouts, DD shouts, it's all just compensating for a poor melee damage, Thanes know this, Paladins to a lesser extent.

Sorry I don't believe in the concept of buying a full spelline without baseline spells to get a few spells that only serve to compensate for the melee damage, defense and HP that I chose to be without for being this class and speccing that way. It's trying to get around problems the wrong way, if I want a good melee damage I pick a class that has tank damage table and the specpoints to spec it. Sure apples and oranges and all that, nothing wrong with creating viable classes through spell addition but looking at back it's so easy to see how often it's failed.

Stop being so paranoid about giving people in chain actually cast-worthy spells Mythic! It's not a good melee fighter because it wears chain and can spec weapon so fs atleast let it do something. This goes for Clerics too.

 

[old.LandShark]

Apparently the reaver lifetap shout has too long a timer for its damage... 30secs or a min or something? Hardly on par with the bonedancer's 3sec recast one

Frankly none of the SI classes look THAAAT uber, other than in 1v1 or other unrealistic situations. Savages look good I suppose...

 

[Jiggs]

reavers are OK imo, the level 50 style is cool, something like 50flex 50soul 20shield looks good to me...

and yeah savages are the only uber new class in SI, i seen them beat zerks in duels 100% of the time

 

[Jiggs]

and if you are going to play a reaver you go briton and pretend to be a cleric imo.

 

[Pin]

Originally posted by [DK]hakke

Direct Damage Shout [PB] [AE] [C] 2 5 10 14 21 26 33 40

Hinder Dmg Potential Shout [PB] [AE] [C] 3 8 13 20 27 35 45

Hinder Absorption Shout [PB] [AE] [C]

They are chants. Twist all 3.


As for speccing.... GET LEVIATHAN (50 flex).

Popular specs seem to be:

50flex, 50SR, 29shield, Xparry,
50flex, 50SR, 20shield, 20parry,
50flex, 41SR, 42shield, Xparry.

(Train Crush/Thrust to 40, respec to flex for additional points).

 

[Jiggs]

incidentally i can see reavers being quite handy in a lords room fight

with their pulse interrupting everyone and their pbaoe lifetap RA, all you need is a few levels of AoM and Empty Mind

 

[old.Kladen]

does anyone notice the extremely pants styles reavers have?

 

[old.Xarr]

all of the new weaponry styles are... different.

for example hand-to-hand combat has no decent any-time style for rvr combat. it has plenty of cool styles tho, but they require alot of skills to get in. i think the same goes for flex weapons and that scythe shit the valewalker gets. not 100% sure tho...

 

[Sigurd]

I just want to pwn someone with a morning star

 

[Rathe.]

Only played a reaver upto level 24, so can't really comment on how gimpy they are in RvR.

As for XPing at the level I am at the moment, when I don't have aggro, I can use the side-on lifedrain proc style pretty much constantly. Can interrupt casting mobs with the two shouts (DoT - I don't think of that as anything more than a diddy damage augmentation; and the lifetap, which also isn't so useful, gives you back about another hits worth of hps against a yellow) Against purples, they resist the proc loads and I hit for jack, but red and below, when the proc lands, I outdamage every other meleer there is. Yes that includes polearmsmen.... by a fair amount...

downside is... the second I take aggro I go down like a $10 hooker. Soloing is very hard with lots of downtime against yellow.

If I was making a group... unless I was stuck for tanks and had two healers, I'd prolly pick a wizard over me... can't see that I add any more to the group, aside from guard I guess...

Anyone actually played a reaver in RvR at all?

edit: just thought of something else... I find that I miss a LOT in melee with flexible weapons... and yes I know most meleers miss loads at low levels, I've played pretty much all classes. It just seems to be a fair bit more with flexi, anyone else noticed this?

The only issue I have with this is... my two real reasons for being a reaver, my lifedrain proc buff and my augment damage shout are utterly useless if I can't land a blow

I can see people screaming nerf when they get hit with: melee damage + augmented damage + lifedrain proc + style lifedrain, but it really is rare that happens