Thread: Making the Reaver a Raid-Viable Class

All the new topics about what we'd like to see in changes for the Reaver got me thinking, so here it is:

Stance: Bloodlust

Tooltip: You enter into a state of fury, unleashing your wrath against multiple enemies.

+10% area-of-effect skill damage

-5% skill power cost

+30s Devastating Strike cooldown

-35% incoming healing

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While in Bloodlust:

Mutilation becomes Bloody Mutilation: As the numbers of your enemies grow, so does your rage. The bleed applied by Bloody Mutilation will increase in tier for every opponent it afflicts (up to a maximum of 4).

Serration becomes Serrating Blow: Foes suffering from the bleeds of Bloody Mutilation or Thrash will feel the wrath of your blows. (+25% increase to regular tooltip damage on targets with bleed)

Devastating Strike becomes Devastating Slash: Going into a frenzy, you make a powerful strike against all foes suffering from one of your bleeds in a 10m radius. (Maximum of 4 targets; targets no longer required to be below 50% morale)

New Skill: Savage Retaliation For a short time, you are able to retaliate against all who seek to oppose your wrath.

Tooltip: Reflect 25% of damage back to the attacker for 15s. Cooldown: 10m


Backstory: The Reaver is meant to be a killing machine. Unafraid of death, he charges into the battle with his only goal being the destruction of his enemies. Rather than channeling his fury against one opponent, he turns it on multiple enemies to bring them to their knees.


I realize that a lot of people have been wanting two stances for the reaver, dps stance, and tanking stance.

The first one, I'm fine with, and sometime tomorrow I'll try and make a post with ideas for single target dps in mind. But in my opinion, a tanking stance does not fit the Reaver class at all. The whole point of the Reaver is that you don't care if you die or not, as long as you take someone with you. You're a killing machine bred for the sole purpose of wreaking havoc against your enemies with no thought of your own life. Your job is to bring the opponents to their knees. The only way we are meant to survive is by killing our opponents first.

Anyway, now that I'm done waxing poetic about the Reaver, I'm going to discuss the actual stance that I've just proposed and why I would like to see these changes.
First off, the main point of this stance is to not only provide the Reaver with an option of AoE dps, but to make him more viable in a raid. By lowering the power costs of some of his skills he'll be able to continue the fight for a longer amount of time, while doing damage to multiple targets. Now, once again, a Reaver can charge into the freeps and actually do some damage. Reavers won't be charging straight in and out anymore, and they definitely won't be viewed as easy meat by the freeps. Reavers can lead the charge against the Free Peoples and either slay them or die trying.
Now, I'm sure a lot of you are thinking how easily Reavers could become OP in RvR situations, having a Reaver charge in and use the skills suggested to their maximum effect while being healed by some defilers would be ridiculous. Which is why I put in the nerf to incoming healing.
Most of the skills I proposed are only tweaked versions of their original counterparts, with the exclusion of "Devastating Slash" (btw, I'm open to other suggestions for this skill name, because IMO, it's somewhat underwhelming). This skill would do the same amount of damage as the regular Devastating Strike, with the increased chance to critical, only now it has the potential to do it to up to 4 targets (Less, if there are only 1-3 freeps suffering from one of the Reaver's bleeds). I'm sure a lot of people would call this OP if that were the end of the story, and I would agree with them, so that's why I added the +30s cooldown to the skill. Meaning a Reaver won't be able to use this skill more than once per battle (In most situations).
Also, remember that even though this skill will become much more powerful against a group of freeps, a Reaver will need to apply his bleeds before using it for it to reach it's maximum potential. That, combined with the extended cooldown makes the skill one of reasonable power, but still a viable and useful tool for any Reaver.


Any thoughts, comments, and suggestions are welcome! (Please keep all criticism constructive. Tell me why you think something is bad)


Edit: Apologies in advance for any typos or misspellings that I surely have made. It was rather late when I wrote this!

Sorry dude but not signed. I can say Im pretty sure any vet reavers dont want some rather weak aoe stance unless it was in conjuction with at least a dps stance so it could be used situationaly. Also reavers have always been single target dps machines since the launch of this game for creep side and only once the rank 12 and rank 13 bleed became available in the store did more than a handful of people even have decent aoe.

As far as a tanking stance if you are reffering to the stance i came up with that had some extra morale and mits I dont consider that a tanking stance. To me tanking is being able to maintain and control aggro. The stance I suggested was no loss of dps over base damage and just some more morale and mitigations and possibly a bump to bpe. Would have nothing to do with actual tanking mobs only slightly increase survivability. Would prolly be used in situations where reavers are having to charge in to full raids of freep ff.

Originally Posted by AngusMcleod

Sorry dude but not signed. I can say Im pretty sure any vet reavers dont want some weaksauce aoe stance...no offense And if they did it would prolly be if and only if it was a secondary stance to a ST dps stance. Btw the reaver has been a single target dps machine since the games inception it only got moderate aoe skills when everyone was alowd to buy thrash and mutilation from the store

I agree that this stance would not be very good and that reavers need more single target dps. The reason reavers need more single target dps is that their dps is not even close to that of a warg. However, I have to say that the secondary role of the reaver class is aoe damage. So making this a secondary stance to a ST dps stance would be alright, like you said. I'd honestly love to see reavers get stances, it makes for more fun and interesting gameplay. Wargs, WLs, and BAs have stances. Weavers have venom pips. Reavers and defilers have nothing. Stances or some kind of pip would be nice.

Originally Posted by AngusMcleod

Sorry dude but not signed. I can say Im pretty sure any vet reavers dont want some rather weak aoe stance unless it was in conjuction with at least a dps stance so it could be used situationaly. Also reavers have always been single target dps machines since the launch of this game for creep side and only once the rank 12 and rank 13 bleed became available in the store did more than a handful of people even have decent aoe.

What, in particular, do you consider weak about this stance? Perhaps a higher increase to aoe dps from the stance itself might be called for, but aside from that it seems balanced.

Originally Posted by AngusMcleod

As far as a tanking stance if you are reffering to the stance i came up with that had some extra morale and mits I dont consider that a tanking stance. To me tanking is being able to maintain and control aggro. The stance I suggested was no loss of dps over base damage and just some more morale and mitigations and possibly a bump to bpe. Would have nothing to do with actual tanking mobs only slightly increase survivability. Would prolly be used in situations where reavers are having to charge in to full raids of freep ff.

You are not the first and will not be the last to suggest a tanking stance, and I wasn't referring to anyone's idea in particular. All I'm saying is that the actual thought of it doesn't make sense when you consider the class in question. Reavers aren't designed for survivability (Although a morale traited reaver is arguably the second toughest class to take down), they're designed for DPS. Which is why I suggested an AoE dps stance to go along with the universally desired Single target dps stance.

Originally Posted by babaju2

I agree that this stance would not be very good and that reavers need more single target dps. The reason reavers need more single target dps is that their dps is not even close to that of a warg. However, I have to say that the secondary role of the reaver class is aoe damage. So making this a secondary stance to a ST dps stance would be alright, like you said. I'd honestly love to see reavers get stances, it makes for more fun and interesting gameplay. Wargs, WLs, and BAs have stances. Weavers have venom pips. Reavers and defilers have nothing. Stances or some kind of pip would be nice.

Completely agree with you. I'm not suggesting this be the only stance for Reavers, just suggesting this as another one aside from a single-target dps stance.

Originally Posted by Andared

I realize that a lot of people have been wanting two stances for the reaver, dps stance, and tanking stance.

The first one, I'm fine with, and sometime tomorrow I'll try and make a post with ideas for single target dps in mind.

Not sure if you saw this in the wall of text that I posted, but I am not saying this is the only stance that Reavers should get, just a suggestion for a second stance.

Originally Posted by Andared

What, in particular, do you consider weak about this stance? Perhaps a higher increase to aoe dps from the stance itself might be called for, but aside from that it seems balanced.



You are not the first and will not be the last to suggest a tanking stance, and I wasn't referring to anyone's idea in particular. All I'm saying is that the actual thought of it doesn't make sense when you consider the class in question. Reavers aren't designed for survivability (Although a morale traited reaver is arguably the second toughest class to take down), they're designed for DPS. Which is why I suggested an AoE dps stance to go along with the universally desired Single target dps stance.



Completely agree with you. I'm not suggesting this be the only stance for Reavers, just suggesting this as another one aside from a single-target dps stance.



Not sure if you saw this in the wall of text that I posted, but I am not saying this is the only stance that Reavers should get, just a suggestion for a second stance.

If it would be in conjunction with other stances sure. Although I'd do away with all the "if this target is suffering from bleed A then this skill does this" stuff and just make it a % increase to AOE, +2 AOE targets, and maybe sudden strikes in this stance could be a frontal AOE. Or something along those lines.

As for the survival stance I dont see how thats not exactly fittiing of a reaver. Their job is dps or at least used to be. They should be the ones charging into freeps first trying to get something started. So in that sense they are infact creep tanks because who else charges into freeps and takes the brunt of the focus fire. So although it would be situational just like the AOE stance having more morale and a healthy boost to all mitigations at the expense of not getting the damage bonus from the dps stance would be perfect for fights with heavy focus fire where you might be able to actually do your job for more than 3 seconds.

All i think we need is a 4k morale bubble with a 3 min cd, a big heal called Orc heal, a buff that gives us tough skin for 45 seconds, 20% more dps and we will be laughing all the way into the middle of that freep ball. Oh and in combat use of charge when its reset.