Overview
Reavers are the shock troops, the first ones into battle, the ultimate creeps in close quarter combat. Reavers spend a lot of their time dead due to these reasons, but if they can reach point blank range, they will frequently leave behind a dead freep.
Skills
| Skill | Effect | Cost | Duration | Cooldown |
| Blinding Dust (R0) |
+20% miss chance, AoE: 3 |
62P | 30s | 1m |
| Blood Lust (R6) | ||||
| Charge! (R3) | Run speed set at 200%, immune to all CC |
62P | 8s | 30s |
| Devastating Strike | 501 Common | 354P |
1m | |
| Disarm (R2) |
Disarms weapon | 81P | 5s |
1m |
| Glory in Victory (R0) | +10% melee damage, +10% incoming melee damage. +86M initially, +86M every 2 seconds |
62P |
1m 30s, 20s |
30s |
| Gut Punch (R5) |
242 Common, interrupt | 62P | 15s | |
| Hamstring | 25% slow | 50P | 15s | 10s |
| Jagged Cut | 186 Common, AoE: 3 |
96P | 5s | |
| Lacerate | 280 Common, 84 Common every 2s |
53P |
20s | 5s |
| Mutilation (R12) | 260 Common, 74 Common every 2s, AoE: 3 |
212P | 10s | 20s |
| Ravage (R4) | 280 Common, 210 Common, 210 Common | 96P | 4s |
|
| Serration (R3) | 350 Common, AoE: 3 |
96P |
15s | |
| Severing Strike (R7) | 350 Common, unavoidable |
96P | 1m | |
| Sudden Strikes | 224 Common, 168 Common | 53P | ||
| Sundering Blow (R1) |
242 Common, -1,242 armour |
65P | 20s | 10s |
| Thrash (R13) | On disarmed target, 280 Common, 263 Common, 263 Common |
53P |
5m |
|
| Time Out (R6) | ||||
| Upper Hand (R9) | -1200 block, -1200 parry to target. +450 armour to self | 62P | 15s, 15s | 45s |
| Wrath (R8) |
Traits
Class Traits
| Trait | Effect | Rating |
| Against the Odds (R10) | +320-350M, +320-350P, resets several skills |
|
| Burning Blades (R4) | Changes all damage to fire | 5/5 |
| Enhanced Skill: Devastating Strike (R2) |
-30s Devastating Strike recovery time | 4/5 |
| Enhanced Skill: Glory in Victory (R2) |
-10% damage when enraged | 2/5 |
| Enhanced Skill: Hamstring (R15) |
||
| Enhanced Skill: Jagged Cut (R0) |
Chance for bleed on Jagged Cut | 1/5 |
| Enhanced Skill: Upper Hand (R14) |
||
| Extended Reach (R11) | +1 AoE targets | 3/5 |
| Power Boost (R0) |
+10% power | 1/5 |
| Quick Strikes (R0) |
-10% attack duration | 3/5 |
| Resilience (R5) | Removes all CC except root and snares | 5/5 |
| Resistance Boost (R1) |
+3% Song, Cry, Physical, and Tactical resistance | 3/5 |
Recommended Corruption Traits
There are a couple of different ways to go about this
- High mitigations - Boost defenses and health for more survivability
- High resistances - Boosts resistances to shake off more CC. The point is to at least get into range of the target before dying
- There is also a debate on if power should be dropped for health and damage. Power is quickly rechargeable so it might be a reasonable tradeoff. The trade off is less power for burst damage which equates to about one additional sudden strike
Tactics
[Vyxe, Elendilmir]
The premier reaver tactic is the "in and out", watching your fellow creeps for their movements and when a freep is vulnerable, then charging in and burning Sunder Armor, Blinding Dust if needed, Hamstring if needed, Sudden Strikes till the target is down to 50% then Devastating Strike and GETTING OUT. Spend as little time in close combat as possible unless you have quite a few healers or a bubble. Reavers have great burst damage but no strong sustained DPS, so burn the power out then fall back if alive to recharge. Don't release if you have done considerable damage to the freeps because the target might get killed very shortly.
For consumables, even with Resilience slotted, you will want a very full set of pots constantly. CC is the primary reason why you will not do any damage. You will fail to get into range.
For solo tactics
- Champions - It's a DPS vs DPS fight. Disarm if at all possible and debuff with Blinding Dust. If they are running fervor, you win vs most of them. Keep circling and jumping through them to break up their attacks. If they reheal, run away if your health isn't good.
- Burglers - Good luck, if a burgler puts on evade, try to delay till it runs out 30 seconds later. Hamstring to keep them at arms length during this time. Everything depends on things not working well for the burgler and the dice rolling well for the reaver to win this fight.
- Guardian - Maintain sunder at all times. This is a very long fight, try to avoid as much damage as possible from the guardian even if it's low. It will take all of your morale to beat them down. Do what you can to stay on their back side to negate block and parry.
- Minstrels - Run, even with Gut Punch they will outheal any damage you do to them
- Loremasters - Unless they're sleeping they'll punch right through your pots and Resilience and shut you down. Even if their health can be taken down under 1k, they will nearly always have Wisdom of the Council up for a massive reheal, they'll have another one if it's a man loremaster. Save the pots for the mezzes and roots instead of using them on the stuns. If it's reasonable, try to kill Lynx's if they are out, they have strong burst damage.
- Hunter - User trees and other obstacles to your advantage to close the distance, run in circles around them and do your best to kill them before they decide to DF.
- Captain - These are like guardians with less armor and more DPS. They will fire Last Stand if low, just back off for 15 seconds (25 if traited, which is usual) and wait for it to go down. Keep a hamstring on them to prevent them from either running at or away from you. Keep a sunder up and ignore any herald if up.
In raid situations, the Raid Leader should try to get the reavers engaged in 'waves' and either keep them in there, or pull them out to be rehealed. If reavers charge individually or in small groups into a freep raid, they are readily destroyed. The shock value of every reaver hitting the freeps at one time is far higher and has better payoffs. Call for a melee extraction when you want to pull them out for another subsequent strike. This also offers the benefit of letting them get charge up again when out of combat and to retarget. When fighting balled up freeps, make sure that the reavers are throwing their dust around and aoe'ing to keep everything in combat. Remember also that their charge breaks traps and they should be the first ones charging ahead of the raid into the freeps to clear the way.
I'd like to add to Vyxe's comments that it is better for a reaver to simply always use debuffs (at least in a raid fight). They are all very useful, apply to all freep classes and in a messy fight you'll have no time to figure out if the target needs armor rend or not. It is easier to develop mentality of using any debuff skill that is currently not on cooldown. When charging into a freep ball always start with blinding dust. Many freep players do not notice that they just lost 20% of DPS (or healing).
Next thing is AOE. Always use AOE if available. You may pop a burg sneaking on your healer out of stealth, restart long induction for a hunter or minstrel, or get that NPC to attack you instead of defiler.
Always use "Glory in Vctory" or "Blood Lust" when available. These give nice boost to DPS and critical or HoT.
In a raid fight your sequence should go like this: GiV or BL if available, debuff if any skills are available, AOE if any AOE is not on cooldown, single target attacks.
Also in class traits I'd switch importance of "glory in victory" and "against the odds". You'll use GiV a lot more often than AtO and not getting 10% damage penalty goes a long way.