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

Traits

Class Traits

Racial Traits

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 has also been something of a debate on whether power should be dropped for health and damage.  The trade off is less power for burst damage which equates to about one additional sudden strike.  Even with the massive reduction in reaver ICPR that first came with Mines of Moria, sacrificing power for morale and/or damage is a good idea for a reaver, as you'll typically be dead before you run out of power, and you can always use Time-Out or pop a power pot if you need one in a long fight.

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.  With Siege of Mirkwood, however, snares and CJs are the biggest concerns.

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.

Here are a few additional tips for reavers.  If you've got two or more BAs in your group, begin attacking each new focus-fire target with Sundering Blow, since it increases the incoming common damage considerably.  On LMs, the moment they hit half health disarm them if possible, thus preventing them from popping their big heal.  Disarm also works wonders against RKs.  (By the way, the Rank 13 skill Thrash, which only works on a disarmed target, is horrible -- it doesn't do much more damage than Ravage and it's on a ridiculously long 5 minute cooldown.  Fuggetaboutit.)  When you're on a minstrel, spam Gut Punch as often as you can.  Against guardians, champs, and burgs, always use Blinding Dust and, if you're rank 9 or higher, make sure you use your one and only parry/evade debuff, Upper Hand.  (Unfortunately, Upper Hand is on a rather long 45 second cooldown and is subject to a wound resistance check like all reaver debuffs, so don't be surprised if it misses.)  Also, be aware that Dust, Disarm, and Upper Hand can all be potted out of or removed by certain freep class skills/abilities.  (Still, you can sometimes use this to your advantage by inducing your target to burn a pot then using a second skill.)  But most of all, be prepared to Die Horribly^TM early and often in the service of Sauron.