Possible changes to the Reaver Class!

[Frostybrand]

• Give reavers a significant dps boost, and please not only a huge buff to Impale and/or Dev strike but a major buff to the low cd skills (Ravage, Sudden Strikes) and the bleed skills to make reavers less dependant on Impale
• Wrath revamp. I always thougth selfhealing on dps classes is a silly thing so I’d like to see Wrath become another dps buff like controlled burn/burn hot which also applies a defeat response
• Remove cd of Sudden Strikes. Mostly for low ranked reavers, they can’t even deal damage the whole time
• Increase icpr and power restoration of time-out to compensate the loss of power restoration of wrath
• Increase Finesse rating on Quick Strikes Trait
• Make enhanced Upper Hand more useful by extending the duration of the armour buff also
• Increase range of melee skills to 4.2m. Its very frustrating if melee freeps can kite you and deal dmg while you can't reach them with most of your skills.
• A more cosmetic change I would appreciate: change animation of Sudden Stikes back to the old one (pre ror) and make it hit harder due to a bit longer animation. I don’t like the current animation, it doesn’t look like a strike.

Sounds great to me. I'd like to see this changes.

• Increase range of melee skills to 4.2m. Its very frustrating if melee freeps can kite you and deal dmg while you can't reach them with most of your skills.

Maybe add this to extended reach trait.

you don't even depend on impale anymore. it hits like a wet noodle.

I agree Impale doesn't hit that hard anymore, but its still the strongest damageskill of reavers and if CA gives correct information its mostly the highest dealt amount of damage.

[InsaneChaos]

How about blood of fire instead reflects an effect?

Blood of Fire:
On any damage (excluding dots), 50% chance to reflect a stacking effect: Orcish vengeance.
+3% positional damage modifier, stacks up to 5 times.

This wouldn't make reavers (or defilers) any stronger during 1 vs 1s, but would give them some raid functionality.

Also:
UpperHand: by default apply the BPE debuff.
Enhanced Trait: remove the armor buff but turn the BPE debuff into an AOE.


I also think it would be neat to see a skill that causes ALL reaver attacks to ignore a percentage of foe's mitigations for a limited time, but have the skill modeled after Burg's Cash-out or Warden's Recklessness, ie. inflict a debuff on the reaver during duration OR only if the target survives after the duration.

[Ethrildar]

How about blood of fire instead reflects an effect?

Blood of Fire:
On any damage (excluding dots), 50% chance to reflect a stacking effect: Orcish vengeance.
+3% positional damage modifier, stacks up to 5 times.

I also think it would be neat to see a skill that causes ALL reaver attacks to ignore a percentage of foe's mitigations for a limited time, but have the skill modeled after Burg's Cash-out or Warden's Recklessness, ie. inflict a debuff on the reaver during duration OR only if the target survives after the duration.

I like the positional damage idea, I don't like it being on Blood of Fire, the 4% reflect is pretty good as is, to kill a reaver through all his CDs right now (1v1s yeah...) a freep has to lose 1/3 of their health pool.. Putting another automatic buff/debuff on a reflect is annoying, the game has too many reflects as is. Maybe something that requires a little bit of though to apply? +15% incoming damage is pretty massive, and having it tier up to 15% on literally every freep that happens to aoe/target a reaver, in a split second, is quite overpowered.

[Spilo]

This thread is full of things being addressed that don't need addressing, imo. The only things that need changing for reaver are

1. Buff devastating strike and/or make impale pass through a slightly greater percentage of mitigations.
2. A buff to Severing Strike damage.
3. Fix Resilience, for crying out loud.
4. Nerf improved Sudden Strikes.

And that's really it. Creeps overall could use a flat 5% damage boost, but Reavers are not in a bad position at all. Freep heals are, of course, over-powered, but that's an issue that needs addressing separately.

Give reavers a significant dps boost, and please not only a huge buff to Impale and/or Dev strike but a major buff to the low cd skills (Ravage, Sudden Strikes) and the bleed skills to make reavers less dependant on Impale

Not to pick on the OP, but this is totally unnecessary. A huge buff to Impale, a huge buff to Dev strike, and a major buff to every other damaging skill. Seems legit. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

[Alcatrazz]

And that's really it. Creeps overall could use a flat 5% damage boost, but Reavers are not in a bad position at all. Freep heals are, of course, over-powered, but that's an issue that needs addressing separately.

I never said that reavers are in a bad spot, but I said the strength comes frome heals, not dmg and thats a drawback on a class titeld as DamageDealer. In some other threads I said that freep heals need a nerf too, I'm totally with you but I guess turbine won't nerf it at least not till a new level cap.

A huge buff to Impale, a huge buff to Dev strike, and a major buff to every other damaging skill. Seems legit. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

And exactly that would a bad "improvement" in my eyes. I know many Reavers including me that hate that fu***ing dependance on a single dmg skill. Many Reavers left the game or changed the class when RoR and impale were released due to the fact that reaver is just a "Impaler". I would rather see Impale removed/nerfed into the ground and get a huge buff to all the other dmg skills. I miss the times where you could deal meaningful dmg all the time and not just every 20sec. Even if freep heals get a nerf it would be an appreciated change to make ravage/ss stronger damage skills.

[Spilo]

I never said that reavers are in a bad spot, but I said the strength comes frome heals, not dmg and thats a drawback on a class titeld as DamageDealer. In some other threads I said that freep heals need a nerf too, I'm totally with you but I guess turbine won't nerf it at least not till a new level cap.


And exactly that would a bad "improvement" in my eyes. I know many Reavers including me that hate that fu***ing dependance on a single dmg skill. Many Reavers left the game or changed the class when RoR and impale were released due to the fact that reaver is just a "Impaler". I would rather see Impale removed/nerfed into the ground and get a huge buff to all the other dmg skills. I miss the times where you could deal meaningful dmg all the time and not just every 20sec. Even if freep heals get a nerf it would be an appreciated change to make ravage/ss stronger damage skills.

I think reavers are in a tricky spot. Wargs and Blackarrows are, for the most part, kings of single target DPS with a few other important roles. Spiders CC and Debuff along with Damage. Reavers don't have a lot to bring to that table outside of their relative tankiness in comparison to Wargs, Blackarrows, and (after the mitigations nerf) Spiders. I think Turbine's justification for Impale was that Reavers didn't have a clear raid position, and at least with Impale they can be classified as a "Burst" DPS class. That being said, I think the whole idea of everything has to have a role in raids is over-played- I'd rather see Turbine address individual class balance than worrying about each class having a role.

I really do enjoy the Reaver class, only other creep class besides Warg that I find entertaining. I would love for it to become less impale-dependent.

[Alcatrazz]

I think reavers are in a tricky spot. Wargs and Blackarrows are, for the most part, kings of single target DPS with a few other important roles. Spiders CC and Debuff along with Damage. Reavers don't have a lot to bring to that table outside of their relative tankiness in comparison to Wargs, Blackarrows, and (after the mitigations nerf) Spiders. I think Turbine's justification for Impale was that Reavers didn't have a clear raid position, and at least with Impale they can be classified as a "Burst" DPS class. That being said, I think the whole idea of everything has to have a role in raids is over-played- I'd rather see Turbine address individual class balance than worrying about each class having a role.

But reavers had a role ages ago and that without impale.
I would see that reaver become a real "Burst-DPS-Class" like it once was, and not a "Burst-every-20sec-Class" like its now. I mean I do not request to buff reavers dmg without any adjustments or nerfs to other things. I just would like to see it that reaver gets his power from dps and noch from heals.
I believe it would help lotro pvmp much if selfhealing gets a huge nerf or better remove it completely. Never seen a really good explanation why almost every class need such a huge amount of selfhealing.

[Frostybrand]

Want to bring up this thread again, since I still like most of the suggestion here.

But reavers had a role ages ago and that without impale.
I would see that reaver become a real "Burst-DPS-Class" like it once was, and not a "Burst-every-20sec-Class" like its now. I mean I do not request to buff reavers dmg without any adjustments or nerfs to other things. I just would like to see it that reaver gets his power from dps and noch from heals.
I believe it would help lotro pvmp much if selfhealing gets a huge nerf or better remove it completely. Never seen a really good explanation why almost every class need such a huge amount of selfhealing.

Totally agree with this statement.


There are still problems with the reaver class in terms of dps. If I compare the dps of my r12 Warg with that what my r13 Reaver (and maybe BA too) can deal its just a too big gap between dps classes. I know Warg is the glass cannon class, but it has viable CC options and even a second role with flayer while reavers have almost nothing but dps to bring into a group. So change Wrath like in the opening post while boosting dps would be much better for the classes role.

Maybe reworking the relentless buff would help too since reavers are extremly hard to bring down when they are at full morale, but if their morale drops down they come really close to what wargs are. The dps buff is nice but pretty useless in gvg/rvr fights but exactly there is the problem with reaver dps. I my opinion it would be better to remove the variable relentless buff and just give reaver a +10% mits and skill damage as a passive.

[Sezneg]

But reavers had a role ages ago and that without impale.
I would see that reaver become a real "Burst-DPS-Class" like it once was, and not a "Burst-every-20sec-Class" like its now. I mean I do not request to buff reavers dmg without any adjustments or nerfs to other things. I just would like to see it that reaver gets his power from dps and noch from heals.
I believe it would help lotro pvmp much if selfhealing gets a huge nerf or better remove it completely. Never seen a really good explanation why almost every class need such a huge amount of selfhealing.

Before reavers were a 20 second CD burst damage class (impale), they were just a 30 second cooldown burst damage class (Dev strike).

Really, their sustained DPS has only been good in a handful of updates.

[Frostybrand]

Before reavers were a 20 second CD burst damage class (impale), they were just a 30 second cooldown burst damage class (Dev strike).

Really, their sustained DPS has only been good in a handful of updates.

Before Impale came reavers dps was ok even without DS but since Impale was introduced the rest fo the skills never got a decent dps increase and sustaindes dps was gone. Thrash, Mutilate, both are a bad joke, they do nothing besides their bleed for impale. Ravage is even worse than SS since it got their update. Severing Strike, Serration....totally useless. Ok serration at least helps in keeps to remove npc's.

What I want to say, before Impale sustained dps mostly came from 3 skills (SS, Ravage, Lacerate) which had a low cd and they were properly scaled... more or less, remember RoI wasn't one of the good period. Now every skill that deals a good amount of dmg is on a longer cd while other classes, named stalker and weaver, still have their main dps skills on a low cd and for this reason they can deal much more dps than reavers can do.

I can't remember what every single updated looked like, but I do remember that there had never been such huge gap between reaver sustained dps and wargs/spiders (maybe RoI after warg boost).

Although Reavers dps can reach the same value of wargs in groupfights due to "AOE" but since freeps don't even recognize this AOE thats just "Fake Numbers".

But as I already wrote, I don't want increased dps without any other nerfs, but I want to feel like a dps class again which reaver should be.

[Thorandril]

Give reavers a significant dps boost, and please not only a huge buff to Impale and/or Dev strike but a major buff to the low cd skills (Ravage, Sudden Strikes) and the bleed skills to make reavers less dependant on Impale
Wrath revamp. I always thougth selfhealing on dps classes is a silly thing so I’d like to see Wrath become another dps buff like controlled burn/burn hot which also applies a defeat response

I don't necessarily think impale is the way to go, it's okay at best but only really great when used in tandem with a few other skills. Reavers could use a boost in the AOE damage department, as it's currently not even a little bit threatening to have a reaver in the midst of a group that can be either easily ignored or debuffed into worthlessness. And as the partial change stands this is even moreso true.

Rather than putting all the cards in that basket their base melee range and base AoE damage could use a strong nudge, since they already have pretty potent debuffs, survibability and passable ST damage.

That and I've always wanted the option to swap to 2h weapons and deal far more damage at the expense of max morale and armor possibly.

[Constrictions]

I don't necessarily think impale is the way to go, it's okay at best but only really great when used in tandem with a few other skills. Reavers could use a boost in the AOE damage department, as it's currently not even a little bit threatening to have a reaver in the midst of a group that can be either easily ignored or debuffed into worthlessness. And as the partial change stands this is even moreso true.

Rather than putting all the cards in that basket their base melee range and base AoE damage could use a strong nudge, since they already have pretty potent debuffs, survibability and passable ST damage.

That and I've always wanted the option to swap to 2h weapons and deal far more damage at the expense of max morale and armor possibly.

Having -avoidance rating attached to far reach should help out. I don't see why they don't add in ST focused traits; similar to weaver pets, you could trait for one of ST or AoE.

[Thorandril]

Having -avoidance rating attached to far reach should help out. I don't see why they don't add in ST focused traits; similar to weaver pets, you could trait for one of ST or AoE.

ideally, sure. However that's a small step and having -avoidance attached to far reach would make it so the ineffective AoE's hit, but still don't really do much damage. The only effect that addition would have is making it a little easier to land high impales.

As it stands all physical damage based classes should have a way of acquiring penetration, because otherwise this recent change is simply an across the board nerf to non-tacticals which this game and company are famous for.

[Hayden102]

As well as this low-average ranked reavers bring almost nothing really to the table lol.

[Despotis]

For me the Reaver needs a straightforward damage and finesse increase, Wrath can stay where it is or have somewhat increased cooldown and Severing Strike could have an effect attached to it (either some kind of debuff for the enemy or buff the next reaver attack for example). Simple enough and would be relevant to Reavers of all ranks, as right now only after r10 do they start to "sting".

[Frostybrand]

For me the Reaver needs a straightforward damage and finesse increase, Wrath can stay where it is or have somewhat increased cooldown and Severing Strike could have an effect attached to it (either some kind of debuff for the enemy or buff the next reaver attack for example). Simple enough and would be relevant to Reavers of all ranks, as right now only after r10 do they start to "sting".

Reaver needs more dps to be a useful dps class in groups but I guess it would make reavers op if you do not bring down wrath. Atm you can stay alive against almost every freep class, but you also cannot kill most of them due to big difference in reaver dps and freep selfheal. Buffing dps without healing nerf would make a second warden.

[FerPac]

Its been a while for me - just returning to LOTRO. Wondering if the -10%Attack Duration Buff was fixed now? It used to be that the -10% trait for attack duration would make reaver attacks slower, not faster. Haven't tested it yet but wondering if fixed now.

[Vo1c3zzz]

Its been a while for me - just returning to LOTRO. Wondering if the -10%Attack Duration Buff was fixed now? It used to be that the -10% trait for attack duration would make reaver attacks slower, not faster. Haven't tested it yet but wondering if fixed now.

It's fixed.