The Reaver Nerf

[Urundus]

I'm just gonna keep this a short one. Seems like Reaver, the class that's been useless for the past few years, and arguably the worst class in the game, just got hit by an undocumented nerf last patch.
I logged on and it felt like damage was off. Tooltips seemed roughly 10% lower and overall dps less.

I checked some Impale hits on the light training dummy with Sundering Blow up and in full glass.
Impale now does ~60k, this used to be ~80k.
Impale crit is ~105k which was 120k+.
Impale dev is ~130k which was 150k+.
Glory in Victory heals used to crit for 10-12k. It's now 7-10k.

But, this is all anecdotal evidence. I luckily still had a random screenshot in my folder with a tooltip value of Ravage from after the 25.1 patch (which already lowered dps by ~10%).
Left is before yesterdays patch, right is after. Both have the same trait setup, glass.



I compared some screenshots of my BA which I made on the same day and those did not change at all. Damage tooltips are still exactly the same as they were a few weeks ago.
So for some reason or another, the class with the lowest DPS output of all damage classes in the game got it's damage nerfed.


Next up is a huge nerf to Dying Rage. Dying Rage used to add a good chunk to damage reduction rating. Since 120 level cap it finally scaled well and actually reduced damage to the point where if you had the right buffs and no debuffs on you, you could hit, or get close to 100% damage reduction for the duration.
With yesterdays patch the damage reduction rating got removed and replaced with mitigation rating.
Again, before patch and after.



What does this mean for the reaver? The mitigation rating roughly translates to ~10% added. Now, where lies the problem with this skill?
- The skill has a 10 minute cooldown but can only be activated when under 15% morale, which means you're already 1 or 2 hits away from death.
- The skill itself is extremely buggy and most of the time just goes on CD without providing anything.

All in all, it's now a glorified version of AtO but without a heal, with a 15% morale threshold, a 3x longer CD and far less reliable due to it's buggy nature.
It's a shame because it was an extremely satisfying skill if it actually worked for once, and allowed you to get a cheeky kill or 2 when fighting an entire group or more when solo.

On the positive side. Upper hand now adds 57k armour rating. Which is, when applied, a straight up 5x armour increase because that's how low base armour is (14k).
Thanks I guess...


TL;DR: Seems like reaver damage got lowered by 10% and Dying Rage got gutted. But Upper Hand now provides some more armour rating...

[galrodan]

I'd like a moment of silence for Dying Rage... The saddest part is that 'Warrior Against the Deep' and 'Tireless Warrior' haven't been updated years so reavers now have an 'empty' class trait slot you can't fill with anything useful. F

Mulatic
R14 Reaver
Arkenstone

[danr607]

Great idea! Let's further nerf one of the two creep classes that have been completely and utterly neglected for the last half dozen or so years. Makes perfect sense. Can't say they never did anything to change reaver class now.

[pinlu]

Absolutely pointless nerf to an already virtually useless class other than a heals debuff, the only burst of damage it had is now gone. would be amazing even to just see dying rage fixed, or make it an incombat charge you dont die from.So sad to see reaver in such a bad state, getting gradually worse and worse each update.Please do something to fix it, all would love to see it not a walking meme once again.

[Arandour]

Reaver was my first and my main creep, use to have him at the beginning mostly to farming destiny points for my champion long time ago and then i play some PVP with him.No respect from developers at all for both classes,Reavers and Champions are bleeding and dying together at the moment.So same to watch the front line warriors in such a bad shape.Lets hope things will be change for both classes.

[galrodan]

Reaver was my first and my main creep, use to have him at the beginning mostly to farming destiny points for my champion long time ago and then i play some PVP with him.No respect from developers at all for both classes,Reavers and Champions are bleeding and dying together at the moment.So same to watch the front line warriors in such a bad shape.Lets hope things will be change for both classes.

Totally agreed, champs definitely need some love too. I can count the number of champions in the moors I've seen after the update on 1 hand

Mulatic
R14 Reaver
Arkenstone

[Urundus]

So, i earlier checked on the Beta server, just to check if anything changed for wargs.
I didnt noticed until i saw this post that warg also got nerfed.
My warg on live servers (r13) has an 27k bestial claws. Same warg on the Beta server, (but r15) has only a 24k bestial claws.
This might be an overall Creep dmg nerf.
I dont know if there are changes to other creeps classes though

Yeah I wanted to check the beta as well for any other changes, but it was down already. Will check once it comes back up again.
Would be rather ironic if damage got lowered again. Here's to sub 10k glass tooltip values and 1k bleed ticks for reaver lol

Absolutely pointless nerf to an already virtually useless class other than a heals debuff, the only burst of damage it had is now gone. would be amazing even to just see dying rage fixed, or make it an incombat charge you dont die from.So sad to see reaver in such a bad state, getting gradually worse and worse each update.Please do something to fix it, all would love to see it not a walking meme once again.

Agreed. Reaver was already just a walking dust, disarm and DS bot, assuming those didn't bpe or resist in the first place. Sustained damage has been non-existent for years and burst was very RNG and target dependent. Only way to get burst is critting impale and blade toss, allowing you to go straight into a crit DS dropping AtO and doing a crit DS and toss again. But against anyone with some gear and 250k+ morale that's not gonna happen, even with a glass impale crit it won't be enough to get to the 50% threshold for DS. And if you managed to do it but they survived you just blew all your cd's and damage would drop to pretty much zero.

As for Dying Rage, which bugs should've been fixed years ago already, I don't mind the dying part. And the swap to mitigations wouldn't have been so bad if the rating was high enough to actually provide some mits instead of the few % that we got now. And honestly, for such a buggy skill on such a long CD and which means a guaranteed death, it should reset all skills and not just the few. Let us at least double impale and double stack wrath so we got some chance at survival with the removal of the damage reduction.

Reaver was my first and my main creep, use to have him at the beginning mostly to farming destiny points for my champion long time ago and then i play some PVP with him.No respect from developers at all for both classes,Reavers and Champions are bleeding and dying together at the moment.So same to watch the front line warriors in such a bad shape.Lets hope things will be change for both classes.

Well champions at least still got some changes over time. Reaver has not been touched since the Rohan release over 7 years ago which fully revamped PvP. I've made plenty of suggestions for the class, but if SSG was actually interested in maintaining PvP we would've seen regular tweaks and fixes over time like we used to do.




Still hoping if we can get some answers as to why this change was deemed necessary and if we can see some changes coming to the reaver class any time soon so it can become viable again for the first time in half a decade.

[Aeviternus]

Lmao. Well deserved. Reavers were way overperforming. We all knew it, despite the insidious agenda of Urundus and Mulatic to get them buffed even further. I'm glad the devs didn't listen. Justice was served.

On a serious note, this should be the nail in all of your coffins, just go play something else.

[galrodan]

Lmao. Well deserved. Reavers were way overperforming. We all knew it, despite the insidious agenda of Urundus and Mulatic to get them buffed even further. I'm glad the devs didn't listen. Justice was served.

On a serious note, this should be the nail in all of your coffins, just go play something else.

Can't tell if this is sarcasm or not but...
Reavers were balanced in 1v1s against well geared freeps. At least before the update. I haven't had any 1v1s after the last update.

Reavers have been almost useless in raids for years tho. I wouldn't even know why people invite reavers in raids... when I'm in a raid I usually find myself charging in > fury pot > blade toss > bleeds > impale > dev strike (if below 50%) > dust > charge back. Then wait till you get out of combat and repeat. Either that or I just go complete meatshield mode and hope the freeps that we're fighting are dumb enough to target me instead of the healers. There aren't a lot of reasons to pick reavers over BA's or wargs. especially in the last couple of updates.

I will say however that my experience on reaver varies greatly per server. Most of the fights I've had on Evernight after the update are pretty similar to the more one-sided fights I have on Arkenstone were you just do one rotation and your target is dead. So perhaps the difference of experience is explainable by different server cultures?

P.S. On the devs not listening. I think the changes to PvMP this update we not intended. Like so many 'updates' to PvMP in the past. They have said before that PvE stats are tied to PvP. The only change I can see being intended is the change to DR going from Defence Rating to Mitigations. Dr has always been weird, bugged and 'constantly' being changed. IMO it needs a complete rework if you want it to be useful but not overpowered.

Mulatic
R14 Reaver
Arkenstone

[jokor]

Reaver is one of the best creep in group with warg. This nerf doesn't change anything and i suspect it's due to new stat curve and it's not intended.Obviously you can't win in solo vs 2 and more freeps. Still good for 1 vs 1.

[Urundus]

Lmao. Well deserved. Reavers were way overperforming. We all knew it, despite the insidious agenda of Urundus and Mulatic to get them buffed even further. I'm glad the devs didn't listen. Justice was served.

On a serious note, this should be the nail in all of your coffins, just go play something else.

I've played like an hour, maybe 2, in the past few weeks. Playing other stuff atm. Just thought it was worth noting for the 3 people left that play reaver.

[Aeviternus]

Can't tell if this is sarcasm or not but...

Of course it's sarcasm. Reavers have been the worst creep class for years...

Reaver is one of the best creep in group with warg. This nerf doesn't change anything and i suspect it's due to new stat curve and it's not intended.Obviously you can't win in solo vs 2 and more freeps. Still good for 1 vs 1.

So what in the world is this guy talking about?

[galrodan]

Of course it's sarcasm. Reavers have been the worst creep class for years...

oke good, I thought you lost your mind for a second xD

On the topic of playing other games. I'm definitely playing less and less now that the 'pvmp update' is on the live servers. If New World is any good and PvMP is not seeing any improvements, which is more than likely, I'll be switching games in march. For now, I'm casually playing some Planetside 2 to satisfy my open-world massive battle itch till New World comes out

Obviously you can't win in solo vs 2 and more freeps.

You have much to learn, young one.

Mulatic
R14 Reaver
Arkenstone

[Urundus]

Another beta. Another undocumented change. Again to Dying Rage.
I'm guessing it's probably related to NPC changes, but anyway, here's what changed.

- Physical mitigation rating from 61k to 102k (+41k)
- Tactical mitigation rating from 68k to 60k (-8k)




Obligatory #ReaversAreInsane

[pinlu]

Another beta. Another undocumented change. Again to Dying Rage.
I'm guessing it's probably related to NPC changes, but anyway, here's what changed.

- Physical mitigation rating from 61k to 102k (+41k)
- Tactical mitigation rating from 68k to 60k (-8k)




Obligatory #ReaversAreInsane

They need to make it 500k for it to be of any use, (230k debuff from mini isnt gunna give dr any defenses #### vs dying), or make it poppable at any point in hp, as outside ot an openfield f 1vs1 theres no point to it anymore. Or add 100% resistance, and fix bpe so it works.

[Zaheer]

kekw
devs being utterly clueless again

[Urundus]

They need to make it 500k for it to be of any use, (230k debuff from mini isnt gunna give dr any defenses #### vs dying), or make it poppable at any point in hp, as outside ot an openfield f 1vs1 theres no point to it anymore. Or add 100% resistance, and fix bpe so it works.

What they need to do is just revert the change from damage reduction rating to mitigation rating. It's not like it was a super OP skill or anything, just a gimmick you pop at a last resort. It kills you at the end anyway and it was still possible to counter the skill. And lets not start about how buggy it is, usually only working about 1 in 10 times for me.

[Whoeverr]

And I was just thinking to get back and roll a reaver, rest in peace old days, all hail goldenreaver.

[Askelin]

No way...
I remember reading one thread... *ONE* thread complaining about reavers being OP and all the comments were explaining how they were not in any way OP. In hindsight the post may have very well been an ironic troll post because apparently the OP also played a reaver and was just joking around...

...And now reavers get nerfed like this... And it's a STEALTH nerf too.

How is it that the devs have so much free time on their hands to mess around with such things, Dying rage is certainly a creep only skill and cannot be brushed off as the devs just balancing mob stats like the -10% damage nerf that they got.

I am actually going to inb4 this... Warleaders (another class that has been completely neglected for many long years) will get a stealth nerf to their debuff banner and overall healing next, even with their healing failing to scale for the additional morale that creeps have, they'll still get nerfed because why should creeps have anything nice?

Weavers, defilers and Wargs seem to be in an acceptable enough position disregarding general creepside stats and balance issues. BAs could afford a minor nerf but when the devs get around to it you just know they're going to completely cripple that class as a response to all the complaints they've likely received about them being OP. The irony in this is that BAs only ever became "OP" because of the changes to mob scaling and balances and scaling that creeps share with other mobs... It's incredible really.

I have had to move from Laurelin to Evernight for pvmp and as a result can no longer play my reaver that I had invested much time into, and transfers don't seem to be coming back anytime soon. I'm actually quite sad about this nerf just because it was completely unfounded, NO ONE is unironically saying reavers are too powerful, practically everyone agrees they're underpowered and neglected as a class. This just comes across as the devs frankly doing it out of spite even if this isn't the case.

[pinlu]

Weavers, defilers and Wargs seem to be in an acceptable enough position disregarding general creepside stats and balance issues. BAs could afford a minor nerf but when the devs get around to it you just know they're going to completely cripple that class as a response to all the complaints they've likely received about them being OP. The irony in this is that BAs only ever became "OP" because of the changes to mob scaling and balances and scaling that creeps share with other mobs... It's incredible really.
.

tbh, theres literally 0 point nerfing blackarrows now,raid gear will release and it will go back to end of 120 where freeps are insane again, better to leave the blackarrow for now and see how the next three or four months play out.

[Askelin]

tbh, theres literally 0 point nerfing blackarrows now,raid gear will release and it will go back to end of 120 where freeps are insane again, better to leave the blackarrow for now and see how the next three or four months play out.

It's very telling when you get a stealth nerf to a creep class BEFORE freeps are even able to acquire raid gear. Just goes to show how little regard the devs seem to have on the balancing game.

[zaboch]

I have had to move from Laurelin to Evernight for pvmp and as a result can no longer play my reaver that I had invested much time into, and transfers don't seem to be coming back anytime soon.

Transfers are planned to return with the raid launch, if I was to say an estimate, it would be in about a month.

[Urundus]

How is it that the devs have so much free time on their hands to mess around with such things, Dying rage is certainly a creep only skill and cannot be brushed off as the devs just balancing mob stats like the -10% damage nerf that they got.

There's now been a few changes over a couple of patches. I'm pretty sure it's still related to NPC changes, which creepside is still linked to afaik.

Weavers, defilers and Wargs seem to be in an acceptable enough position disregarding general creepside stats and balance issues. BAs could afford a minor nerf but when the devs get around to it you just know they're going to completely cripple that class as a response to all the complaints they've likely received about them being OP. The irony in this is that BAs only ever became "OP" because of the changes to mob scaling and balances and scaling that creeps share with other mobs... It's incredible really.

The thing with spider, warg, (and for healing) defiler is that their main damage/healing skills are on a low cooldown and have scaled accordingly with level caps. Unlike both reaver and warleader
which don't have high potency skills on a low cooldown.
The only reason BA is OP now is because of traps and steadfast that got scaled due to NPC changes. But once these two go back to "normal" levels of damage BA goes straight back to the trash can again.

I'm actually quite sad about this nerf just because it was completely unfounded, NO ONE is unironically saying reavers are too powerful, practically everyone agrees they're underpowered and neglected as a class. This just comes across as the devs frankly doing it out of spite even if this isn't the case.

I'm not convinced the nerf is deliberate tbh. The problem for reaver is that it's not just damage that's falling behind. The problem is that the class brings almost nothing to the table because it's not been changed mechanically since like Isengard/Rohan. It's living in an entirely different era compared to what it's fighting. Reaver has very little utility and what it has is easily countered. Fixing the class would mean changes to many (if not all) of its skills and traits. Add to that the already outdated foundation that forms creepside (base stats and passive skills) and you're left with a mess of a class.