Hey folks, before we start with the meat let me do a little introduction.
This will be a lengthy post and english isn’t my first language so please excuse any errors or extensive rambling, I will try to make it as pleasant as possible to read.
This thread is intended to give my personal view about the Reaver in RvR, to show some of its flaws and to present possible solutions. These are not strictly bound to classic but also make use of newer patches or custom solutions, just like the server itself.
For this thread I have spoken with numerous people and reaver players on this server and I also have a RR8+ Reaver myself. This won’t make me an expert and personally I believe I’m far away from that but I do hope that I could gather enough experience to justify this thread. It is based on the most common specc of Reaver that involves Levi, Slam & various levels of Soul. I know there are other playstyles but I won’t cover those in this thread, sorry.
Enough with this introduction, let’s get to the juicy meat of this topic - the Reaver.
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To talk about the problems we first have to analyze what the Reaver actually does in RvR, what his roles are and how he tries to achieve them. Yes there are playstyles outside of sitting behind a keep waiting to throw a TWF in the lord room
The solo / 1v1 Reaver
I will only touch this one briefly. Technically you can play him solo but without speed or CC he won’t last long outside in the field. In a 1v1, which may happen in a group fight, his only real method to do damage is levi after slamming his opponent. If the slam is purged, or he has immunity active this option is gone. The anytimers are horrible and the block chain is a 4-part combo that is very difficult to achieve.
The Reaver in a Tank-group
In a Tank-group the Reaver is the damage dealer of the group. Tank-groups have access to better classes to peel of opponents thus they rely on the Reaver to do the damage in the group. For this role the Reaver has access to Levi (a cold-damage style proc), Slam to stop his opponent and his ABS debuff aura. To finish off low opponents he also has a lifetap. He can rupt enemy casters with his dot, damage-aura or damage-debuff aura although all of those will break CC. A powerful yet limited set of tools.
The Reaver in a Caster-group
In a Caster-group the Reaver is the peeler of the group. Usually he is the only melee class in the group so his primary role is to keep enemies off his fellow group members. To do this role the reaver has access to slam his opponent for 9s although this will work only once due to immunity-timers and is often purged. He also has access to a 2-part side-style combo where the 2nd style has a snare, the snare itself isn’t great and it is hard to apply due to being a side-style. He can also use his damage-debuff aura to reduce the incoming damage a bit although this often results in breaking CC and thus increasing overall damage and handing out free immunity. The ABS debuff aura, damage-aura & lifetap don’t achieve much in this setting. The dot can be used to rupt enemy casters. He can also use guard to block some of the incoming attacks. A very limited set of tools for this role and not very powerful.
Now that we have established roughly how the reaver works we can focus on the flaws and possible solutions. I want to reinforce here that I do not wish to overbuff the Reaver and thus not all flaws have to be fixed. This is merely a collection of possible solutions, from which the devs may pick what they seem fit. Think of it like a fruit-basket full of solutions, you don’t have to eat all the fruits
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Let’s begin.
The damage-debuff aura. Currently it reduces melee damage by a given % depending on the level of the skill. The effect can be resisted. It is an AOE around the Reaver which can not be aimed otherwise. It interrupts enemy caster and due to that breaks CC effects.
Due to a custom rule on this server that interrupting effects also break CC this ability is often more harm than good.
The roles of this ability are to interrupt and to reduce melee-damage. However this primarily role of reducing damage is almost impossible to achieve due to it breaking CC.
In a Tank-group as a damage dealer you often find yourself getting swarmed by enemy tanks. If you use the damage-debuff aura in that case you often break CC on those clump of tanks and thus increase the damage you receive instead of reducing it, while also handing out free immunity timers to the enemy tanks.
In a Caster-group you rarely need it, unless the enemy is already slam immune and you try to block-bot one of your casters. However even here you regularly break the CC effect.
Solution: Reaver auras were always very unique in DAoC for a reason. Trying to force a custom rule on them is unnecessary and harmful. The damage-debuff aura should interrupt and should not break CC. Otherwise the primary function of this ability to reduce melee damage is pretty much useless.
The Block-chain. Currently the Reaver Block-chain is a 4-part combo which is extremely hard to get out on your opponent. This is because of blocks, parrys, misses, stuns, etc breaking your combo easily. It also takes an enormous amount of time in a fight to complete this and only the last part of the combo is the real damage dealer. For 1v1 fights this is a very important asset in the toolbox of the reaver as he has no real anytimers to use.
Solution: In later versions of DAoC this got revamped to a 3-part combo which is more reasonable to achieve in comparison.
Siege-damage resistance. As we have established in the previous section the Reaver fills the role of a tank in the caster groups, a common form of Albion RvR groups. He can wear chain, a large shield and is overall very tanky. Due to his very few spells, which are like the Paladin with his chants, he is officially labeled as a “hybrid”. Because of that he does not receive the siege-damage resistance like the other tanks do, including the Paladin. This however does not fit with the role and playstyle of the Reaver in this game. He is a tank just like the others, he plays like others and should receive the same buffs as the others.
Solution: The Reaver should receive the siege-damage resistance buff like all other tanks do.
Stoicism: To further put the Reaver inline with his real role of being a Tank, just like the Paladin is with his few spells, the Reaver needs access to Stoicism. Stoicism is a vital component to fulfill his role properly.
Solution: The Reaver should have access to the RA Stoicism.
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You are almost done reading at this point, good job! Also let me say sorry for the wall of text, but I tried to make this topic as accessible to other players as possible even if they don’t play Albion and are not familiar with the Reaver class.
I hope this could give an insight on the troubles of a Reaver in his daily RvR and maybe get a fix or two on that matter. Please let me know what you think about this topic in the comment section!
Suggestions & critique is welcome but please keep it reasonable and if possible include information and reasons behind them. No “u just sck m8 lrn to play & stop QQing” please
Thank you all for reading and see ya out on the battlefield!
This will be a lengthy post and english isn’t my first language so please excuse any errors or extensive rambling, I will try to make it as pleasant as possible to read.
This thread is intended to give my personal view about the Reaver in RvR, to show some of its flaws and to present possible solutions. These are not strictly bound to classic but also make use of newer patches or custom solutions, just like the server itself.
For this thread I have spoken with numerous people and reaver players on this server and I also have a RR8+ Reaver myself. This won’t make me an expert and personally I believe I’m far away from that but I do hope that I could gather enough experience to justify this thread. It is based on the most common specc of Reaver that involves Levi, Slam & various levels of Soul. I know there are other playstyles but I won’t cover those in this thread, sorry.
Enough with this introduction, let’s get to the juicy meat of this topic - the Reaver.
---
To talk about the problems we first have to analyze what the Reaver actually does in RvR, what his roles are and how he tries to achieve them. Yes there are playstyles outside of sitting behind a keep waiting to throw a TWF in the lord room
The solo / 1v1 Reaver
I will only touch this one briefly. Technically you can play him solo but without speed or CC he won’t last long outside in the field. In a 1v1, which may happen in a group fight, his only real method to do damage is levi after slamming his opponent. If the slam is purged, or he has immunity active this option is gone. The anytimers are horrible and the block chain is a 4-part combo that is very difficult to achieve.
The Reaver in a Tank-group
In a Tank-group the Reaver is the damage dealer of the group. Tank-groups have access to better classes to peel of opponents thus they rely on the Reaver to do the damage in the group. For this role the Reaver has access to Levi (a cold-damage style proc), Slam to stop his opponent and his ABS debuff aura. To finish off low opponents he also has a lifetap. He can rupt enemy casters with his dot, damage-aura or damage-debuff aura although all of those will break CC. A powerful yet limited set of tools.
The Reaver in a Caster-group
In a Caster-group the Reaver is the peeler of the group. Usually he is the only melee class in the group so his primary role is to keep enemies off his fellow group members. To do this role the reaver has access to slam his opponent for 9s although this will work only once due to immunity-timers and is often purged. He also has access to a 2-part side-style combo where the 2nd style has a snare, the snare itself isn’t great and it is hard to apply due to being a side-style. He can also use his damage-debuff aura to reduce the incoming damage a bit although this often results in breaking CC and thus increasing overall damage and handing out free immunity. The ABS debuff aura, damage-aura & lifetap don’t achieve much in this setting. The dot can be used to rupt enemy casters. He can also use guard to block some of the incoming attacks. A very limited set of tools for this role and not very powerful.
Now that we have established roughly how the reaver works we can focus on the flaws and possible solutions. I want to reinforce here that I do not wish to overbuff the Reaver and thus not all flaws have to be fixed. This is merely a collection of possible solutions, from which the devs may pick what they seem fit. Think of it like a fruit-basket full of solutions, you don’t have to eat all the fruits
---
Let’s begin.
The damage-debuff aura. Currently it reduces melee damage by a given % depending on the level of the skill. The effect can be resisted. It is an AOE around the Reaver which can not be aimed otherwise. It interrupts enemy caster and due to that breaks CC effects.
Due to a custom rule on this server that interrupting effects also break CC this ability is often more harm than good.
The roles of this ability are to interrupt and to reduce melee-damage. However this primarily role of reducing damage is almost impossible to achieve due to it breaking CC.
In a Tank-group as a damage dealer you often find yourself getting swarmed by enemy tanks. If you use the damage-debuff aura in that case you often break CC on those clump of tanks and thus increase the damage you receive instead of reducing it, while also handing out free immunity timers to the enemy tanks.
In a Caster-group you rarely need it, unless the enemy is already slam immune and you try to block-bot one of your casters. However even here you regularly break the CC effect.
Solution: Reaver auras were always very unique in DAoC for a reason. Trying to force a custom rule on them is unnecessary and harmful. The damage-debuff aura should interrupt and should not break CC. Otherwise the primary function of this ability to reduce melee damage is pretty much useless.
The Block-chain. Currently the Reaver Block-chain is a 4-part combo which is extremely hard to get out on your opponent. This is because of blocks, parrys, misses, stuns, etc breaking your combo easily. It also takes an enormous amount of time in a fight to complete this and only the last part of the combo is the real damage dealer. For 1v1 fights this is a very important asset in the toolbox of the reaver as he has no real anytimers to use.
Solution: In later versions of DAoC this got revamped to a 3-part combo which is more reasonable to achieve in comparison.
Siege-damage resistance. As we have established in the previous section the Reaver fills the role of a tank in the caster groups, a common form of Albion RvR groups. He can wear chain, a large shield and is overall very tanky. Due to his very few spells, which are like the Paladin with his chants, he is officially labeled as a “hybrid”. Because of that he does not receive the siege-damage resistance like the other tanks do, including the Paladin. This however does not fit with the role and playstyle of the Reaver in this game. He is a tank just like the others, he plays like others and should receive the same buffs as the others.
Solution: The Reaver should receive the siege-damage resistance buff like all other tanks do.
Stoicism: To further put the Reaver inline with his real role of being a Tank, just like the Paladin is with his few spells, the Reaver needs access to Stoicism. Stoicism is a vital component to fulfill his role properly.
Solution: The Reaver should have access to the RA Stoicism.
---
You are almost done reading at this point, good job! Also let me say sorry for the wall of text, but I tried to make this topic as accessible to other players as possible even if they don’t play Albion and are not familiar with the Reaver class.
I hope this could give an insight on the troubles of a Reaver in his daily RvR and maybe get a fix or two on that matter. Please let me know what you think about this topic in the comment section!
Suggestions & critique is welcome but please keep it reasonable and if possible include information and reasons behind them. No “u just sck m8 lrn to play & stop QQing” please
Thank you all for reading and see ya out on the battlefield!
