33 réponses à ce sujet

[SomeoneStoleMyName]

Guard and reaver health steal (devour) seems to have insane synergy. Champion is without doubt the strongest defensive tank, but reaver does imo seem to surpass it in terms of pure survival. This due to devour bonuses + guard synergizing extremely well. Have anyone tried this? Because on paper... it seems pretty rad. If you havent tried it, thoughts?

[duskl1ght]

Devour is worse than worthless, it heals for almost nothing and even in ring of pain it costs 50 stamina, so you won't have enough stamina to use anything else, that's assuming you actually get to cast it instead of the ai pathing making you walk in circles around your target instead. I'll be amazed if any1 can play reaver even in normal mode. My rift mage on the other hand can solo groups of enemies 4 levels higher

[jomonoe]

Devour is worse than worthless, it heals for almost nothing and even in ring of pain it costs 50 stamina, so you won't have enough stamina to use anything else

I would hazard to guess that the high cost of Devour is due to its massive synergy with Dragon Rage. Imo, when I look at the skills of Reaver, it encourages the player to use dragon rage very heavily, then devour for health, dragon rage until low health, rinse and repeat. I think this approach to combat is valid due to dragon rage hitting like a truck and in large arcs.

For the OP, I agree with you that a SnW Reaver would be viable on nightmare. The added survivability will help you keep your health in its sweet spot and not get 1 or 2 hit like a 2 handed warrior might.

[Gel214th]

Instead of theorycrafting, try it and tell us how it works Post a youtube video even!  

[lvt_Aad]

Devour doesn't heal you. It just recovers your lost health. Kind of symantics but the difference is that you want to be really low in health for devour to be effective, and it will only ever heal you to a certain point(it's not going to top you off). It doesn't seem to synersize with guard at all imo, since someone good with guarding is almost always at full life or near full life.

 

The main thing why this wouldn't work is because you need ring of pain or else the heal is even more pathetic. Both of those costs too much stamina so you literally cannot do anything but those two skills. Reaver only semi-works because in that precious 3-5 second window, before your stamina completely taps out, you can dragon rage 3-4 times and then Devour the health back resulting in a TON of damage.

 

I agree with the previous poster though, until the stamina cost of reaver is addressed you're better off playing a standard two-hander warrior or another specialization for tanking.

[SomeoneStoleMyName]

Devour doesn't heal you. It just recovers your lost health. Kind of symantics but the difference is that you want to be really low in health for devour to be effective, and it will only ever heal you to a certain point(it's not going to top you off). It doesn't seem to synersize with guard at all imo, since someone good with guarding is almost always at full life or near full life.

 

The main thing why this wouldn't work is because you need ring of pain or else the heal is even more pathetic. Both of those costs too much stamina so you literally cannot do anything but those two skills. Reaver only semi-works because in that precious 3-5 second window, before your stamina completely taps out, you can dragon rage 3-4 times and then Devour the health back resulting in a TON of damage.

 

I agree with the previous poster though, until the stamina cost of reaver is addressed you're better off playing a standard two-hander warrior or another specialization for tanking.

Thanks for the input.

The reason I thought it could work is due to getting the bonuses while having guard up, and when guard is low - devour. With a few SnB passives and vanguard, your mitigation will be high. Therefore low health is less dangerous. Also the focus ability of reaver is very strong for survival aswell. I actually think it could work, but... it might only be feasable with the PC - due to it requiring high micromanagement. 

[Rannik]

SnS Reaver Master Race reporting in     

 

Having a blast on nightmare, tanks perfectly fine as long as you block, does a pretty decent DPS with Dragon-Rage and is extremely fun to play.

 

That said, I'd stick to Blackwall if you're leaving tanking to the IA.

[Sevitan7]

Reaver active skills are pretty meh. But the passives are neato.

[Cavemandiary]

A tip for reavers : upgrade challenge, it gives 15 stam/ second, enough to offset ring of pain for several seconds.

[duskl1ght]

SnS Reaver Master Race reporting in     

 

Having a blast on nightmare, tanks perfectly fine as long as you block, does a pretty decent DPS with Dragon-Rage and is extremely fun to play.

 

That said, I'd stick to Blackwall if you're leaving tanking to the IA.

 

How often do you use Dragon Rage, and when do you use it? 10s of dragon rage is enough to take all my health even if no1 is hitting me.

 

Where did you spend your points? I really like the idea of a reaver and I want to make it work. Is a 2H reaver viable at all on nightmare?

[SomeoneStoleMyName]

For a tank reaver - dragon rage should be skipped (imo) the strength you rely on is devour /w guard.

[magicalzero]

What, specifically, is the synergy between Guard and Devour? I can't see any at all. As a tank you're either going to be absorbing damage with Guard and active mitigation, or you're spending stamina to build Guard and use active mitigation. Wasting 65(or 50) stamina on a mediocre heal that only really works if you've taken substantial damage seems counter-productive at best.

[Rannik]

For a tank reaver - dragon rage should be skipped (imo) the strength you rely on is devour /w guard.

 

Devour is borderline useless, you shouldn't be taking health damage other than the Dragon-Rage and that's easily healable by drain rings or weapons with heal on hit, your other skills simply do more damage.

 

How often do you use Dragon Rage, and when do you use it? 10s of dragon rage is enough to take all my health even if no1 is hitting me.

 

Where did you spend your points? I really like the idea of a reaver and I want to make it work. Is a 2H reaver viable at all on nightmare?

 

I spam it until I drop to 25%~50% HP and then switch to autoattacks for healing, blocking stuff in the meanwhile of course.

[TheStrand221]

I haven't tried this yet myself, but I think the synergy would be allowing you to utilize the Reaver skills without running the risk of being one-shot by something nasty when your health is low.  Basically guard allows you to ride your health near the edge for the damage boosts from Blood Frenzy, or after burning it with Dragon Rage, with less risk of death.  If you're using Dragon Rage you don't need to be taking hits from the enemy to get the Blood Frenzy damage boost, you inflict the damage on yourself.

 

Reaver gives a bunch of decent passives to improve your damage output, while Sword and Shield improves defense and gives you good guard generating abilities.  You can Dragon Rage your health down to almost nothing for damage output, then rely on your guard to keep you alive if you're taking hits.  Use health drain items or Devour (which you pick up anyway on the way to Dragon Rage) to regain health, then spam Dragon Rage all over again.

[RustyW]

So a reaver. S&S tank is only viable on nightmare?

[SomeoneStoleMyName]

What, specifically, is the synergy between Guard and Devour? I can't see any at all. As a tank you're either going to be absorbing damage with Guard and active mitigation, or you're spending stamina to build Guard and use active mitigation. Wasting 65(or 50) stamina on a mediocre heal that only really works if you've taken substantial damage seems counter-productive at best.

 

I havent recruited bull yet, but I've started my nightmare playthrough.

The synergy is this: 

Tanks get high mitigation from SnB skills. Tanks get guard from Vanguard.
The lower your health, the more damage and bonuses you get. 
Devour heals you on a pretty low CD. (High stamina cost though).
Normally low health is a problem once guard is down (potion required).
But with guard up, you are getting free time for devour CD to kick in.

To clarify: Guard and Devour on rotation /w high mitigation should become a highly sustainable tank.

I've worked out a build for bull as my SnB tank for my nightmare tank. Stay tuned will update once I've tested it out.

[RustyW]

Hmm, I was focused on having Bull as my tank, but it sounds like he may not be viable on normal difficulty? would this still be the case even if I did not take many specialisation talents?

[TheStrand221]

With Warrior's Resolve from the SnS tree you are also regaining stamina as you take damage, though I'm not sure if it works with self-inflicted harm like Dragon's Rage.  If it does, then you can Dragon's rage your health down, gaining stamina, then use Devour and do it all over again.

[octavian1127]

I would think a Champion (eg Blackwall) would be your best tanking character as it's the only spec to generate Guard.

[Rannik]

I would think a Champion (eg Blackwall) would be your best tanking character as it's the only spec to generate Guard.

 

Shield block generates guard, you don't need any specialization to stack it.

 

I don't know if the IA uses it properly though.

[Sevitan7]

Guard is pretty underwhelming on nightmare as you level anyway. Based guard is 150, 200 with the 25% passive upgrade. 200 hp are not going to last long on nightmare no matter what.

 

Barrier is a far better tool for avoiding damage. Even though it only lasts about 10 seconds, it provides thousands of extra hp and in practice ends up being invulnerability as long as it's on. Even maxed out guard, which is not always easy to obtain, amounts to 1 or 2 more hits form regular enemies, and bosses practically ignore it.

[TheStrand221]

Good point about guard on Nightmare, which actually makes Shield Wall look even better.

 

Rubios, you should give us more specifics on how your play style is working out, or post a video to see those leet skillz.  Or is it really as simple as spamming Dragon Rage, then blocking and auto-attacking until health recovers?

[duskl1ght]

Rubios can you please post some tips about blocking in Nightmare difficulty? How do you handle archers? I guess you combat roll out of AOE?

[zeypher]

Hmm warriors resolve, will that help to offset my stamina drain with reaver? If i keep losing hp i keep getting stamina to keep ring of pain and devour going. If it does then even for a two handed warrior putting 2 points to get warriors resolve will be worth it

[Deatonis]

People on this thread are absolutely clueless. Not being rude but truthful. Try playing multiplayer before you theorycraft what class is useless and not useless. Reaver can easily go to max hp from 1/3rd within seconds with the right build.

People are just know it all, it's dragon age not the sims so stop acting like hipsters like you know something. And this is from a guy who is 18th promote on multi.