12 réponses à ce sujet

[Rousie]

Hi all. I was thinking about trying a Sword and Shield DPS Reaver. Can it work or does Reaver really only synergize with Two-hand? I was thinking something along these lines:

 

1. Ring of Pain

2. Devour

3. Dragon-Rage

4. Rampage

5. Warcry? (or challenge, primarily to build a little guard. Or is it a waist to have taunt on a non-tank?)

6. Charging Bull? (gap closer, knock down, guard builder)

7. Lunge and Slash? (impact detonator)

8. Shield Bash? (Guard Damage)

 

As far as passives, I was thinking of taking everything in the Reaver tree for obvious reasons, everything in the Sword and Shield tree to maximize the utility of the shield, and everything in the Battlemaster tree because they all have nice effects, especially the increased damage to knocked down foes. None of the Vanguard passives seem terribly useful for this build.

 

Anyone have experience with Reaver/SS builds?

[CombatEvil]

Ring of pain makes it so you cannot use any other skills. it costs 10 stamina/sec so unless you kill everything in ~5-8 seconds your down to just auto attacks or killing yourself with dragonrage since you wont have the stamina to use devour.

this fact and the silly dragonrage animation made me quit my reaver.

[zeypher]

For reaver by far THE best passives are in  W&S and they work even with two handed weapon.

[Azrus]

Ring of pain makes it so you cannot use any other skills. it costs 10 stamina/sec so unless you kill everything in ~5-8 seconds your down to just auto attacks or killing yourself with dragonrage since you wont have the stamina to use devour.

this fact and the silly dragonrage animation made me quit my reaver.

... what?  You know that if you use your basic attack you regen stamina right?  Just swing your sword a few times and you can easily outpace the stamina cost of RoP.  The problem is if you're spamming Dragon-rage, as Dragon-rage does not generate stamina (it will if you grab the Clear a Path passive from the 2H line, but you need to be hitting multiple targets).  That said, if you're a tank, you really shouldn't be using Dragon-rage.  I was actually thinking of tinkering around with a Reaver tank build myself.  I think there's some potential for fun there.  Of course you'd really only be taking Reaver for the passives, RoP, Devour, and Rampage.  You'd get some pretty decent self-heals out of it and a lot of offensive potential, so if you wanted a tank that could still throw down it could be a fun choice.

[Mr.K]

I haven't really tested out all the passive skills yet but out of the active skills I would say these 5 are key,

1. ROP

2. Dragon rage

3. Devour

4. Warcry

5. Charging Bull

 

Guard may seem kind of pointless when playing Reaver but to me, it is the core of the Reaver and allows the Reaver keep his HP as low as possible in order to deal higher damage. As guard effectively replaces the HP bar, by constantly having high guard, I have effectively more HP to burn for boosting damage.

Hence, HP becomes expendable to boost damage and Guard replaces my need for HP. Mostly when I fight now, it is always max Guard with 1 HP bar remaining and then Devouring just to stop suicides from Dragon Rage.

[Karink]

Unless it's only a bug on my end you can't use the focus ability of the Reaver spec if you are S&S. Found out the hard way...

If you take Warrior's resolve (stamina for hp missing) it's easy enough to sustain Ring of Pain most of the time. Works great against melee opponents but looking back at my choice I'd rather have gone for Champion spec in order to tank better Bosses.

 

(Note: I play on Nightmare difficulty, experience of the Reaver/S&S maybe different depending on difficulty level.)

[TK8]

They should make dragon rage cost 2% of current health. Devour can't fully heal you, so why should dragon rage be able to kill you?

[Lerrasien]

I agree with Karink, I'm pretty positive that a S&S Reaver would be pretty rough on Nightmare, especially if you think guard is going to do you a whole lot of good if you have no hp once it's gone. my tank tends to lose guard pretty damn fast on Nightmare. The only real defense I've noticed in Nightmare is the mage barriers, even with some pretty hefty defense and a little bit into strength, I've noticed that guard drops way too quickly even when fighting normal mobs.

[Karink]

I've used the tactician renewal just a few minutes ago before trying (again) to kill the Dragon in the Hinterlands. First try I used Devour from time to time when my Inquisitor was low health (party died stupidly). Allowed me to stall a little but nothing huge and I ended up dying. Second try I didn't use it and just focused on tanking and it went way smoother. Sure that time around the party didn't die but still. Devour doesn't heal you nearly enough to be worth the ability point IMO. I'm going to keep Blood Frenzy & Terrifying Fury though since they seem pretty ok to me but that will be it for the Reaver spec. I'd rather put points in some tanky passive abilities.

[Lerrasien]

Yeah I would say if you want to go tanky with some dps to go Templar, as it seems much more viable for that line of thinking.

[Lerrasien]

Not to mention I absolutely love the Templar focus ability

[zeypher]

Ring of pain makes it so you cannot use any other skills. it costs 10 stamina/sec so unless you kill everything in ~5-8 seconds your down to just auto attacks or killing yourself with dragonrage since you wont have the stamina to use devour.

this fact and the silly dragonrage animation made me quit my reaver.

The animation pisses me off as well. I feel my sword is just a big buss stick on my back. Why couldn't dragon rage actually use my bloody weapons annoys me to no end. 

[Ben Gadura]

The build works perfectly. Managed to solo crestwood's dragon at level 13 on nightmare. It requires quick reactions and self control (lol) though.

The skills i'm using at lvl 15:
1. Dragon rage (DR): best aoe melee dps in the game, maybe. Requires good positioning and health management. Never pass on the upgrade;

2. Ring of pain: tried a build without it; did not work. The increased heal from devour is mandatory if you are tanking;

3. Devour: quintessential. I'll explain below how i use it in order to keep spamming dragon rage;

4. Shield Wall: i love this one so much... Synergizes badly with DR though, since it doesn't cancel rage's animation. This means that against stronger enemies you need to pick the right moment to use DR. Always try to parry, since it stuns enemies and impacts less on your DPS;

5. Challenge: i use it mainly to restore stamina (upgrade). I'd like to test Unbowed instead of it;

6. War Cry: another fantastic skill. Pick the upgrade always...

7. Charging Bull: this is what makes the build viable. The upgrade is mandatory;

8. Mark of the rift

So, the trick to maintain good levels of health is to use RoP, devour, rage (upgraded in order to reduce devour's cooldown), charging bull (upgraded - don't go too far in order to preserve stamin), devour, then use DR until either warrior's resolve kick in, then challenge (upgraded), or until charging bull is ready again. Stamina should be depleted then, this is when deep reserves kick in.