Finally found time to make another guide. Future guides will actually be posted by me as I've decided to not use my PR front anymore. Additionally further music choices will be better. Probably. Hopefully. Deepest apologies about the assassin video.
Anyway for those who prefer a mash up of clips that show off the class at its most interesting a video link can be found here.
For those who would rather see a full match one can be found here. Unfortunately the comp is rather perfect and dull but it does show off the potential well.
Skills -
Rampage – You see a focus ability, you take a focus ability. Hell it's a tier 2 focus ability. Despite the recent nerf not healing you with dragon-rage is still heals with all other damaging abilities and your auto attacks. Without it you aren't truly playing a reaver. The long cd is more than easily compensated for by Flow of Battle since you'll be cleaving so many enemies at such a rapid pace with some luck, and gear, you'll have it up shortly after or during the ability itself. Pop it for the extra damage and speed or when you begin to lose health. Bonus points for being He-Man and yelling “I HAVE THE POWER.” whenever you use the ability.
Dragon-Rage with Ravage – Your bread and butter auto attack replacement. Well most of the time. Zealots will block this and you'll still take the damage when you're not rampaging but you can still try to sneak them in when they're focused on another target or CC'd in some fashion. The damage on it is great. It turns most every attack into that of a decent skill and it has a fairly usable aoe to boot. It, however, will not generate you stamina which is why interweaving auto attacks to use further devours, have the 65 required for rampage, and sustain your possible ring of pain is essential. This also reduces the CD on devour by a lucrative amount, essentially making the CD on devour a stamina gate only. This attack also gets strong the weaker you are so don't be afraid to go in swinging when you're desperate. So long as you're not dead you're able to fight.
Devour – This skill is fantastic to okay depending on its use. The stamina cost and CD by default are both rather high and the healing scales with your missing health and not the damage you deal with it. Outside of ring of pain the healing isn't superb but inside it, juggling between autos for stamina and dragon-rage for cd reduction this skill can have you flirting with death so often he'll think you two are going steady. Additionally it can't be blocked by pesky zealots and gladiators and their ilk will only block the second half of the damage, therefore triggering no cd or stamina cost. The lunge on it is fantastic as well. Rampage will still get the 20% heal from damage dealt when using this skill so inside ring of pain its not uncommon to almost burst heal yourself to full.
Ring of Pain with Torrent of Pain – This skill has grown on me substantially the more and more I use it. It doesn't seem to fit the flow of the multiplayer game well until you really start to abuse its aspects. Inside ring of pain by default you gain +50% damage on dragon-rage, reduces the cd on devour by four seconds, reduces the cost of dragon-rage by 20%, increases the healing of devour by two to three times (I honestly can't tell based on the wording. I'm going to go with three times) and reduces the stamina cost of devour by an unknown amount. I've heard from 65 to 35 but I have no actual confirmation. It also does a very measly to unusable amount of damage to enemies within it. Ordinarily simply boosting your other skills isn't fantastic but due to dragon-rage no longer healing you with rampage this skill has come into its own. As you get low your damage naturally increases due to blood frenzy but inside this skill you'll effectively triple what that passive was doing for you alone. This is essential for surviving in brawls on perilous as the increased damage will increase your meager, compared to old dragon-rage, healing to usable levels and combined with the cleave of an aoe weapon you can quickly heal up from most anything.
OR
Warhorn – If you lack a superb stamina amulet or feel uncomfortable with ring of pain this is your second go to. Swap it out for ring of pain or devour is you feel unsafe running a full reaver spec. The aoe panic is very nice though the animation leaves you a tiny bit vulnerable. After the panic you can chain auto crit enemies to possibly trigger more panics in a beautiful display of death. Replacing ring of pain with this is the more standard reaver build but it doesn't have you courting death quite as much and therefore isn't as fun to play. At least in my opinion. You'll be specced into this anyway to grab flow of battle so if your team comp needs the aoe panic you can swap it out in a pinch.
Passives Nabbed -
Deathblow
Flow of Battle
Bloodbath
Fervor
Warrior's Resolve
All the way to Bear Mauls the Wolves in the Assault tree.
General Strategy
You court death constantly with this class. Hell you'll probably go down on occasion due to unfortunate circumstances but you'll get rezzed at low life and that's exactly what you want. Dragon-rage until your health is at burstable levels and then rampage to heal yourself up and continue dragon-raging whenever you're topped off. Stand inside ring of pain whenever your stamina allows it to boost your damage output and let you return they give to you ten times over. Try to throw down ring of pain whenever you devour for the insanely increased healing amount and doing so during rampage will get you out of the scariest of situations. Barriers and a taunter help this class immensely but aren't technically needed. In fact they largely detract from the fun of almost being dead all the time.
Vs Red Templars
Never duel a shadow. They will mess your day up something terrible with their stagger and damage and the fact they can't be panicked. Try to burst them with dragon-rage when they aren't focused on you or otherwise just stay the hell away. Other than that this faction isn't terrible. Horrors are pretty weak in a brawl and tend to transform when you get near them making them easy prey. Just don't get pincushioned by them at a range especially by their homing bolts. Not even you can heal through that. Avoid the mass ranged fire when possible and look for opportunities to panic mass groups with your terrifying fury.
Final Room -
If the commander is aggrod on you get your shots in while you can but watch closely for line nukes and his spin. His melees hurt a fair bit so you can heal through them in the short term but in the long term you'll have to sneak off to heal on smaller guys in the meantime. If he isn't aggrod on you getting behind him with rampage and dragon-rage will tear through him in seconds. Just make sure you're covered while you do this as a knight and horror shot combo from the back will put you on the floor. Swapping between dealing damage and taking out incoming enemies is highly recommended. Other than that all other spawns can be panicked so you're generally free to rampage around taking down whatever you want. Except for knights that gut punch you. Those hurt.
Vs Venatori
This faction is about as simple as it can get. They have very little range and their stalkers aren't even close to being a threat. Brutes knocking you down is a problem but if you keep swinging there's a good chance they'll be so afraid of the giblets that were formerly their comrades all over the place they'll never get the chance. The mages and spellbinders are the only real threat to you so don't step on fire mines and avoid walking into the mages elemental backstep and you'll be fine. Side note panicking a spellbinder has probably the most hilarious run animation in the game. Seriously. Try it out.
Final Room
Its not a bad idea to pop a fire tonic against her to mitigate some of the damage but its not truly needed. Swinging at her will probably panic everyone around her meaning you can get in as much quality time as you desire. Be mindful of brutes though. If one sneaks up on you and isn't panicked he'll pancake you and with back up it will be more than enough to end you in the knockdown.
Vs Demons
Yeeeeeeeeeeaaaahhhhhh this faction. Fire wraiths and rage demons are the bane of your existence rooms one and two as the former's broken DoTs and the latter's flail and stagger lock will probably take you down in you're not careful. Fire tonics come highly recommended. After that despair demons are a pain because of their beam attack very quickly dropping you and the constant slows they inflict will prevent you from reaching prey. Fortunately they can be panicked so you can put on good damage given the opportunity and if they're below 35% when they put their barrier up you can speed at them like a bat out of hell. Fear demons and terrors are immune to panic but fear demons miss a lot of their attacks for some strange reason so they aren't a terrible threat. When they do connect you'll feel kind of cheated though.
Final Room
Spirit tonic, spirit tonic, spirit tonic. With the recent nerf to DC his pop up attack is spirit damage so this will mitigate 80-90% of his damage. Unfortunately his melees and pop up to throw bolts are both still physical and hurt a lot. You can't duel him with rampage in a melee fight anymore. Sneak in hits on him when you feel safe to do so but you'll probably end up panicked and waiting for another shot at it. Don't use ring of pain in fights with him that will be short as you'll be left unable to toggle it off and it will drain most to all of your stamina. You can clear wraiths really well I suppose. But what class can't?
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