Reavers 1.6b
Posted: Wed Oct 02, 2019 10:13 pm
Feel free to discuss here your thoughts about the changes to Reavers.
Overall, there are some good changes, but I am not really feeling the changes to virulent disease (VD). If there were no cooldown, I could see this as being a very cool change with some nice synergies with some races, like the ghouls retch ability. With the cooldown, it all just still feels very meh. Having a cooldown also means I can't specifically select what creature to target with disease because some other damage with blight may have set it on cooldown. This is a problem I have encountered many times now. Maybe once per enemy per turn of course, but 3 turns for only ONE enemy is just meh. Yes, I know, cyst burst, but again... meh. You want to stack up as many diseases as fast as you can. Personally, I tend to use other items/weapons/etc.. to do so, but it would be cooler if the reaver class could do this more innately. Many of the other abilities seem to play into this also, like bone spike, which requires 3 or more "magical detrimental effects". This would, considering your class, be mostly diseases.
Sanguisuge: The changes to Sanguisuge are good overall I think, and to how Vim works in general.
Vim: Category looks unchanged, and outside of darkportal there isn't much else going on here for a Reaver IMO.
Bone: This is mostly unchanged except for bone spike, which is OK I guess as I think most people only ever put one point into it to get to bone shield and then never used it. Not sure if the damage is even worth leveling it. Seems pretty mediocre still, especially without any bleed. Will edit this post if I find that not to be the case as I move further into my Ghoul Reaver play through.
Plague: As noted above is mostly unchanged except for the VD now becoming a passive, with a 3 turn cooldown. As noted above, it is not feels more like a nerf so far, and the cooldown is killing the fun for me, but we will see how it plays out in the long run. Additionally, catalepsy, while it can do great burst damage and the stun is nice, could be better by increasing the stun effect on a per disease basis. Sometimes it is better to just toss out one disease and hit catalepsy for the quick stun to put a few enemy abilities on cooldown, but the stun is rather short.
Scourge: Basically, because of the cooldown on VD the changes here to "rend" --> "virulent strike" (VS) is to support making your diseases last longer in order to stack them up such that perhaps you can trigger bone spike. The problem with this idea is that you need to prolong fights to see any effect here, unless using Catalepsy right after using VS (which negates the stat reductions that could be valuable in the hopes you insta kill the target(s)). It all is a bit contradictory really, burst damage + stun vs. stat reductions + damage over time (DoT). Unless bone spike ends up being miraculously good, I think the burst damage + stun is always better. The other change is corruption strike (previously dark suprise). So we lose a possible blind and crit (almost always happens) and a change up in damage to darkness for a 100% disease reduction, anti-nature sustain removal, and a hard hit with our normal weapon damage. Basically, this is your opener against certain enemy types with disease immunity. However, you still have epidemic (which you must get because it is that good), which also lowers disease immunity. Not sure on this change as it is VERY niche; i.e. really focused against nature/anti-magic users.
Reaving Combat: Still the same, nothing interesting here. Just toss your extra points in here when you can basically, and only level acid blood to 3. Seriously, give something extra to acid blood at level 5. There is no reason to level it past 3, EVER. Also, perhaps make the category more interesting. Very boring overall as it just supports everything else, but on its own is very meh.
Rot: Ok, still don't like the worm limit. Seems very arbitrary, and limiting, but when you consider Pestilent Blight.. OK, I can see how that could get out of hand. Also, THANK YOU!, finally there is at least a chance a worm will spawn if you kill something before 5 turns is up. That was always very annoying. Gives you more reason to go beyond one level in it too.
Overall, there are some good changes, but I am not really feeling the changes to virulent disease (VD). If there were no cooldown, I could see this as being a very cool change with some nice synergies with some races, like the ghouls retch ability. With the cooldown, it all just still feels very meh. Having a cooldown also means I can't specifically select what creature to target with disease because some other damage with blight may have set it on cooldown. This is a problem I have encountered many times now. Maybe once per enemy per turn of course, but 3 turns for only ONE enemy is just meh. Yes, I know, cyst burst, but again... meh. You want to stack up as many diseases as fast as you can. Personally, I tend to use other items/weapons/etc.. to do so, but it would be cooler if the reaver class could do this more innately. Many of the other abilities seem to play into this also, like bone spike, which requires 3 or more "magical detrimental effects". This would, considering your class, be mostly diseases.
Sanguisuge: The changes to Sanguisuge are good overall I think, and to how Vim works in general.
Vim: Category looks unchanged, and outside of darkportal there isn't much else going on here for a Reaver IMO.
Bone: This is mostly unchanged except for bone spike, which is OK I guess as I think most people only ever put one point into it to get to bone shield and then never used it. Not sure if the damage is even worth leveling it. Seems pretty mediocre still, especially without any bleed. Will edit this post if I find that not to be the case as I move further into my Ghoul Reaver play through.
Plague: As noted above is mostly unchanged except for the VD now becoming a passive, with a 3 turn cooldown. As noted above, it is not feels more like a nerf so far, and the cooldown is killing the fun for me, but we will see how it plays out in the long run. Additionally, catalepsy, while it can do great burst damage and the stun is nice, could be better by increasing the stun effect on a per disease basis. Sometimes it is better to just toss out one disease and hit catalepsy for the quick stun to put a few enemy abilities on cooldown, but the stun is rather short.
Scourge: Basically, because of the cooldown on VD the changes here to "rend" --> "virulent strike" (VS) is to support making your diseases last longer in order to stack them up such that perhaps you can trigger bone spike. The problem with this idea is that you need to prolong fights to see any effect here, unless using Catalepsy right after using VS (which negates the stat reductions that could be valuable in the hopes you insta kill the target(s)). It all is a bit contradictory really, burst damage + stun vs. stat reductions + damage over time (DoT). Unless bone spike ends up being miraculously good, I think the burst damage + stun is always better. The other change is corruption strike (previously dark suprise). So we lose a possible blind and crit (almost always happens) and a change up in damage to darkness for a 100% disease reduction, anti-nature sustain removal, and a hard hit with our normal weapon damage. Basically, this is your opener against certain enemy types with disease immunity. However, you still have epidemic (which you must get because it is that good), which also lowers disease immunity. Not sure on this change as it is VERY niche; i.e. really focused against nature/anti-magic users.
Reaving Combat: Still the same, nothing interesting here. Just toss your extra points in here when you can basically, and only level acid blood to 3. Seriously, give something extra to acid blood at level 5. There is no reason to level it past 3, EVER. Also, perhaps make the category more interesting. Very boring overall as it just supports everything else, but on its own is very meh.
Rot: Ok, still don't like the worm limit. Seems very arbitrary, and limiting, but when you consider Pestilent Blight.. OK, I can see how that could get out of hand. Also, THANK YOU!, finally there is at least a chance a worm will spawn if you kill something before 5 turns is up. That was always very annoying. Gives you more reason to go beyond one level in it too.