1.7.4 Insane Ghoul Reaver Guide

[GrayStillPlays]

So, the last actual full Reaver guide looks like it was done around 2013. There is some cool math and thoughts threads, but I figure I'd throw together an actual Guide. A lot of the issues with the Reaver (most of which were mentioned in the scattered thoughts thread) appear to have actually been addressed, and I think it's a very solid class. More on that later. I also wrote the Corruptor Guide that's up, so some of the language will be the same.
Here's my guy.

Build TL:DR

Class Talents
Corruption/Scourge: 2/2/1/1
Corruption/Reaving Combat: 3/5/5/1
Corruption/Bone: 1/1/1/4-5
Corruption/Vim: 1-5/1/1/1
Corruption/Rot: 4/4/5/3
Corruption/Sanguisuge: 1/1/1/1
Corruption/Plague: 4/5/4/3

Generic Talents
Race/Ghoul: 1/5/5/2
Technique/Combat training: 3-5/0-1/0-1/2/0/0
Spell/Staff Combat: 5/5/1/0
Corruption/Torment: 5/1/1/0-1
Corruption/Hexes: 1/1/1/5

Reaver Thoughts

I think Reaver is in a really good place right now. I tried it a few years ago, and the issue was there seemed to be a bunch of category unlock taxes, some of the categories (plague) were set to 1.0 instead of 1.3, and it mostly just kinda seemed like a discount Corruptor. Going through things now, the class felt extremely good from 1 to 50, and was an excellent essence of "warrior mage". Basically, a character that is at it's heart a caster using spells, but prefers to do so in melee range rather than hang back because it can take a beating. I wasn't really sure when I started where I wanted to go with it, but I knew I was going to lean into the dual-staff wielding rather than two traditional weapons, and I'm glad I did. I also knew I wanted to go Ghoul after trying a few different races out, let me go into that.

Reaver is pretty good at what it does. Great AoE, great debilitation, decent defensive options, great longevity and status clears with Vile Life, but it's really lacking in two main places. The first is an Insane issue, which is it's lack of one-shot protection. The Ghouls "can't get hit for more than 50% of your life" ability takes care of that. The other is the mobility/escape options, and Ghoulish Leap was fantastically useful for both of those. In the end, going Adept, you end up with a ridiculous 11 square jump that you can do even while pinned, which is really what the class wants. If you choose to put the Wyrm Bile point into Ghoul, it goes up to 13, which is probably overkill but is still pretty funny. Ghoul also has Retch, which is blight damage, and since you'll be stacking as much blight as you can handle, you get a mass of value from it. Retch is also considered non-disease blight damage, so you can get your Virulent Disease procs from it, and...this is weird, but although Retch doesn't appear to "crit", for some reason Blood Splash counts it as a "crit", so it'll give you a Blood Splash proc.

Gnaw gives you another disease for Cyst Burst and spreads with it, which means you get to make your Catalepsy even more stupid. It's also good for the '"haha" just because when you spread Ghoul Rot and Catalepsy pretty much everything dies and rises as a Ghoul...which also has Ghoul Rot. So you get these instances where you end up with a screen filled with Ghouls now and again. Anyway...

Index

1. Cheat sheet
2. Build rationale and analysis
3. Change log

Cheat Sheet

Stat distribution priority
Magic and some Cunning (you'll need at least 50 to get MoD at 25, and MoD's bonuses scale with Cunning so it's good to have regardless), then Strength, then Con with whatever's left over.

Category Point Order
Rot, Inscription, Inscription, and if you find a cool escort category that's probably where this last point would go, you COULD also put it in bone to get 5 bone shields with Adept, I just through it in Staff Combat and came out with a 10% damage increase or so.

Inscriptions
Dissipation, Blink, Stormshield, Shield/Reflection, Shatter Afflictions

Prodigies
Master of Disasters, then Adept. You could also go Ethereal Form for a more defensive build.

Note: I've now done additional testing with Arcane Might. While Master of Disasters provides more up front benefits, Arcane Might will provide roughly 30-70% damage in the late game, so taking Arcane Might instead of MoD is not a bad choice.

Equipment priority
Blight Damage, Crit Multiplier, Global Speed Boost, Magic, HP, Spell Crit, increase crit multiplier, respen, healing mod.

Alchemist Quest priority
+2 generic, +2 class, +4 Spell Crit

I missed the class points quest!
+4 stats

Analysis and Rationale

The Reaver is honestly great at what it does. Engage at range if needed, but eventually close and just stand in the middle of stuff blowing everything up with diseases and Overkill. The early game is effectively soul rot, drain, bone spear. As you move to the mid game, more serious issues are handled with Epidemic, Worm Rot, Gnaw, Dark Portal, Cyst Burst, Catalepsy. Nothing really survives that. If you're dealing with something with full disease resist, Corrupting Strike takes care of that. At the end game, channel staff effectively deletes everything that isn't a boss/unique. Those take 2 channel staves. Corrupted Strength gives you a free melee attack when casting a spell that takes a turn, and Channel Staff is considered a spell, hence the warrior mage theme. You get into melee combat, channel staff and this also gives you a melee attack. You have excellent mobility with Ghoulish Leap, great sustainability with Retch, and a guaranteed extra Disease with Ghoul Rot.

I tested Master of Disasters compared to Arcane Might. Master of Disasters not only provided approximately 10% additional damage, but also pushes your spell power and physical power up to fairly ridiculous levels, so you get to beat everything's saves...forever. Since they're so high, you're always spellshocking everything all the time, so the other two cross-tiers are typically getting tossed on stuff as well. MoD just turned out to be a very valuable prodigy. Adept could be replaced with Flexible Combat if you're looking for just raw damage and you have a busted set of Gauntlets, or Ethereal Form for some ultra high defense. I just liked Adept here because it makes you do everything a little better, including stuff that isn't even in class, like device abilities. It changes a few break points as well. Just note when I talk about the Class Talents coming up and the break points, these are WITH Adept. They can be different without it.

The build probably doesn't even need Strength, you could just as easily go Dex for more defense, but finding 1-handed staves was a pain in the ass for the first 90% of the game, and I didn't feel like I was lacking anything having that strength at the end, so I think it's just personal preference, but it definitely makes that first 90% of the game a lot easier.

Weapon Choice

Staves, but make sure you attune them to Blight. Oddly the staff in your off hand doesn't get it's own attunement icon it looks like, so just swap them, get them attuned, and off you go. You'll probably need to float points in regular melee weapons though in the beginning, because for a while it can be a pain finding 1 handed staves. Luckily Reavers can dual wield anything so you have options.

Class Talents

Corruption/Scourge: 2/2/1/1

[2] Virulent Strike: Useful in the early game and a good filler attack later on. 2 points for the 3 disease duration setting. It's also considered a spell, so you get that extra melee attack with it.

[2] Ruin: Gives all melee attacks Blight Damage (great for the first half of the game, and for later when you channel your staff in melee range) and also does some healing. The healing actually gets pretty significant when you start stacking healing mod.

[1] Acid Strike: It's fine I guess. It's something else to attack with and it's an AoE, but it's Acid which isn't really what we're looking to do with the build.

[1] Corrupting Strike: A fantastic 1 point wonder. It hits hard, strips nature sustains, and reduces disease immunity by 100% for 2 turns. It's also considered a spell, so you get your extra melee attack with it. If the amount of nature sustains or the disease immunity reduction length went up with points I could see putting more in.

Corruption/Reaving Combat: 3/5/5/1

[3] Corrupted Strength: Lets you use anything in your off hand and it gives you that free melee attack when casting a spell. 3 points for diminishing returns.

[5] Bloodlust: Each attack with a melee weapon gives you stacking bonus spell power for a short time. This gets pretty nutty as it stacks 10 times and you can fill it pretty quickly, since you're getting say 2 attacks with Corrupting Strike, and then a third bonus attack with Corrupted Strength. Spell power makes literally everything you do better, so it's nice to have it as high as possible.

[5] Carrier: Gives you disease resist and allows you to spread diseases with melee attacks. The returns get diminishing, but it's a passive 'always there' kind of thing, so I went 5 with it.

[1] Acid Blood: Kinda cool, I think it's worth the 1 point. Does some acid damage when you get hit, which is meh, but in the end it was reducing stuff's accuracy by 35, which even with scaling is pretty decent. 3 points would allow you to reduce armor as well, but Channel Staff ignores armor, so I'm not sure how valuable going the 3 could be.

Corruption/Bone: 1/1/1/5

[1] Bone Spear: This can actually do some pretty wacky damage, but there's just so much other stuff to put points into, and we're focusing heavily on Blight rather than physical. Still, in the beginning of the run, it's a great damage spell.

[1] Bone Grab: I hate to say it, but I used this maybe a handful of times. Ghoulish Leap really spoiled me and allows you to really go where you want.

[1] Bone Spike: It's free damage I guess, it also counts as it's own spell so you can get gear procs and what not with it.

[4-5] Bone Shield: The crowning jewel of the tree. With Adept and any level of + Bone talent gear you can actually get 5 shields instead of 4. The same is true if you decide to put your Wyrm Bile point in here. If not though, Adept gives you it's full value at 4 points.

Corruption/Vim: 5/1/0/0

[1-5] Soul Rot: Great damage and a low cool down. This is pretty much your standard opener/channel staff ability before you start being able to channel staff 24/7. You can float points in here as needed. I ended up with 2/5 in here because I floated too hard and forgot to take one out. Honestly it's useful enough for most of the game that any amount of points in here isn't really a waste.

[1] Dark Portal: I used this a bunch because it gives you an extra disease for cyst burst and catalepsy if needed. It also kinda bunches up enemies and can put you in melee which is nice if you aim it right.

[1] Vimsense: Something to invest in late in the game. It's actually pretty useful for all it does, and while it does make stuff B-line to you, by the time you're using it...nothing really scares you anymore, so it saves you time rather than having to go out and find the stuff to kill.

[1] Leech: I'm really not sure how much value I got out of this. Honestly you could probably just not put a point in this and be fine. I was just using Vimsense a lot so I figured why not, I'd throw one in here.

Corruption/Rot: 4/4/5/3

[4] Infestation: This talent does it all. Blight and acid resistance, blight affinity, reduces damage and spawns carrion worms, and then on top of that when the worms explode they do blight damage and heal you. Very diminishing returns, but you could honestly not put that point in Leech and go 5 here and feel good about it. The damage reduction is really more substantial than you think. One of my deaths was me forgetting to put the damn thing on auto-sustain, so it got dispelled and I got hit way harder than I was expecting by an Archer/Marauder combo.

[4] Worm Walk: This is a really neat spell. It's a teleport by itself, 4 points with Adept gets you full teleport accuracy which is hot. But if you use it on a worm mass (which you'll have a ton of thanks to Infestation and Worm Rot) you get a titanic heal and vim return if you teleport on top of the worm mass.

[5] Pestilent Blight: Anytime you deal Blight damage, this allows you to either silence, disarm, blind, or pin something. At level 4 it happens in a radius 1 ball, and there's a rider effect that your worms ALSO get this ability, just at a reduced percentage and turn duration. Still, despite there being a cooldown for you, I think it's pretty worth the 5.

[3] Worm Rot: Does acid/blight damage for 5 turns, removes physical beneficial effects each turn, and after the 5 turns, it hatches into a worm mass. At 3 points with Adept, even if it gets removed early (catalepsy) it still has a 100% chance to hatch into a worm mass. It's also it's own disease, so just more stupidity for Cyst Burst/Catalepsy.

Corruption/Sanguisuge: 1/1/1/1

[1] Drain: It's fine for what it does. I used it pretty much all the time in the early game.

[1] Bloodcasting: I mean, whatever. I guess it did stuff. Good for when you get Anti-Magic drained I guess.

[1] Absorb Life: I never used it however...

[1] Life Tap: ....THIS I used all the time. It's instant, which is fantastic, and considering the stupid amount of damage you do and the heal mod you should be stacking, this provides a ridiculous amount of healing even at 1 single point.

Corruption/Plague: 4/5/4/3

[4] Virulent Disease: This could easily be a 5/5 if you want. There's diminishing returns, but literally EVERYTHING this class does is Blight related, so I mean, at least you're getting your point's worth.

[5] Cyst Burst: This is a real MVP here. No reason not to swing for the fence with this talent, so it gets the full 5.

[4] Catalepsy: Used more for the damage than for the stun. Typically this will erase whatever it hits. 4 points with Adept gets you a huge 4 radius ball and a 5 turn stun if anything actually survives this.

[3] Epidemic: Awesome and one of the first things I'd always throw out due to reducing disease resistance. Also reduces healing which is a nice kicker.

Generic Talents

Race/Ghoul: 1/5/5/2

[1] Ghoul: A little extra strength and con, which is fine, but the real value is not being able to take more than 50% of your total health in one hit. This is your 1 shot protection.

[5] Ghoulish Leap: This is so good. I used it ALL the time, both to get into combat AND to get out if I was in a bad spot. With Adept and 5 points, you get a gigantic 11 square range with an 8 cooldown and a 31% global speed increase for 4 turns. You can do some cheeky stuff as well, like leap 1 tile, zone change, and start the zone with the global speed buff, which is how I started each of the Prides.

[5] Retch: It's AoE blight damage that chills out for 10 turns, heals you (probably for a ton if you're stacking heal mod), and ALSO removes beneficial physical effects from non-undead and negative physical effects from undead. It also negates your built in -20% global speed from being a Ghoul.

[2] Gnaw: Mostly this is just another unique disease to put on stuff to make Cyst Burst and Catalepsy hit even harder. You'll get a chuckle now and again though when you have a dozen Ghoul buddies hopping all over the screen infecting everything with even more diseases. 2 points for a 6 turn duration on the disease and the actual Ghoul summon with Adept.

Technique/Combat Training: 3-5/0-1/0-1/2/0/0

[3-5] Thick Skin: It's universal damage reduction. Just put as many points as you can spare into it.

[0-1] Heavy Armor Training: Mostly to taste here. You'll probably end up in robes though. Float as needed.

[0-1] Light Armor Training: For when you end up in robes.

[2] Combat Accuracy: I found 2 points to be pretty good for this class. Can float if needed.

Spell/Staff Combat: 5/5/1/0

[5] Channel Staff: This will eventually kinda be your "1 button beats 95% of stuff in the game" ability.

[5] Staff Mastery: More damage for the free melee attack you get from channeling or casting spells in melee with stuff.

[1] Defensive Posture: Extra defense and armor which is sweet. Crazy diminishing returns and there's a lot of other stuff we need out points for.

Corruption/Vile Life: 1/1/1/1

[1] Blood Splash: You get this category unlocked for free when you eat the corrupted Sandworm heart, which is pretty awesome. Everything in here is insanely useful, even with just 1 point in it. Blood Splash will end up generating a metric ton of healing thoughout the course of the game.

[1] Elemental Discord: Again, just a fine 1 point ability for this build. It just sits in the background, freezing a million orc cryomancers and what not.

[1] Healing Inversion: This is one of those abilities that you won't really use very often, but when you do need it, you're really glad you have it.

[1] Vile Transplant: Fantastic status clear. Only works on Physical and Magical, so it won't clear confusion, but it's great for disarms/blind/hexes etc. With Adept, 1 point gets you 3 status cleared. It's got a short range, but considering we almost always want to be in melee, it was really made for us.

Corruption/Torment: 5/2/1/0

[5] Willful Tormenter: 5 points gets you a fairly decent chunk of Vim. Adept turns up impressive here, turning +111 Vim into more than 140 Vim.

[1] Blood Lock: I didn't end up using this much. 1 point is plenty.

[1] Overkill: Crazy diminishing returns after 1 point, but holy crap this talent was useful. You deal so much damage that this single handedly clears rooms. All of the splash damage is ALSO blight damage. This is like...probably the best 1 point you can spend in the entire build.

[1] Blood Vengeance: So, I'm not really sure how much value I got out of this. Like...I'm sure it was there as a sustain, just quietly doing something...but you could probably get away with a 0 here.

Corruption/Hexes: 1/1/1/5

[1] Pacification Hex: I really didn't use any of these hexes except Domination hex much. There's just so much other stuff you'd rather be doing as a Reaver.

[1] Burning Hex: Same here...

[1] Empathetic Hex: Same here...

[5] Domination Hex: God I love this hex. It's kinda useful pretty much all the time, forever. From using various randbosses to AoE the hell out of everything chilling with them in a room, to causing complete chaos in the Prides, to simply dominating the stair guardians and waltzing right up High Peak, Domination hex is just super useful. It has a titanic 10 range too, so you can track/premonition, sit out of sight range of the creatures, snag the randboss, and just watch the fireworks...and then clean up whatever is left. 5 levels with Adept gives you 9 turns of hilariousness. Just make sure to use it on something at range because your Ghoul Retch will probably harm it and break the hex.

Prodigies

Master of Disasters: I'm really liking this Prodigy. Cunning is just a useful attribute pretty much all the time, and this gives you a mountain of spell/physical power, which is very welcome since spell power effects pretty much everything in the entire build. You throw out so many spells/effects that everything will pretty much be Spellshocked/Brainlocked/Off-Balance all the time, which is a nice rider.

Adept: This is one of those talents that's just good all the time, forever. It has a 100% up time, it makes everything you do slightly better, and makes stuff you DON'T do better as well. It increases the talent levels found on gear, turning the 4.0 Blinding Speed ring I found into a 5.5 Blinding Speed ring. It also has some additional bonuses to spells, such as enabling an extra Bone shield with gear, a 9 turn domination, and adds a ton of percents to all of the various things the class does like affinity/resists/blight procs/etc. It gives you that 11 range Ghoulish Leap with an 8 cooldown as well.

Inscriptions

Runes

Dissipation: Needed since it's your only way to clean magical effects off people.

Shatter Afflictions: You're undead and you can't use any wild infusions, so this is pretty useful.

Shield/Rune of Reflection: More shields.

Stormshield: Nice extra defense layer when stuff starts hitting extremely hard.

Blink: I wasn't sure how much I'd use it, but honestly I ended up using it all the time. Coupled with Ghoulish Leap, you can pretty much get anywhere, or get out of anywhere.

Changelog

12/28/21: Guide created.

1/1/22: Additional testing and notes done on Arcane Might instead of MoD.

Notes

I had a lot of fun with this staff/Ghoul Reaver. It really felt like the perfect melding of "warrior mage". It had lots of mobility, lots of AoE, lots of debilitation, lots of healing, and lots of survivability. There really hasn't been much written on it, and I know back when I was playing my corruptor there were so many talent taxes you had to pay as a Reaver it was like...why play one when you could just be a Corruptor. Now I'll say though, it feels like it's own class and it feels very solid.

[helminthauge]

It's very strange that in your case Master of Disaster can outdamage Arcane Might, especially when you're wielding dual staves.
I'd suggest maxing Blunt Thrust because it's a better stun.

Do you have any suggest about how to survive between 10-25? I have multiple deaths during this stage, all perished to a unique/randboss with both strong summons and ranged attacks. The Master is also such an enemy and I find difficult with him. I think even with Master of Disaster and Cunning as the second prodigy at lv25 it will be hard to beat its spell save.

[GrayStillPlays]

It's very strange that in your case Master of Disaster can outdamage Arcane Might, especially when you're wielding dual staves.
I'd suggest maxing Blunt Thrust because it's a better stun.

Do you have any suggest about how to survive between 10-25? I have multiple deaths during this stage, all perished to a unique/randboss with both strong summons and ranged attacks. The Master is also such an enemy and I find difficult with him. I think even with Master of Disaster and Cunning as the second prodigy at lv25 it will be hard to beat its spell save.

Yeah I'm really not sure. MoD performed much better than I expected, I think a good portion of it is just the huge amount of raw spellpower it gives that early in the game. At level 25 when I got it, it was providing something like 66 spell power and 66 physical power. That's pretty strong. If I were to take them LATE in the game, say level 42, it's possible that Arcane Might could at that point over power MoD, I'd have to test it.

The issue with stuff like Blunt Thrust is I find with characters like these (huge bursters) there's always something I'd "rather be doing". I don't think it's wrong to add it in, I'm just not sure how much I'd be using it. If something is scary enough to stun, it's probably going to get set up with the standard Catalepsy combo.

This character I found to be a bit different than most of my other wins because the early game felt very solid. The Ghoul's built in 1 shot protection, it's leap, it's healing with Retch I felt made 10-25 MUCH easier. In the beginning, you also actually have decent ranged potential with the Soul Rot/Drain/Bone Spear trio. That trio honestly clears 95% of the zone. For randbosses like you mention, I think it's best to make sure you have a strong opener. The good thing about Ghoul with blink is it gets to decide when to engage and when to disengage.

So let's say I see an oozemancer/skirmisher combo, or something that is just going to be really irritating at level 15 or so. We'll assume we're stuck in close combat so we can't just range it down to death. It would be shield/stormshield (you can stack both of these and they're instants), ghoulish leap into melee, then retch. Looking at the creature's disease resistance and assuming it doesn't have any, it's then Virulent Strike then Acid Strike. Bloodlust should get stacking decently after these two, so it's time for a Soul Rot into a Drain into what will probably be a big Bone Spear thanks to all of the debuffs the thing probably has on it. The big thing I'd say is to realize even at level 10-25 you can kill anything in about 4-8 turns, so it's mostly a matter of making sure you're always up on the cards. Stormshield/Bone Shield/Shield really help with that. Once stuff chews through those, Retch/Ruin is typically keeping you in the fight. It's important to make sure of Worm Walk too, it's easy to forget that it's there, but it provides more battlefield movement or a potential huge heal. If you start to lose, you can typically Blink/Worm Walk/Ghoulish Leap (one of these is pretty much always off of cool down since you have so many) out of there and reset. The big benefit to ghoul is it's really tough to get one shot, so retreating isn't a death sentence like it can be on some other classes as you end up getting hit for 1k damage at level 11 just for trying to blink away.

You'd be surprised how easy the Master really is. With MoD at level 25 and the points in Bloodlust you'll have by the time you're fighting the Master, your spell power will be pretty insane for a level 25-35, so chewing through the Master's spell save will be pretty easy. You COULD also float points into Vimsense if you want, because it not only lowers Blight Resist, but it destroys stuffs saves. I didn't need to though. It's VERY important that you have dissipation rune also, as it will make your life INFINITELY easier here. You should EASILY have it by now, because there's not much to spend your category points on and you should have up to your level 34 one by the time you face the Master.

Typically with the master what I do is tunnel through a wall and come out at his back, you just really don't want to get surrounded by a mountain of summons. From there the typical rotation will wreck his day. Stormshield/Shield/Retch, Dissipation Rune, Virulent Strike, Acid Strike (I didn't use Acid Strike much end game because I had stacked Blight so high, but early/mid it's actually a great attack), Corrupting Strike. So now we're rolling to titanic proportions with Bloodlust and his Disease resistance is set to 0 (although I don't even remember if he has disease resist in this form, if not you can leave Corrupting Strike out). Now it's time for the typical eraser, Worm Rot, Gnaw, Epidemic (coming last since Corrupting Strike is coming off now), into a Cyst Burst, into a Catalepsy. He'll respawn in his second form and it's just more of the same.

[helminthauge]

You need 77 cunning to get 66 power from Master of Disaster. Are you sure that this was at lv25?
I don't really believe that you can kill an oozemancer unique/randboss at lv15 in 8 turns, even with double elemental weapons. Plus oozemancer is not the class with strong summons I talked about, although those oozes offer great defense, they're not the real threats. The real threat of oozemancers at this stage is the poison. The strong summons are necro minions, war hounds, ritchspitters and temporal hounds.
Can you show me how you spread class points at lv15? I find those extremely tight early. I put 3 points into Catalepsy as soon as I reach lv8, then maximizing Bone Shield, and afterwards Worm Walk needs points. I don't have any points to float into Drain/Soul Rot/Bone Spear and I can't spare any points into Scourge and Reaving-Combat trees beyond the first point of Corrupted Strength.
The Master doesn't have disease resist unless he gets some specific gears, so don't worry about that. And I usually face him at lv29-30 because I want to have an advantage in Dark Crypt and the worm. Do you think that the reaver can handle those 2 zones?

[GrayStillPlays]

You need 77 cunning to get 66 power from Master of Disaster. Are you sure that this was at lv25?
I don't really believe that you can kill an oozemancer unique/randboss at lv15 in 8 turns, even with double elemental weapons. Plus oozemancer is not the class with strong summons I talked about, although those oozes offer great defense, they're not the real threats. The real threat of oozemancers at this stage is the poison. The strong summons are necro minions, war hounds, ritchspitters and temporal hounds.
Can you show me how you spread class points at lv15? I find those extremely tight early. I put 3 points into Catalepsy as soon as I reach lv8, then maximizing Bone Shield, and afterwards Worm Walk needs points. I don't have any points to float into Drain/Soul Rot/Bone Spear and I can't spare any points into Scourge and Reaving-Combat trees beyond the first point of Corrupted Strength.
The Master doesn't have disease resist unless he gets some specific gears, so don't worry about that. And I usually face him at lv29-30 because I want to have an advantage in Dark Crypt and the worm. Do you think that the reaver can handle those 2 zones?

Yeah. You'll need 50 cunning simply to get the prodigy. It's possible that the game could end up being super stingy with gear, but right around that time I was off-handing sword-breaker that I picked up in the sandworm lair, and that's a +10 to cunning just on it's own. I'd say having 60-70 cunning at level 25 should really be pretty typical. That said, I've had runs where I DID get super stingy'd with gear, so I could see it just being 50-55, that should still stack that spellpower pretty high though.

I kinda wish the game took snapshots of where points were at certain levels so I could give more accurate point advice on exactly where I had them at during say, level 15 or so. I could probably re-start the character and just head up to level 15 again though.

I think out of the strong summons you mention, the temporal hounds are the most dangerous since they have a tendency to surround you, but they disappear when you burn down the Warden, so typically I leap at the warden and take him out first. Summoners, even uniques didn't really pose much of a problem because you can burn down Warhounds/Ritch Flamespitters so fast. The issue with summoners can be just getting to them, I find a lot of them in Heart of the Gloom around that level, for instance, but Ghoulish leap should get you behind them so you can retch, burn them down, and then take out the summons if positioning is a problem. Part of the issue with giving advise on this stuff is there's so many variables in the game, so it's tough to really give exact advise on how a combat plays out. I can say I wouldn't do 3 points in Catalepsy at level 8 though. Just stick it with 1 point so you have it to use. When I'm lower level, say 10-20, I do a lot more 1 pointers than I do fleshing out trees. I think at those levels, it's better to have more CD abilities and options than 1 more powerful option. So instead of Catalepsy at 3, I'd have Catalepsy at 1, Ruin at 1, and Acid Strike at 1, for instance.

I almost NEVER do Dark Crypt and the Worm on Insane. I just end up more annoyed than anything. If I were playing a build I knew worked I might do it, or if I was playing an insanely powerful class like Possessor, but the Reaver was an experiment, but that said, I really don't think I'd want to do the Dark Crypt with it.

Edit: I forgot to mention too, do the Santascape event when you feel comfortable since it's going on right now. I came out of there at level 25 with a whole bunch of killer gear, now that I think about it, that was more than likely directly related to hitting those big numbers because I know I snagged a helm in there with a mountain of stats on it.

[terri]

I started to follow your guide but I have a few problems about putting my points before level 20, what it should look like the class tree?

[sofocles]

Hey i remember i wrote the guide in 2014... And i really tried to do the ghoul thing! Back then the ghoul was so much worse... .im thinking about trying this one again!

[Sraestrada]

Thanks for the guide! I've started a few characters following this guide and they've all been really fun. However... may be a dumb question, but how do I avoid killing my escorts as collateral damage? It feels like everything I do, melee or spell, spreads blight damage to friendlies, and I can't always go far enough ahead of the escort to clear the path.

[Klootje]

Just something that is relevant to any class: escorts spawn in the first 2 Tier1 areas, excepting special starting areas. Enter Kor'Pul first, that one may have doors that block escorts and prevents them from spawning. The escort will spawn when you enter a level the second time, which means you can clear the area and come back just to spawn the escort who now has a safe way to the portal.

If you get +movement speed somehow you can run ahead and clear a path between the entrance and the portal, without the escort getting all messed up from your blight shitstorm

[Sraestrada]

Just something that is relevant to any class: escorts spawn in the first 2 Tier1 areas, excepting special starting areas. Enter Kor'Pul first, that one may have doors that block escorts and prevents them from spawning. The escort will spawn when you enter a level the second time, which means you can clear the area and come back just to spawn the escort who now has a safe way to the portal.

If you get +movement speed somehow you can run ahead and clear a path between the entrance and the portal, without the escort getting all messed up from your blight shitstorm

Yeah I've tried the whole "run way ahead and clear the path" method, but most of the time I hit a bottleneck somewhere and the escort is just way too eager to get home.

The earlier areas for sure are much easier, especially since my character would have fewer AOE talents. I think I haven't killed anyone accidentally with Overkill turned off and before I got the Rot tree. Anything that involves worms is bad news though, since even if I personally avoid spreading blight, the worms would (and automatically when they die).

[Klootje]

Just something that is relevant to any class: escorts spawn in the first 2 Tier1 areas, excepting special starting areas. Enter Kor'Pul first, that one may have doors that block escorts and prevents them from spawning. The escort will spawn when you enter a level the second time, which means you can clear the area and come back just to spawn the escort who now has a safe way to the portal.

If you get +movement speed somehow you can run ahead and clear a path between the entrance and the portal, without the escort getting all messed up from your blight shitstorm

Yeah I've tried the whole "run way ahead and clear the path" method, but most of the time I hit a bottleneck somewhere and the escort is just way too eager to get home.

The earlier areas for sure are much easier, especially since my character would have fewer AOE talents. I think I haven't killed anyone accidentally with Overkill turned off and before I got the Rot tree. Anything that involves worms is bad news though, since even if I personally avoid spreading blight, the worms would (and automatically when they die).

Yeah, sometimes you just can't save every escort. And trying too hard might get yourself killed. I have quite a few deaths because I got into dangerous situations to save the escort, which just isn't worth it.

I don't think you can disable passives, except for ones that have requirements such as not wearing armour, and just fail to meet the requirements.

If they count as a spell, you could try to silence yourself. Or wear lots of anti-magic gear. But again, that is the sort of stuff that'll get you killed because even your runes won't work.

There are items and spells that can be used to heal others, that might help keep them alive a bit longer. But that probably won't save them from getting hit by a Blight shitstorm every round

Of course there are mods that make escorts behave differently, but I feel that sort of takes away some of the challange. And hilarious events, such as entering a new level in Daikara, you see the escort, and then you an army of storm giants.

[HaleMary]

Not sure if you're still looking at this but wanted to give your Reaver a try and had a question. If I decide to go with Arcane Might instead of Master of Disasters, do I still want to put all those points into Cunning, or is there a better use for them? I'm fairly new to ToME, so still learning how to do the builds. Thanks!

[Moasseman]

Not sure if you're still looking at this but wanted to give your Reaver a try and had a question. If I decide to go with Arcane Might instead of Master of Disasters, do I still want to put all those points into Cunning, or is there a better use for them? I'm fairly new to ToME, so still learning how to do the builds. Thanks!

You do, but Strength and Magic should be priority over it.