ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Hi!
Some time ago i wrote a guide for reaver. Since then i stopped playing for a while and only recently i came back...
I just finished the game with a ghoul reaver and here are some ideas i wanna share.

First: Dual wielding short staffs is huge. You can get: +75% blight damage + 30%crit chance + 70 spellpower
aditional +30%crit dmg or +30 blight penetration. The problem is early game sucks. and you need to get lucky finding short staffs.

Second: Although ghoul looks good , in fact it isnt... imho darkgod should make ghoul and reaver a much better match. It carries horrible mobility , abilities are not spells (no bonus attack) and str isnt necesary if using staffs. Best race: shalore (crit chance on spells is a must), increase speed goes up with magic.

Third: Stats: N?1= Magic, also early str for requirements (very few points) , then CON and CUN (crit chance).

In depth:

Corruption sanguisuge: 5/1/1/5 (could be 5/0/0/0)
Drain: 5-5. Your 2nd bolt when soul rot is on cooldown. If you crit, 1 point will give u all the vim you need
Bloodcasting: useless
Absorb life: useless
Life tap: 5 . End game moderate boost

Corruption Vim: 5/5/1/5 . Optional master point
Soul rot: Your bread and butter, your basic weapon, max early.
Vimsense: early 1 to get to dark portal , endgame must have max for reducing blight resistance
Leech: 1 useless
Dark portal: 5 Early 1 point for mobility, later extra for more damage: combos with catalepsy

Corruption - bone . Physical damage makes it useless as damage but has other uses 1/2/1/5
Bone spear: 1 , you can use it early game..
Bone grab: 2 points for extended range, awesome to grab enemies and hit.
Bone nova: 1 useless
Bone shield: 5 as fast as you can, its great

Corruption - plague (your serious damage weapon) 5/5/5/5 and master point.
Virulent disease: 5... instant disease, no turn requirement...enough said
Cyst burst: 5 . Early 3 points for increase range. Combines with virulent disease + catalepsy (your basic 1,2,3 combo)
Catalepsy: 5 . Can cause ridiculous amounts of damage.20 Cooldown sucks big time
Epidemic: 5 Endgame starter for really tough mobs: ignores disease resitance and lowers it.

Corruption - scourge . If using staffs, leave it alone 0/0/0/0

Corruption - Reaver: 5/5/1?/2 Master to 1.5
Corrupted strenght:5 the reason why a reaver is a reaver max early
Bloodlust 5 . Has been nerfed, still good.
Carrier: Unsure about this ability
Acid blood: 2/5 if master means lvl 3 so you get armor reduction.

GENERIC ABILITIES

Combat training:
Thick skin 5
Armour 1 (dakthun gaunlets)
Combat acurracy 5 (do you need it to hit with corrupted strenght?)
weapons 0
daggers 0

Spell staf combat (1.2) (get it from angolwen)
Channel staff 5 . Your 3rd weapon after soul rot and drain
Staff mastery 5 (increase dmg)

Corruption torment
Willfull tormenter 1 is enough
Blood lock: 1. Instant, could use a 2nd point, never used it
Overkill 2 (early 1 , optional 2)
Blood vengeance (early 1 optional 2)

Corruption hexes ? Unsure about its usefullness, only endgame if at all
Cunning survival: piercing sight from escort
Corruption hexes ? Unsure about its usefullness, only endgame if at all

Get healing light tree from escort.

Infusion:
Run (both offense and defense)
Teleport (give chance for your shields to go up again)
Regen

notes: endgame try to get 100% spell crit chance and above 200% crit damage.
I havent distributed all class and generic points because some abilities have severe diminishing returns making investment above 1 quite impractical.

I'm a bit perplexed as to why you just skip scourge as a possibility. Dual-staff reavers do quite a lot of damage with the stuff from that tree (staff damage being based on magic) - and you'll want to be in melee anyway (and have Bone Grab to get you there) so the range advantage of bolts isn't that much of an advantage. For those cases where you want a bolt for tactical reasons - well, it doesn't have the same punch or anything, but you can staff bolt all day long.

Also, for races, Thalore has a draw too - specifically, a Thaloren Reaver can still get 100% disease resist, which neither the race nor the class can manage on their own anymore. They're also a bit tankier all around.

Shalore is by far the best race for Reaver since they can cast Virulent Disease twice in instantly thanks to Timeless and then use Catalepsy to instantly kill most enemies, including many bosses on Normal. Also Timeless can extend Draconic Will to 10 turns 10 cooldown which is essential for keeping your Bone Shield up.

I havent tried the scourge tree yet, please indulge me, what advantage is there?

Soul rot hits harder than channel staff , Drain too, so channel staff is the option when those 2 are on cooldown.

Bpat: hadnt thought about that one, virulent disease twice !!! Kills everything. Definetly shalore best option.

Channel Staff is slightly worse than you'd think from looking at the numbers, since it doesn't apply any on-hit effects. Scourge talents have the advantage of applying these effects which can include things like blind or silence or just extra damage.

My point on scourge:

- For a reaver, either you intend to be in melee most of the time (and need some backup for ranged combat) or you intend to be at range most of the time (and deal with being in melee when you have to). The only time it makes sense to ignore scourge is if you're intending to be at range most of the time. Ruin is a pretty solid buff to your melee attacks - both the standard melee attacks and the autoattacks on spellcast, and at least in my experience, even a single point in rend is enough to give you a very potent little attack, and Dark Surprise consistently both blinds and autocrits as long as your accuracy is high enough. After all, these are all spells that take a turn - so you attack twice with rend, and then you attack twice with Corrupted Strength.

Might also be worth looking at Blunt Thrust, though I've not gotten far enough with a reaver to have that be worth the investment. Still, a longish melee stun followed by an autoattack is no small thing.

Now, there's an argument to be made that sometimes you need to be functional at range, but honestly, the combination of channel staff, bone grasp, and drain will make you functional at range. I'm not claiming that it's as good at ranged combat as someone who focuses on Soul Rot, but it's still functional.

Also, with light tree and bone shield, I don't think regen is quite as big a deal - especially since it's not a spell. Might try swapping that out for a shield rune instead.

You're seriously underestimating Hexes in this guide. Burning Hex shuts down bosses, Pacification Hex shuts down everything that isn't immune to stun, and Domination Hex can mind control rares.

As for melee versus ranged, I like to go ranged and if I hit enemies in melee, that's just an added bonus. Reavers are nearly as potent in ranged combat as Corruptors, being able to use two shortstaves (although good shortstaves are barely better than Life Drinker which Corruptors can use) and they get more category points and Torment unlocked, at the cost of losing Blood, Blight, Curses, and Shadowflame and having Hexes delayed until late.