ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

A lot of the things I tend to gravitate towards in fantasy RPGs, the Reaver class exemplifies. I like hybrid combat casters, and disease/damage over time/debilitation, skill combinations, and cool defensive abilities like Bone Shield. So it seems like I should really like the Reaver, but I've tried it twice and I've hated it both times. Granted, I didn't make it that far (I actually died both times to interface screw), so maybe it would get better later.

So that makes me wonder – am I doing something wrong? Here are the builds:

Aradhe the Higher Reaver
Yriel the Shalore Reaver

Both times I went for max Drain for vim recovery, max Bone Armor because Bone Armor, and a few points in the melee abilities. The things I found were:

• • I seemed really squishy outside Bone Armor (especially when I didn't have Celestial / Light)
  • My ranged abilities were lacking, and my movement/gap closers were limited
  • Melee was OK but not great
  • These three above in combination really sucked taken together
  • I was always playing around conserving Vim, which hamstrung me
  • I felt like my maximum vim was really low, largely because there were a lot of sustains that felt like they should have been passives like Overkill and Blood Vengeance

I feel like I should dig this class, but both times it felt like a chore trying to play it. Am I just doing something totally wrong? Or should I try hanging with it (and not dying stupidly) until I get the points to dump into Corruption / Plague?

(Just as an aside, I've loved Solipsist and Wyrmic and enjoyed Arcane Blade, which are similar melee-ish-caster-ish classes. Archmage has also been fun. I've liked rogue and bulwark less. Not sure if there's much of a common thread here but thought I'd mention it anyways.)

I checked out one of your dudes, and he's wearing leather armor. That's bad for durability right there.

Get on some heavier armor, get Armor Training leveled up for the bonus Hardiness, and you may last a bit longer.

Low on Vim? You need BLOODCASTING! Swap some points out of Drain (which could be 2-3 instead of 5).

Also, don't play Roguelike if you're still learning.

You could probably work out your early game priorities better. Save Bone Shield and the Plague tree for later. The reason you're squishy and run out of vim quickly is because lack of Vimsense and Leech. Also Overkill and Blood Vengeance are not passives so don't treat them like passives, ie recognize that the vim cost is exactly the same at 1/5 versus 5/5 except you're getting only a small fraction of the benefit, making it rather cost ineffective at 1/5. Unlocking Curses was a waste of a category point when you haven't even maxed out the generic talents that you start out with, namely, Blood Vengeance, which is super good, and the last two levels of Tormenter. I honestly wouldn't bother sustaining Overkill at all except when you're already dominating the game and you just want to show off. Dark Portal at 1/5 is a perfect teleport, which is rare and very valuable, so with just one class point you could have gotten rid of your teleport rune and swapped it with another survivability inscription like shielding or regeneration.

Lastly, Reavers are a little weak early game but get much stronger later due to how they have practically no deadweight talents, so hang in there!

Thanks for the tips folks.

Minor issue, but I think the reason one of them had leather on was because that was literally the best I could find up until that point. I think usually I'd shoot for heavy but not massive, save on encumbrance and two generic points.

Fatigue doesn't affect Vim, so go massive.

Ah, interesting. I thought Equilibrium was the only exception to the fatigue rule (and maybe Paradox? Haven't tried a Chronomancer class yet.)

One last question – from reading the description of Dark Portal, it looks like it just makes you trade places with another creature. But I've seen several posts now say that it solves your mobility problems. Any insight on that? It seems kind of shoddy if that's the case, so I assume I'm missing something. Also from searching the forums it seems there are some elements of that spell that aren't immediately apparent so I'm sure I don't completely understand how it works.

You can target Dark Portal anywhere inside of its range, and you will always appear on the exact tile you targeted. Also, anything that is caught inside a certain radius around your target tile gets Diseased and teleported to your original location-- if it hits multiple enemies then they all get packed as close together as possible, which is handy for stuff like Cyst Burst. But Dark Portal doesn't have to hit anyone to work.

Because any enemy you hit with Dark Portal goes to your original location, you can't use it as a way to get into melee range (that's what Bone Grab is for), but you can use it as a way to escape combat, simply by pointing it away from your enemies.

Very cool – thanks for clarifying. I definitely thought it wouldn't teleport you unless someone walked into your destination point and then you'd swap positions.