ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

The more I look at their skill setup, the more I'm confused. They're mages that focus on DoTs that WANT to be in melee range? Maybe it's just be being tired an' all, but I don't get just...how they function. Do they want to get armor? Use Robes? They're a mix of mage and warrior, and I'm not really sure how they're supposed to play. xP

Vim isn't affected by fatigue, so armor is your friend. You can dual-wield one-handed weapons, so you can invest in weapon talents or hope for a couple of good short staves to really boost the heck out of your spell damage. You want to be in melee range so your corrupted strength can proc, so you need survivability and good burst damage; the bone tree has basically the best defensive shield in the game, so invest in that, as well as a point or two in bone grab to get evasive enemies where you want them.

The DoT is... Not always so helpful. On builds I've used, anyway. I know other players swear by plague but I've always felt it requires too much setup and vim/talent point investment. Your mileage may vary.

FruitAndGarbage wrote:Vim isn't affected by fatigue, so armor is your friend. You can dual-wield one-handed weapons, so you can invest in weapon talents or hope for a couple of good short staves to really boost the heck out of your spell damage. You want to be in melee range so your corrupted strength can proc, so you need survivability and good burst damage; the bone tree has basically the best defensive shield in the game, so invest in that, as well as a point or two in bone grab to get evasive enemies where you want them.

The DoT is... Not always so helpful. On builds I've used, anyway. I know other players swear by plague but I've always felt it requires too much setup and vim/talent point investment. Your mileage may vary.

Ah...alright. I thought they went like, robes and twin axes like some sort of weird, suqishy melee mage. HAd me confused. x3

That said, the DoT isn't so good? What would a Reaver invest in, spellwise? I've heard Bone(outside of Shield) isn't good, and if Plague is also blech, that leaves...Rend, Acid Strike and Dark Surprise? Iunno. Probably more of a question for the Defiler section, though.

Also, are short staves really rare or something? I think I've only ever seen one, and despite being a short stave and not having the 2h requirement, my Corruptor couldn't use it and the spellblaze shard(which is sad, because that seemed like it'd be awesome)

Still...tanky poison mages sound like my sort of thing, so I'll probably give them a shot. x3

The bone tree *is* good. Bone shield, of course, but other talents are also very useful. Bone grab is expensive, but an excellent replacement for rush, even better IMHO, as it allows to grab ennemies to melee range while staying in a safe place. Other talents are also good, while less outstanding, but it is very useful to use them as a reaver if you are by an ennemy as casting a one turn spell give a free melee attack.

I really prefer to invest in the bone tree than in plague...

ghostbuster wrote:The bone tree *is* good. Bone shield, of course, but other talents are also very useful. Bone grab is expensive, but an excellent replacement for rush, even better IMHO, as it allows to grab ennemies to melee range while staying in a safe place. Other talents are also good, while less outstanding, but it is very useful to use them as a reaver if you are by an ennemy as casting a one turn spell give a free melee attack.

I really prefer to invest in the bone tree than in plague...

Oh? I mean, you've given reasons why you like Bone, but why do you sorta dislike(For lack of a better word) the Plague tree? Is there some inherent problem in it that I'm just not seeing? @_@

There is nothing majorly wrong with either category. But as a Reaver you will have trouble getting good damage modifiers unless you luck out with short staves.
Bone Grab is excellent on a Reaver, as your Corrupted Strength free attack will hit the creature you just pulled into melee range.
Virulent Disease is less interesting. Because it is instant, you won't get the free attack. Also you don't get the Vim refund for killing a creature with it.

I've tried a plague build before and they do get really good. The only real "problem" that I ran into (besides just sucking at the game) is that they've got a pretty slow start and you really have to concentrate your points in that one tree, which means that you won't have too much ranged ability for the first dozen or so levels.

Reaver doesn't really need any more ranged ability than instant cast disease and the spell with pink/purple icon with crit modifier. Those two asking with the heart shaped icon vim drain spell for me makes Reaver one of the most trivial classes to get started in the game.

Virulent Disease, Soul Rot, and Drain, respectively.

Soul Rot is just a beautiful spell in general, and VD (teehee) is really crippling early on but seems to suffer mid-to-late game, by which point you've already dumped a bunch of now not-as-useful points into it. In my experience, anyway. Which is not universal or too deep.

Diseases do not in any way drop off late game, given that I'm pretty sure people have come close to one-shotting the final bosses with catalepsy.

Theyleon wrote:Diseases do not in any way drop off late game, given that I'm pretty sure people have come close to one-shotting the final bosses with catalepsy.

Dang, that much damage? Neaaaat. x3

There's pictures around of 5 digit Catalepsy crits, so yeah disease damage is great. My first winner was a Reaver and I didn't have a clue how to build properly, but even so I'd routinely get a 2-3k Catalepsy. VD+Epidemic>Cyst Burst>Dark Portal>VD+Catalepsy is absurd damage, and even just VD+Epidemic is very high.

I play Reavers as Corruptors that have a few more category points to spend since they start with Bone and Torment unlocked. While melee builds work and they're fun, the lack of a talent like Rush makes it hard to play pure melee.