[1.7.4] Disease Reaver Guide

[helminthauge]

As I have discussed in this post viewtopic.php?f=57&t=52575, the reaver focusing on blight damage is a pretty good build. After some practicing I have got this winner https://te4.org/characters/235359/tome/ ... b23e016f1e. He had 2 deaths. One happened when I was testing how to combat the Master without Rune of Dissipation, and the other one was due to an Inner Demon hidden in a crowd of hatchlings in an Intimating Cave found in High Peak. Both situations won't appear in a normal gameplay.
Note that this guide is aimed at developping the most powerful character in endgame, instead of teaching one how to clear the game easily and quickly at Insane difficulty with the given class.

Race: Doomelf
To exploit Catelepsy. Although in most cases this is actually not feasible, this race also offers a lot of other strong points, which will be covered in the racial talent part.

Prodigy: Arcane Might at lv25, Adept at lv42.
I have tried Adept at lv25, but TBH the only noticeable improvement is the range of Bone Grab. The enhanced Soul Rot, Bone Spear and Drain are totally surpassed by Channaling Staff with the support of the almighty Arcane Might.

Alchemists' Quest Reward: +2 generic points, +2 class points, +4% physical critical chance, +4% spell critical chance. Although we don't really need 2 more class points in late game, it will be very helpful in early game, so it's definitely worth a try. Then we must complete this quest to get the +4% spell critical chance one lol.

Class Points:
Sanguise 1/1/1/1 core
Drain generates vim and provides another ranged attack in early game. In late game we'll want Life Tap for the leech.

Vim 1/1/1 core, Soul Rot luxury.
Soul Rot is your base attack before you get a 1h staff, and after it's still one of your few attacks able to reach range 10. You also need it when your mana pool is empty.
Dark Portal is one of your mobility talents. Although its also an AOE disease and the damage is actually higher than Virulent Disease, I'd prefer not to use it in this way. Changing position with the enemies more closer to unexplored area is very dangerous, and you don't actually have the points to make the damage great. However, this is still useful if you know that changing position is safe, and that you don't need another mobility talent to fly for your life later, since this talent is able to touch enemies at range 10, and after switching positions they're likely to be in range 8, and they'll have the disease.
Vimsense lowers blight resistance and spell save, which is very useful, but be careful using it. Don't ever use it as a scouting talent! Always use a real scouting talent first to make sure that Vimsense won't attract unwanted attentions.

Bone 1/4/1/4+1 core, Bone Spike luxury
Bone Spear is another talent with 10 range, plus its a small aoe. The damage is also pretty good against enemies with bunches of magical debuffs. Very useful in early game. Later it can also be used to cleanse daze.
Bone Grab is your range-control talent in early game and pull talent later. Note that it's a teleportation and requires beating spell save. It also don't work in vaults.
Bone Spike gives you some small damage and is useful to clean trashes late game. If you somehow have good physical damage bonus and penetration you can consider investing more points into it in late game.
Bone Shield is basically a free Stormshield, and it's one of the key defensive talents of this class. Note after Adept, 4 points and 5 points have no difference without mastery increase, so always float the 5th point.

Plague 5/5/4/5 core, Catalepsy luxury
Virulent Disease is the helper of Bone Spear, Cyst Burst and Catalepsy in early game, and in late game its damage is also nothing to ignore, and will help Catalepsy in another way.
Cyst Burst is a rotation filler in early game, and your most powerful "plain attack in late game. With 2 diseases on the target, it will outdamage Soul Rot and Channel Staff. Plus its range is 10, and the disease-spreading effect can be useful to clear trashes in late game. Note that this is a "non-disease blight damage".
Catalepsy is a stun in early game, although a very bad stun, and the death dealer in late game as discussed in my previous post. After Adept the 5th point makes very little difference. This is also a "non-disease blight damage".
Epidemic is another disease. Its damage is higher than Virulent Disease and it ignores and lowers disease immunity. I didn't really notice the disease-spreading effect though.

Scourge 1/1/1/1 core, 1 more point in Virulent Strike luxury, Ruin luxury
The effect extending diseases of Virulent Strike is helpful sometimes.
Ruin gives you heal, some small damage, and more on-spell-hit proc chance.
The AOE damage of Acid Strike is sometimes useful in early and mid game. Don't bother with it later.
Corrupting strike removes disease immunity, and more importantly, disables the annoying Mitosis and Antimagic Shield.
Note unlike most other spells involving weapon attacks, all damage instances induced by the 3 active talents here can trigger on-spell-hit effects.

Reaving Combat 5/1/1/1 core, Bloodlust luxury
Corrupted Strength is one of the class-defining talents of Reaver. It's pretty straight forward, so max it. Just note that this is a turn proce, and all damage instances induced by the additional attack can trigger on-spell-hit effects. Note that due to the bug of Adept, you shouldn't max any passive talents before taking it, so either leave it at 4 or float the 5th point.
Bloodlust luxury provides spellpower. The usefulness depends on whether we're already getting high spellpower from equips.
Carrier gives disease immunity. Again I didn't really notice the disease-spreading effect.
Acid Blood provides defense in another way, and more importantly a debuff ignoring defense, saves and immunity, which can be helpful to Pitiless in some cases.

Rot 5/4/4/1 core
Infestation is another key defensive talent of reaver. It's basically a % damage reduction, and it start generating worms even before your Bone Shield crumbles. The worms can provide meat shields and some small damage, and gives some small healing after death.
Worm Walk is the other mobility talent with very low CD. It can also be used as heal and vim recovery. Unfortunately the range is only 7 so it's not a good close-in talent.
Pestilent Blight provides some random debuffs, which in most cases are unnoticeable, but in a few cases very helpful, like silencing a spell caster or disarming a weapon master, and we have Pitiless to make this more useful.
Worm Rot is another disease with rather low damage, but it can also remove physical buffs.

Generic Points:
Combat Training 1/1/2/1/5/0 core, Thick Skin and Combat Accuracy luxury
We're using light armors because defense is the current metagame.

Staff Combat 5/5/1/3+2 core
Channel Staff costs minimal resource, bypasses friends. With Arcane Might supporting, its damage should also be higher than non-maxing Soul Rot. Most importantly, it has no CD, and is the fundamental talent to a reaver dealing pure blight damage.
Blunt Thrust is a better stun. We don't need stuns so much in late game, so we're floating 2 points here.

Torment 1/1/1 core, Overkill and Blood Vengeance luxury
Willful Tormentor gives max vim, which is useful in midgame when we have a lot of sustains available.
I'm not smart enough to make great use of Blood Lock.
Overkill is a sustain buffer and helps clearing trashes and summons. Note that it can help friends so turn it off when you have escorts!
Blood Vengeance... Why is the chance so low? Though it can still help as a sustain buffer.

Hexes 1/1/1/1 core, Burning Hex and Domination Hex luxury
Pacification Hex sometimes dazes, which is useful. Plus it can be used as a cornersnipe and doesn't aggro. You can also use it to defraud the orcs of their cleanse before setting up diseases.
Although +CD effect is basically an EVP ability, Burning Hex actually hurts. You can also use it to defraud the orcs of their cleanse before setting up diseases.
You can use Empathic Hex as cornersnipe or to defraud the orcs of their cleanse before setting up diseases.
Domination Hex is amazingly useful and amusing. You can use it to defraud enemies of their dangerous debuffs, such as innerdemon, to deaggro, to actually let enemies kill each other, to close-in (since this is a 10-range talent), or just for entertainment. Note that enemies can actually use cleanse to get rid of it.

Vile Life 1/1/1/1 core, Blood Splash and Vile Transplant luxury
Blood Splash gives a lot of heal in endgame. With 100% spell critical chance, you can get a few hundred heal per turn, even by casting Channel Staff with nothing around.
Elemental Discord freezes as long as giving some other minor debuffs. This helps a lot when you're confronting those orc cyromancers.
Healing Inversion is more helpful than Blood Lock.
Vile Transplant is not only a cleanse, but also a great debuff setter. You can stun enemies for more than 10 turns, or counter-counterstrike them, or return the entropic gift, as long as you can beat the spell save.

Doomelf 1/2/1/4+1 core, Resilience of the Doomed luxury
Haste of the Doomed is an instant teleportation. Although it can no longer cross walls, it's still very useful since it doesn't aggro (so it can even be used as a scouting talent, though very tedious). It also gives some small out of phase effect. Note that even the second teleportation takes time, it still cannot trigger Corrupted Strength.
Resilience of the Doomed gives critical shrug-off. The effect shortening debuffs is rather unnoticeable.
Corrupted of the Doomed is a sustain buffer. Plus when it really triggers, the additional damage is no joke, and it resets the CD of Haste of the Doomed and Pitiless. (It's also a warning that your Bone Shield has crumbled if you haven't noticed it yet.)
Pitiless not only makes Catalepsy as devastating as possible, but can also be used to extend stun, silence, disarm, or to cancel block, evasion, speed, Perfect Accuracy, Spin Fate, Rampage...

Physics 1/1/1
Chemistry 2/2/1, 2 more point in Therapeutic luxury
We want Mana Coil, Viral Injector, Ablative Armor, Air Recycler, Grounding Strap, Iron Grip, Alchemist Helper, Kinetic Stabiliser and White Light Emitter.

Escort
lost warrior: always choose Unflinching Resolve
injured seer: choose Arcane Eye, afterwards Premonition and Vision in order
lone alchemist: always choose Stone Touch
repented thielf: choose Track, afterwards Misdirection and Lacerating Strikes in order
lost sun paladin: choose Chant of Fortitude, afterwards Chant of Fortitude or magic
lost defiler: always choose Curse of Defenselessness
temporal explorer: choose Precognition, then Foresight, afterwards always Precognition
worried loremaster: always choose Disarm
lost tinker: learn tinker

Advancing
As a doomelf, we start with demons. This zone is rather easy and should get the character to lv6, but almost without any loots. Afterwards the difficulty starts. We first go to Mark of the Spellblaze to set the zone. The best zone to do now is the trollmire, and then we go to the lumberjack village and the arena. We should try to get at least one 1h weapon/dagger with elemental ego ASAP, otherwise we probably won't survive the T1 dungeons.
At lv10, we unlock Rot, and we should have 1 Healing/Regeneration, 1 Movement and 1 Shatter Afflictions as our inscription. For stats, we max Magic, get some Strength to meet equip and talent requirement, and the rest into Dexterity. For class points we should have Sanguise 3 (2 floating), Vim 1/1, Bone 1/2, Plague 1/1/3, Scourge 0, Reaving Combat 1, Rot 1. And for generic points Combat Training 0/1/2/3/?/? (2 floating in Combat Accuracy, 1 in Weapon Mastery or Dagger Mastery floating, depending on which you're wielding at the moment), Torment 0, Doomelf 1/2. We have a lot of spare generic points, but don't use them now.
At lv11 we put a point into Bone Spike, and afterwards our class points will be extremely tight. At lv12 we take the 1 floating point from Drain and put points into Bone Shield and Epidemic, then we maximizing Bone Shield (with the 5th point floating), and then get Worm Walk to lv4, and then maximizing infestation as we advance, while leaving all other trees untouched. For the generic points, we'll make good use of them when we get Staff Combat tree.
At this stage we're also very weak. The defensive talents are still developping, and lv1 Soul Rot, Drain and Bone Spear cannot kill things quickly enough. Now we need to take advantage of the great mobility of the doomelf reaver. We should have enough money to get Staff Combat tree, and we should do so even without a 1h staff. Against melee enemies (and the ones with ranged weapons, since their range is usually only 7 at this time), we should stay at range and at least greatly weaken them before they come close. Against ranged enemies, we fight in melee range to exploit Corrupted Strength and use Blunt Thrust to stun them. The most dangerous enemies at this stage is the summoners and necromancers, especially when they have another class providing great ranged firepower, since we actually cannot 1HKO those ritches at range and we're not mobile enough to handle both the ritch and the summoner at melee range. We'll have to make use of the terrain to defeat them. A certain item notice mentioning is the robe Silk Current. As stated above, reaver has huge chances to tigger on-spell-hit effects, and doesn't have a good stun. Silk Current has 10% chance to trigger Water Jet on spell hit, which stuns.
Hoping that we can get some scouting talents from escorts or items during T1 dungeons, and ASAP we get it, we should try to get to the second level of Mark of the Spellblaze. Without it, we also should be able to do it at about lv16.
After t1 dungeons we wish for a belt of unlife go to the sandworm lair, since it's by far the easiest t2 dungeon. We get another inscription slot at lv20, and continue maximizing Magic and Dexterity. Then we go to meet the demons again. That map is also easier than the rest T2 dungeons. Afterwards we should reach lv25. Now with all defensive talents maxed and offensive ability boosted by Arcane Might, the rest T2 dungeons should be very easy. However, during my gameplay, I chose a harder path. I intented to clear Dark Crypt and the Godfeaster zone, and to maximize the chance, I went into Dreadfell at lv24. Before I get the Rune of Dissipation, the Vile Life tree and even the Hexes tree (but I didn't use Hexes before killing the Master). To get the Vile Life tree you'll need to take advantage of your mobility. You need to lure the Grand Corruptor away first (he is rather harmless at range 10) and then go back to the altar from another direction. A scouting talent is almost necessary here so good luck with that. There is also a small chance that the Grand Corruptor will be killed by the elements and you'll get the Fall of Zigur quest immediately. Go accept it and handling Myssil is actually not that difficult with the help of the Grand Corruptor (I got this chance twice, and I won both).

The Master
He is like the final difficulty in the game play. He has powerful summons, and superior ranged firepower, plus great debuffs. Moreover, he has a very high spellsave, and we'd better assume that all our diseases simply won't work on him. As usual, the best way is to lure him into a tunnel and try 1v1 him. We even don't need to worry about summons blocking our retreat because almost all our mobility talents are teleportation. Another gimmick is try to silence him with Pestilent Blight. This involves a lot of guerrilla warfare because the chance of silencing him is really small, but when it happens with the help of Pitiless we can basically disable most of his power. Aside from stacking spellpower, there're also some other options you can aim at to easy this fight.
Rune of Dissipation: I'd say this is necessary. Without it even if you can perma-silencing him the Desolate Waste map effect induced by Hemial Shield and the Spike of Decrepitude will likely kill you overtime. Rune of Dissipation can disable the defense of Hemial Shield and Grim Shadow, and the offense of Eternal Night, Reaping and Spike of Decrepitude. Plus it's also very useful against the Grand Corruptor who you'll face later.
100% stun immunity: Getting frozen is really devastating and the master is very good at freezing people.
Skullcracker on headgears: This confusion is actually the only debuff you can reliably get on him.
very high defense: So that the skeletons warriors can do nothing to you at all. And you may have already noticed, that the Master is actually also a berserker and wielding a greatsword.
belt of unlife/lite of corpselight: The Master will summon ghouls and the ghouls will retch. Why not take a bite?

Afterwards
Don't put points into Dexterity anymore, and start put points into Strength. After maxing Magic and Strength, put the rest points into Cunning.
Get another inscription slot at lv36 and put a double Wild/Shatter Affliction into it.
Try very hard to get 100% spell crit chance and 100% physical crit chance from gears.
When you have high spell crit chance, get rid of the regeneration and get a Stormshield. When you have unlocked tinker, get rid of the 2 cleansing inscriptions and get 2 injectors, with 1 running Pain Suppressor/Unstopplable Force Salve and the other ready for cleanse. If you find a Blink rune with range 9 or 10, consider replacing Rune of Dissipation with it. You can also replace it with another Stormshield.