Reave

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Thalandor wrote:

I'm not sure how lowbie Rangers and Shadows are supposed to use that skill when they can get it as the first quest reward of the game. Without significant atk speed increases or multistrike, Reave is barely usable. You won't catch me using that in a race, although I love to play melee ranger. I think they should increase the initial AoE range and reduce the maximum number of stacks to compensate.

Reave is still a great leveling skill. You forgot, that usually low-level players arent supposed to oneshot everything with single hit (unless they bought a lot of uniques). Reave also deals 100% damage (not 70%, like Cleave), and it's very cheap (can easily be spammed under Purity Aura). Also, it is the only AoE skill for claws (and claws have incredible useful life per hit) until 19 level (Whirling blades dont count, their DPS is awful), and even then, it is better than Cyclone.

@MortalKombat3
I hear you and I know it looks great on paper, but I urge you to try this as a starting skill with no great gear (e.i. race situation).

You will get stuned, you will miss, you will run out of mana and use the default attack, and between all of this you will barely be able to get 2-3 stacks going. You will be begging for Cleave in no time! And no cleave don't work with claws, but at these levels you are not specialized into a specific weapon yet, so the type of weapon you use don't really matter.

Also keep in mind I love the skill otherwise, got a lvl 80 reave ranger who does great.

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Thalandor wrote:

@MortalKombat3
I hear you and I know it looks great on paper, but I urge you to try this as a starting skill with no great gear (e.i. race situation).

You will get stuned, you will miss, you will run out of mana and use the default attack, and between all of this you will barely be able to get 2-3 stacks going. You will be begging for Cleave in no time! And no cleave don't work with claws, but at these levels you are not specialized into a specific weapon yet, so the type of weapon you use don't really matter.

Also keep in mind I love the skill otherwise, got a lvl 80 reave ranger who does great.

I tried that, actually. With some skill, it is no less useful, than cleave. And with cleave, you will beg for life-per-hit, that claws provide for free :) As for mana, i never ran out of it, just had to use potions in time, or use Clarity Aura. And yes, i was able to get 8 stack and kill mobs with 8 stacks. It just requires some skill, that's all.

Just found some more quirk of Reave

With chance to ignite gem, I can ignite enemy without doing any damage >:D!!

In another word, the tales of the buggy Reave is ... buggy
I can really assume that the attack was not miss, just that the game itself not taking damage into account...

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twintales wrote:

Just found some more quirk of Reave

With chance to ignite gem, I can ignite enemy without doing any damage >:D!!

In another word, the tales of the buggy Reave is ... buggy
I can really assume that the attack was not miss, just that the game itself not taking damage into account...

ok this is a big funny, 0 damage burns? either way, its the icing on the cake about bugs. think its already being fixed however (the incorrect/clumbsy missing).

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soul4hdwn wrote:

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twintales wrote:

Just found some more quirk of Reave

With chance to ignite gem, I can ignite enemy without doing any damage >:D!!

In another word, the tales of the buggy Reave is ... buggy
I can really assume that the attack was not miss, just that the game itself not taking damage into account...

ok this is a big funny, 0 damage burns? either way, its the icing on the cake about bugs. think its already being fixed however (the incorrect/clumbsy missing).

I didn't realize this was a bug, but I've seen this too.
My reave has about 5-10 fire damage added onto it and does about 5k-6k physical dps, the fire shouldn't matter at all but the mobs get burns and the burning seems to actually do damage and kills mobs in merc. I'm not sure how this mechanic normally works so I didn't notice anything odd about it, but if that's unintended then yes it's a bug.

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Legatus1982 wrote:

I didn't realize this was a bug, but I've seen this too.
My reave has about 5-10 fire damage added onto it and does about 5k-6k physical dps, the fire shouldn't matter at all but the mobs get burns and the burning seems to actually do damage and kills mobs in merc. I'm not sure how this mechanic normally works so I didn't notice anything odd about it, but if that's unintended then yes it's a bug.

the burning alone isn't the bug, its the "full stacks and animation of a hit being done but it isn't actually being done" despite being well within range. signs of burning only shows that there IS a hit but something even more clear and weird is going on.

Reave seems to got fixed now in 0.11.5c. Can someone test it D:!!

I haven't got any numbers to support my claims, so it may just be a placebo effect. But, I started using this skill and the first mob I attacked didn't ignore any hits which felt really surprising to me. I really felt like the mobs ignoring the attacks have been fixed. Was only playing with it for about 2 minutes so it will require more testing to be 100% certain but I'm glad they worked on it regardless and I feel like it's not bugged now when I use it.

Thank you ggg :) Can't wait to get more time in with reave.

I'm just a casual player, but over the weekend I decided to start a claw shadow with Reave to see if the AoE life-leech would be as impressive as it sounded. I'm only up to Normal Act 2, but so far my impression is: yes, very much so.

However, there's some stuff about Reave that annoys me. I understand that Reave needs some drawbacks to make it a alternative to (rather than a straight-up replacement for) other skills, and maybe these are important for balance purposes, but I figured I'd mention them:

- The initial area of Reave is a bit small, and only seems to hit one enemy. An AoE skill that does not actually hit multiple enemies in its default configuration is a bit disappointing, even if can be 'charged up'. If "level 1" were dropped, and the %-increase of the remaining levels were adjusted so that the final area was the same as the current "level 8", I would be 100% OK with that.

- It's too easy to lose Reave levels. After a couple of seconds of inactivity? Sure. When switching to a different skill? Certainly. When accidentally attacking thin air because the mob you were attacking has just died? Not so fun, especially when there's a whole bunch of other mobs just about to take the place of their fallen comrade and a charged up Reave would be really handy.

- It's too easy to lose Reave levels, part II: the no-mana case where I hit the Reave button and it switches to the default attack and cancels all my Reave levels. Honestly, I've got enough mana-regen that I'd rather my character sit there and do nothing, letting me keep my Reave levels, than use the default attack and let me start over.

- One last annoyance with Reave: building it up to level 8 on one mob pack, sprinting along the path (or whatever) looking for the next pack, and having Reave expire just as I get there. There's a lot of other things in the game that behave the same way, though (endurance/power/frenzy charges, Blood Rage, etc.) so I guess this is by design.



If I could magically change Reave to be the way I want it, I'd make it so that the only ways to lose Reave levels would be (a) deliberately activating a different skill (so running out of mana wouldn't cancel your Reave), or (b) losing one level of Reave per half-second since the last time you hit something (a Reave attack takes just under half a second, I think, so it shouldn't be difficult to sustain level 8 while fighting a pack, but you'd at least have *some* Reave levels left by the time you found the next pack, or after running away to quaff potions).