[Snake]

So yeah, Reaver Stance is terrible right now after Evasion was implemented. Each Evasion proc immediately leads to the enemy either sapping your FP away (Greenscale Tunic) or an insane critical damage comeback with Voltiger Sidecut/Sillcut (Duelist). Now let's look at Reaver. A stance that's made more to score style points than actually do damage.

It doesn't even have a proper post-round utility like the others, it's quite sad. Especially when you NEED to be a Destiny Demon Hunter to make any good use of the class, due to the lack of Skill Points to cover at least more than two stances. (You may quote me on this, I still think it's impossible to be a 'real' Demon Hunter without being Destiny. So it limits you, by a SHARP LOT.)

Yet another problem is Reaver Stance giving no benefits or bonuses for being a stance to end your round on or as, compared to Matador, which grants a '-20 flat physical damage reduction', Cobra, which grants '2 flawless damage avoidances', and Desperado, with their 'nullify one gun attack instance'.

The damage from Reaver is way too low, to the point it becomes more worth just spam Crystal Rose, which costs 12-15 FP and do 200+ damage in an AoE, than perform a full Reaver combo, using up 60-80 FP (sometimes twice the amount if the enemy is wearing a Greenscale Tunic) to do less than 120 damage on someone who didn't even bother to invest in DEF due to Evasion, or tickle the ones who are armored up.

The time the stance's offensive skills got nerfed, we didn't had Evasion for everyone. Evasion is sure doing its job right, but completely destroying the damage of certain skills that don't have a scaling higher than 130%. Just this small fact already begs for a change.

-

So yeah, keeping this short, hoping I made my point here, I'd like to suggest a few changes to Reaver Stance, to at least bring back some of it's former power it had. The goal being making it do more damage worth its costs, and a new, extra gimmick for people who risk their defenses by staying in Reaver Stance and ending their turn:

[strike]Reaver Stance - At Rank 3, Combination Fighter's duration will be refreshed at the end of the round, if Reaver Stance is active.[/strike]

Combination Fighter - -15% damage, -1M, -25% FP cost per LV. Stacks up to LV2.
- At Rank 2: Applies a debuff on the enemy, which reduces their Armor and Magic Armor's effectiveness by (25 * LV)%

Chaser/Rising Tide/Elemental Rave - 90% SWA (+10% per Rank).

And this will probably be my last Balance-Fu ever for the rest of this year. Promise. And for everyone else, feel free to discuss about my last post ever™.

Also yeah, buff Kinu, Kinu shouldn't be weaker than Ashe. Viva anarchy!

EDIT: Probably should reduce or remove the Evasion part, as Flatfoot exists and there is now the possibility of using it in the middle of a combo, if the Reaver retains Combination Fighter.

[Inconspicuous Kitty]

I agree with the vast majority of this post. Snake puts the numbers in the right spot (and this is Armor folks, not reduction, so don't freak). However, I can find myself nitpicking one thing, and that's that I disagree with how much Evade they would lose. Losing half of your evade for the purposes of evasion, is too much, in my eyes. If the % for evade for the purposes of evasion was say, 20% tops or removed entirely, I'm totally on board with this adjustments.

It's very much needed, as Reaver see's very little use mechanically presently, due to it being outshone by the other stances where it should shine, being raw offense.

[Snake]

Sure. It would probably make Reaver way too strong to just ignore Evasion. I mean, if they retain Combination Fighter over the rounds with the Reaver Stance suggestion, that means they'll be able to Charge + Bash in the middle of a combo for a more precise decisive hit on people who can dodge, with Flatfoot. Something they can never do as of now. So it will be fine.

Reaver like this https://youtu.be/wD2BL_AwM90?t=17 when.

[Trexmaster]

I don't really think it needs to be explained that having Combination Fighter carry over into the next round would be absolutely ridiculous, especially paired with reducing the damage reduction on the attacks.

I don't think Reaver is in that terrible a spot right now, Crystal Rose is just grossly overtuned, and you're not going to beat it in raw damage dropping Reaver combos. Reaver comboing is more useful when you're setting up for KDs or KBs through field hazards, if it were even more optimal for just the sake of damage, it'd get stupid fast.

The reason there's no 'bonus' for ending the round in Reaver is that you're already committing ending the round in Reaver if you chose to carry out an entire combo. At least that's how I see it. Martial Lawbreaker allows you to use any weapon you feel like for it, offering plenty of versatility for using the skills.

I could see the damage penalty getting lightened up a bit as suggested, that's about it. You shouldn't be reavering into someone with near-guaranteed Evasion with a greenscale if you can help it, anyway.

[Autumn]

I think that Combination Fighter itself could make do with a buff, as Trex brought up you end in reaver stance if you're committed to the combo.

Combination Fighter could make do with the following buff:

Damage reduction is decreased to 15% per stack (30% at max stacks)
and FP Costs of reaver/soldier skills is also reduced by 15% per stack of combination fighter

This would help Reaver out tremendously, and we don't want dullahans getting out of control with 10m reaver combos either.

[Snake]

pls nerf Dullahan so we all can have fun with Reaver.

Anyway, yeah, I'd be satisfied with anything that makes it worth using up over 50 FP when compared to other cheap skills that do tremendously big damage. Combination Fighter getting some tweaks in the damage reduction + getting FP cost reduction + Reaver offensive scalings going to at least 120% at max rank to pair with soldier's scalings is really all that's 'needed'.

The extra I posted was just me being greedy and overseeing the Dullahan case, obviously.