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Killing
hobbits never gets old.

Tired of slinking around, or keeping the health of your groupmates up,
or standing in the background, plucking arrows at Freeps in href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/lotro" target="_blank">Lord
of the
Rings Online? If that's the case, then you'll be happy to
note that you
won't be doing any of that with the Orc Reaver. The Reaver is a
no-holds-barred, in your face, dual-wielding warrior whose sole purpose
is to unleash as much damage as possible upon the weak souls sorry
enough to get within his reach. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/giveaways/swagdog"
target="_blank">No
group should be without their very
own instrument of destruction.

A Hobbit's Nightmare

The starting statistics of the Reaver are a step above the rest in
terms of basic survivability. Good armor, solid health, and a
respectful amount of power go a long way in ensuring your Reaver
continues breathing long after his enemies have succumbed to the
multiple wounds you've undoubtedly inflicted. With statistics like
this, there's no arguing the role of a Reaver is destruction,
destruction, and more destruction with a dash of tanking tossed in. As
usual, you'll want to increase your passive skills as soon as possible,
preferably in the following order: Armor, Health, Avoidance, and
Resistance.

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Being a Reaver means not only putting the fear of Sauron into the
hearts of your opponents, but also ensuring you can take as much damage
as possible, because you will quickly become target numero uno shortly
after engaging enemy groups. By increasing your armor first rather than
health, you ensure that the healers in your party don't have to work
quite as hard in their quest to keep you from dying. Increasing
Avoidance before Resistance is done for the same reason. If you're not
there to be hit, it's that much less power they have to expend on you.
This setup helps everyone involved, so href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/features/geek" target="_blank">put
a smile
on your face and get
to it.

Why Do Healers Never Heal?

Despite all the talk about keeping your healer from having to work to
hard, the sad reality is that this will rarely be a problem and here's
why. For some reason, most healers that I've found running around the
game seem far more interested in casting their DoTs than they are in
keeping you alive, even if you're in the same group... standing beside
them... jumping up and down waving your hands. You see the problem.



If that's the case, then why do I stress the order of increases as I
have above? Because when you find a real healer, they'll love you for
it and you'll work together like mashed potatoes and gravy. You'll be
inseparable and awesome, all in one go. On the other side of the fence,
when you have a crappy healer, no amount of doing anything is going to
help, so be prepared to eat plenty of dirt.



The PvP in Ettenmoors is far more reminiscent of StarCraft than it
really has any right to be. Things may change in the future, but as it
currently stands, the majority of PvP involves both sides Zerg rushing
each other in a few places around Ettinmoors (Tol Ascarnen, most
often). Since you don't have an ounce of ranged combat ability, guess
where that plants your sorry butt in each of these encounters?

With the above fact in mind, not all of your expertise with dying is
the fault of your healers. They may have started out as decent healers,
but eventually got tired of trying. Who knows? In any large group
encounter, you're going to find yourself continually stunned, dazed,
and disarmed. It sucks horribly, but it's just a fact you need to steel
yourself for.

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Here there
be dragons.

Until you hit rank 5 and gain an Advanced Skill called Resilience,
you're going to be a sitting duck most of the time. Resilience gives
you the ability to remove all Dazes, Stuns, and Knockdowns and only
costs 62 power points to do it. Learn it, live it, love it. Even though
it has a one-minute cooldown timer on it, it's going to become your
best friend.



On the rare occasions you find yourself in a one on one battle (and
believe me, it *is* rare), the ground will part, demons will scream,
and Sauron will wrap you in his warm embrace as you unleash untold
amounts of death and destruction on your enemy. Sudden Strike,
Sundering Blow, Ravage. Every one of these skills consists of multiple
strikes dealing massive amounts of damage. When you actually have the
opportunity to unleash them on a Freep, you'll be amazed at the
results. All the times you've been stunned, rooted, or just screwed in
general will come target="_blank">flowing
out of you in one voracious river of pure
hatred and your enemy will die swiftly. There's only one way to
eventually get to this point though.

By the Power of Greyskull!

The best advice I can give to you is keep going. Don't give up. The
best thing you can do for your own sanity is to gain as many Destiny
Points as possible after achieving each rank. Only by maxing out your
available skills will you have any chance of surviving in a group.
Destiny points can be had by the bushels, but you've got to go to the
right places to make it worth your while. The quickest and easiest kill
quest to complete is Mash. I'm not talking about the show, but your job
to go get slug meat. Head southeast and you'll hit the pool. While this
is a quick 250 Destiny points (repeatable every 2 hours), there's a
better place to go if you're willing to make the trip.



After gathering every quest you can find on the way, eventually you'll
make your way to the far south end of the map. Hear lies the Hobbit
village of Hoarhallow. Just by killing the hobbits in this one area,
you can complete no less than seven quests, all totaling over 2,000
Destiny points. Not only does it save you a drastic amount of time
running around everywhere, but it's also href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/guides/instances/utgardekeep"
target="_blank">loads
of fun. 



How many times did you desperately want to stab Frodo in the face with
a sharp stick during the Lord of the Ring movies, but didn't have the
opportunity? Now's your chance! If you really do love Hobbits (weirdo),
then target="_blank">just
imagine they're all Gungans... or Ewoks. In other words,
imagine something you'd like to kill a lot of because you're going to
be here for quite a while. The Destiny points will flow like water and
before you know it, you'll be all trained up and ready to head back to
Zergfest to gain your next rank.



Now quit lollygagging around here and get to killing some Freeps,
maggots!