Fairly early on in the game I spotted a few reavers wandering about, and naturally gave them a wide berth.

Well, having levelled up somewhat and carrying a better selection of peashooters, I decided to have a go at one of them, maybe whittle it down bit by bit. What did I discover? These reavers are wimps, limp-wristed shadows of their Fallout 3 selves.

What a spectacularly pointless change! Reavers were my favourite enemy in FO3 precisely because they were tough and you could expect a fight from them. If the creators of this game thought they were overpowered, then why not just leave them out? Put a few roamers in there instead.

Very disappointing. I was gearing myself up for some fun and ended up with a walkover.

FO3 Reavers had insane health levels in my opinion so I'm glad they reduced that but I've never seen a FONV throw a 'grenade' which disappoints me.

They were completely overpowered in FO3, for christ sakes they are a just a ghoul. I can understand the overlord and rad scorpion having lots of hp but not the reaver.

It's a shame that a Giant RadScorpion is scarier than a Reaver now. Out of the "Big Three" that Broken Steel added Reavers were my most feared adversaries.

I met one at about level 6 an was shredded to pieces. It wasn't until I got 10mm SMG that I could take on him. They are still powerful. Not as powerful as Deathclaw but that's fine by me

A reaver can take 2 AMR headshots, not weak at all, not overpowered but not weak.

Many people felt that feral ghoul reavers had an absurd amount of health in Fallout 3, which I kind of agree with. They're just feral ghouls that really don't look like they're that different from normal ones, there's no reason they should be tougher than a deathclaw. It's kind of like the absurdly powerful goblins you got in Oblivion at higher levels. Plus, in Fallout 3, reavers were added in the Broken Steel DLC, most likely to provide high-level enemies so there would be SOMETHING that can still threaten you after you got beyond level 20, seeing as none of the enemies in the original game were designed with the assumption that level 30 characters would have to fight them. But in New Vegas, there are already other high level enemies in the game. And I'd still say that reavers are pretty dangerous at lower levels, but not so much at high levels, which, I would say, is how feral ghouls should be.

Why? Simple, Obsidian are behind New Vegas not Bethesda.

FO3 Reaver have bullet deflection field and 2-shot skill daemon orbs, I am not sure if it is a good thing to keep them that way.....

Enemies introduced for high levels in Broken Steel like the Reavers and Overlords simply cheated. They cheated because the game was not designed to properly handle those levels. A trend continued on to Mothership Zeta and Point Lookout.

Good riddance. New Vegas was actually designed with the 30 cap, no need for cheating enemies to make up for it.

Agreed, but they still should have the grenade attack.

I can agree.

they were kinda op in FO3 but I agree with the original poster that they aren't too tough in FNV even in packs. Even on Very Hard they aren't that tough. :angry:

I dunno, I kinda like mini-Behemoth all over DC because the real ones doesn't respawn...... :laugh:

Then there is Albino Radscorpion......

A lot of people seem to have missed my point, which was not about whether or not reavers are too strong, but about the pointlessness of the change. To reiterate: if the creators of NV thought reavers were overpowered or out of place, then why include them in the game? There are no albino scorpions or overlords. Was there really a pressing need for yet another type of feral ghoul?

I forgot about the Reaver grenade attack. :unsure: The Reaver's difficulty did seem very artificial in FO3 and I can't say I miss it. I feel that ghouls should be at their most potent when attacking in groups, and that's it.

I suppose they felt so. I don't see a problem with it.

I got the bright idea to try and snipe one with a scoped Varmint rifle at level 4 west of Primm. It ran over and kicked my ass in a quick hurry. Caravan Shotgun shooting magnum buck shot only made it madder.

They're only ghouls. The reavers were almost laughably tough in FO3, able to withstand truly ridiculous quantities of fire.

The developers wanted to include them as another tier of ghoul, apparently, so they simply brought them back down to just being the toughest ghoul, not being nigh indestructible.

Ah, but they are not the toughest. The glowing ones are the toughest. That's why I say it is a pointless change. They've just turned the reaver into a tougher roamer.

Feral Ghoul Reavers look cool and they sound cool, the problem was they were pointlessly bullet sponges in Fallout 3. So rather than ignore a perfectly good looking and sounding enemy they get included in a lower tier then glowing ones.


They can barely survive one head shot, They only have 180 hit points.


Why does that make it a pointless change? Your dislike of it doesn't make it pointless. By appearances you'd figure the ghoul so infused with radiation it glows would be the toughest ghoul.

Obviously they wanted 4 tiers of ghouls but wanted the glowing ones to be the top rank. So rather than invent a new ghoul they just use reavers name and appearance as they look good and they sound good why waste them.

Well, one can argue about whether it was the best idea, but I don't think it was pointless: by the time you get to level 30 in FO3 you're God of the Wastes; some sort of challenge was needed because of the extended level cap.

Right, but they weren't challenging, they were annoying. Creating an enemy that has a lot of life but isn't threatening isn't the right way to try and challenge a high level player.

It's a pointless change because the tiers were already established: ghoul, roamer, glowing, reaver. All they did was change the order. I simply ask for consistency. If you're going to put reavers in the game - if - then at least make them a challenge as they were in FO3. Not necessarily 1100 HP, this is after all a different game with different difficulty, but at least a level consistent with a major threat.

Yes, but all the enemies were mere annoyances at level 30. That's why so many of us had to gimp our characters to create a challenge. I'm no gaming god, so if I had to gimp my character something was definitely wrong! :laugh: