Just when we thought we had enough heroes, along comes Ravus. This new hero is Luna’s older brother, making him Noctis’ brother-in-law This article will tell you how to unlock Ravus, breakdown his hero skills, and look at potential uses for this new hero.
Unlocking Ravus
Everyone should be familiar with this process by now. To unlock Ravus, you must purchase a Ravus unlock item. The Ravus unlock item can be found in the Gold Store. At this time, there are no known ways of unlocking Ravus for free.
Ravus Hero Skills
When considering how to skill Ravus, there are a few details you must first consider. First, Ravus’ hero skills are similar to those of Gladio’s in that neither of them have level restrictions up to level 100. Second, for having some really awesome hero skills, Ravus’ actually does not get that many AP points, so choose your skills wisely.
In this section, we will analyze each of Ravus’ new hero skills, one by one, starting from the top with Elite Magitek.
Similar to Aranea, Ravus’ first hero skill allows you to unlock exclusive Elite Magitek Mercenaries. This skill can be learned as soon as Ravus is unlocked and is mastered at level 1. Once this skill has been mastered, you will need Elite Magitek Shards and Mercenary Rations to train these troops. Elite Magitek Shards should not be confused with Magitek Shards, which are used to train T5 equivalent Magitek when using an Empire Effect: Imperial Citadel item. After unlocking Ravus, you will periodically receive Elite Magitek Shards in your Luna Gift. You can also occasionally purchase additional Elite Magitek Shards from The Gold Store
Ravus’ Elite Magitek Mercenaries are much stronger than any of the previous Magitek Mercenaries available to train. These troops are the equivalent of T7 and pack a powerful punch that is only augmented by Ravus’ Magitek HP, Armor & Attack hero skills. The only problem with these troops is that they are expensive to build and Elite Magitek Shards are usually in short supply. Obtaining 75 million Elite Magitek shards will allow you to train a mere 25,000 Elite Magitek troops. As of late, we have only seen 900,000 Shards appear in the Luna Gift daily. Be sure to have your Luna active so that you can receive double the Elite Magitek Shards and use Aranea’s Mercenary Cost Reduction so that you can train as many as possible.
The entire right side of Ravus’ skill tree is dedicated to combat skills for Magitek-type troops. Mastering all three of these skills will give you +600% Magitek HP, +1,000% Magitek Attack and +1,400% Magitek Armor. These skills can be a lot more versatile than they initially appear, considering the ever-growing array of Magitek-type mercenaries in the Fighting Pits. Not only will they work with Ravus’ T7-equivalent Elite Magitek Mercenaries, but these skills also empower your Mirage Airships, Magitek Samurai Warriors, and any other Magitek mercenary troops.
The entire left side of Ravus’ skill tree is dedicated to fighting Imperial Magitek. Mastering all three of these skills will grant you +3,600% Imperial Fortress Armor, +1,800% Imperial Fortress HP and +3,000 Imperial Fortress Attack. During Magitek Invasion events, having Ravus’ AP allocated to these skills will turn him into a lethal weapon when attacking Magitek. Lately we have only seen one or two Magitek Invasion events a week, so unless you have a few extra Hero Skill Reset items lying around, it would be best to avoid these skills altogether.
When we maxed out Ravus’ Imperial Fortress Attack, HP, and Armor skills and attacked the Imperial Fortress Realm Boss with Killer Bees, we found that he was able to destroy about 1,000 more Adaptive Wave Shields than our attacks when Ravus had none of these skills.
In the middle of Ravus’ hero skill tree we have Attack Against Warrior, Mage and Cavalry, each of which has a maximum of 2000% Attack when any of these skills are mastered. These are unique skills that we haven’t seen anywhere else in the game. Instead of increasing the attack of a specific troop type, these skills work by increasing the overall Troop Attack of your entire army, but only when hitting specific troops.
For example, say Ravus has Attack Against Mages mastered at 2,000%, but has zero points in Attack Against Warriors or Cavalry. If he attacks an empire with 1 million each of Warrior, Mage and Cavalry, the result is that the entire army that Ravus is attacking with will gain +2000% Attack against the Mage troops, but only deal regular damage to Warrior and Cavalry, like they normally would, since these skills are not troop-type-specific for us, but they are for our enemy. They increase the Troop Attack for Ravus’ entire army, regardless of what he attacks with. This opens up amazing possibilities, such as increasing the attack of Dominators by up to +2,000%.
At level 50, Ravus gains the Maximum Prisoner skill. This will increase the attack bonus you get by capturing heroes. The default attack bonus you get from a captured hero is 1, and although an additional +1 Prisoner Attack Bonus can be found in the University under Hero Research, mastering this hero skill with Ravus will allow you to gain an attack bonus from up to +15 additional captured heroes. If you are the type of player who always has to have a hero in your prison, then there are some incredible benefits here for you.
For example, if you have Ravus’ Maximum Prisoners skill mastered and have also completed Maximum Prisoners in the University under Hero Research, then you will get an attack bonus for the 17 heroes in your prison with the highest level. So, if you have 17 captured heroes all at level 75, you will receive a +1,275% Troop Attack bonus. This attack bonus can be increased exponentially by completing Enhanced Interrogation at the University under Hero Research.
At level 70, Ravus unlocks Attack Against Mercenaries, which works the same way that Attack Against Warrior, Mage & Cavalry does, only with Mercenary troops. Mastering this skill will increase your army’s Attack Against Mercenaries by +2,000%.
At level 80, Ravus unlocks the Crystal Assault HP skill, followed by the Crystal Assault Attack skill at level 90, both of which add +3,000% HP & Attack respectively when attacking the Crystal. Just like how Prompto’s hero skills only work when he is attacking other Empires, Ravus skills will only take effect when attacking the Crystal. This is an amazing boost that will soon make having a high level Ravus a necessity for taking the Crystal – but not for holding it!
On the adjacent side of Ravus’ skill tree, he has Expansion Production at level 80 and Expansion Cost Reduction at level 90. These skill will make upgrading your Expansion Buildings a breeze by effectively lowering the amount of Expansion Blueprints required for each upgrade and increasing the amount of materials they produce. The only problem with these skills is that they require an extremely high level Ravus before they can be unlocked. Expansion Buildings are also very limited – players only get one at level 30, a second at 40, and a third at 40. Unless a method to increase the total number of Expansions and the variety of Expansion Buildings we can build, these hero skills have a very limited use.
Conclusion
All of Ravus’ offensive skills make him a clear winner for attacking other empires, assaults on the Crystal and getting points during Magitek Invasion events. This new hero comes with a ton of new skills that will change gameplay mechanics by giving all players access to T7-equivalent mercenary troops, adding value to capturing heroes and making even the strongest of players much easier to topple.
But with all of Ravus’ attack-centric skills, he still has an Achilles Heel. Aside from Magitek HP and Imperial Fortress HP, he does not boast a single defensive skill. Only time will tell how that will affect gameplay in the long term, but for now, let’s welcome our powerful new hero to the game.
