The sentinel currently lacks a strain, and doesn’t have a well developed place in the hive currently, considering all of its jobs are done much better by other castes, and it isn’t particularly dangerous on its own. The reaver will be a somewhat useful combo/skirmishing role that can assist on the frontline and help stall a push, or go ham in the backlines with high enough player skill.
The sent loses its scattered spit and corrosive acid, and gains a longer cooldown on the slowing spit, in exchange it can toggle between having a weak acid or neurotoxin effect on slash/tailstab.
Paralyzing slash will remain the same, but will alternatively do medium acid damage if acid claws are selected.
Reaver gains a passive combo ability, Sow Fear, that would activate upon getting three successive slashes on the same enemy within a short time frame. For approximately 10 seconds, the reaver’s health, speed, damage, cooldowns, and slowing spit intensity (larger neuro reagent) would be buffed, and would gain a buff to pull speed and tackle chance. With a slightly larger time frame, landing six slashes could give the reaver a small amount of temporary armor so they could have the momentum to fall back or keep pushing. After the time frame ends, Sow Fear enters a 30 second cooldown
An active combo ability, Target Rich Enviroment, on a two minute cooldown, would spread either acid or neuro toxin to marines adjacient to a slash or tailstab target, at a reduced intensity. If a target dies to the acid or is knocked out from the neurotoxin, Target Rich Enviroment is refreshed, allowing the sentinel to continue fighting.
Hopefully, this could be a good entry role into some of the more difficult and complicated T3s like praetorian that often require juggling abilities and combos and the like, rewarding player skill and creating a flexible, dynamic skirmisher class.
I don’t think reaver would need a boost to its base stats other than maybe higher raw slash damage, because sentinel is not meant to tank, but quickly getting three slashes is not very hard, so triggering Sow Fear regularly should increase its effective survivability. Removing corrosive acid and shotgun spit I feel would help vanilla sentinel retain its identity as a balanced CC/Utility role, while reaver focuses more heavily on crowd control and damage.