The Enthralled Sovereign

Mesmer Skin's charge count scales off Strength and rounds up.

More Strength means more charges per cast, and because every incoming hit only ever removes one charge regardless of how hard it hits, a deep pool is flat immunity for its duration.

You also gain a short invulnerability window each time a charge breaks, which bridges refreshes.

Reave removes a percentage of an enemy's current health that ignores level scaling, then multiplies that against enthralled targets, viral stacks, and Roar if you subsume it.

The build's job is to push Strength high, keep casts cheap enough to spam Reave, and feed energy back through Equilibrium.

1.

Cast Mesmer Skin at mission start.

Refresh it just before the last charge goes.

2.

Tap Enthrall on a target and let it spread.

Keep thralls capped near seven.

You can enthrall acolytes if you have free thrall space, which makes them Reave-killable in three or four passes.

3.

Reave through enthralled enemies to delete them and claw back Mesmer Skin charges.

4.

For non-enthralled enemies, apply viral first, then Reave.

5.

Danse Macabre is optional room clear.

It shines in very high endurance where enemy damage has outscaled their effective health.

Charges step up at every multiple of 16.67% Strength, with exactly three charges per 50%.

From the source write-up, above 300%:

- 301% to 316%: 19 charges - 317% to 333%: 20 charges - 334% to 350%: 21 charges - 351% to 366%: 22 charges - 367% to 383%: 23 charges

The listed arsenal sits at 298%, one band short of 19.

Molt Augmented adds up to 60% Strength after 250 kills and Molt Vigor snapshots up to 45% more after an Operator cast, which lands you in the 373% region for 23 charges.

Madurai's Power Transfer adds a further 40% on top while it is active.

In a real mission you are running well above the listed number within the first minute.

From the source, base Reave strips 8% of current health at any level and does not work on acolytes, demolysts, liches or archons due to their innate damage reduction.

On top of that:

- Enthralled target: about 250% Strength to one-shot (enthrall multiplies Reave damage fivefold).

- No enthrall, 10 viral stacks: about 295% Strength.

- With Roar and one viral stack: about 320% Strength.

- With Roar, no viral, no enthrall: exactly 500% Strength, reachable with four Tauforged strength shards plus Madurai.

- No enthrall, no viral, no Roar: about 1250% Strength, which is why you always bring one of the three.

Duration helps Reave travel, the Enthrall and Mesmer Skin stuns, and any subsumed buff.

Range only matters for Enthrall and Reave radius, and neutral is enough; add Stretch over a Strength mod if you want wider Reave.

Efficiency is negative here because Mesmer Skin only needs recasting every 30 seconds or so, and Enthrall is nearly free on a stunned enemy.

Transient Fortitude, Blind Rage, Umbral Intensify are the Strength core that drives the charge count.

Primed Continuity buys back the duration Transient Fortitude costs and lengthens Reave.

Primed Flow is a large energy pool, and it is also what makes violet crit-damage shards worth double on any weapon build you pair with this.

Equilibrium is the energy engine, converting the health orbs your kills produce.

Mesmer Shield is the reason Strength scales so hard into survival.

Thrall Pact is pure weapon damage and is the first slot to drop if you do not shoot much.

The exilus is free: Power Drift for one more charge, Preparation for speed missions, Primed Sure Footed if knockdowns bother you.

Natural Talent over Thrall Pact is strong quality of life for casting Mesmer Skin inside a shield-gate window, though cast-speed shards cover most of that now.

Pick one.

Subsume over Enthrall or Danse Macabre.

- Roar is the default.

It lifts weapon and thrall damage and drops the viral requirement for a non-enthralled Reave one-shot to one or two stacks.

- Sentient Wrath adds crowd control and a damage vulnerability that also lets Reave one-shot at a single viral stack around 313%.

- Xata's Whisper for raw-damage weapons and overguard.

- Silence for endurance, mainly to stop Acolyte Violence from stripping your Mesmer Skin in one hit.

- A grouping ability (Larva, Ensnare, Airburst) if you want to Reave several enemies per dash; this needs a range increase, so swap toward Overextended and Primed Continuity.

- No subsume: leave Enthrall on and accept a slightly slower thrall setup.

Molt Augmented and Molt Vigor are both Strength, chosen because charges are the whole game.

Swap either for Arcane Energize or Arcane Steadfast if energy feels tight, or Molt Efficiency for more Reave and Roar uptime.

Madurai.

Power Transfer gives 50% cast speed and 40% Strength for up to 20 seconds, which is close to ideal for a frame that lives on fast Mesmer Skin refreshes and Reave casts.

If you would rather run Vazarin for the Protective Sling i-frames, you keep almost all of the tank and lose only the Strength swing.

A consistent area viral primer is what lets Reave one-shot crowds without enthrall.

Bubonico alt-fire, Epitaph, Kuva Nukor, or a Panzer Vulpaphyla companion all apply viral fast enough.

Mesmer Skin is the whole defense.

It fails in three ways: letting the charge pool hit zero with enemies in range, an Acolyte or Thrax ability that dispels the whole pool at once (bring Silence), and toxin damage in the gaps if you also lean on shield gating.

Refresh early, not on empty.

Equilibrium plus Primed Flow.

Negative Efficiency is fine because your casts are infrequent.

If you run Zenurik Focus instead of Madurai, Equilibrium alone will not carry the energy, so add Arcane Energize and accept fewer charges and slower casts.

Bosses and special units shrug off Reave, so single-target boss damage comes from your weapon, not the frame.

Danse Macabre energy drain is real if you spam it at midrange levels.

Nullifiers strip Mesmer Skin on contact.

A Danse Macabre nuke build trades tank mods for range and duration.

A marked-for-death Reave build pushes the one-shot further into crowds.

Strong: near-unconditional survival, a true single-target delete, low weapon dependence for staying alive, forgiving to pilot.

Weak: does nothing to bosses on its own, thrall cap limits Reave throughput in the open, needs a primer to threaten crowds.

Anyone who wants to stop dying and start deleting.

It is one of the most beginner-safe endurance tanks in the game, and the skill ceiling is entirely in how well you keep thralls capped and how high you push the Reave threshold.