Reave questions/suggestions..seems like fun so far

I rerolled a Scion despite my best intentions and have hit Act 2 cruel in decent time. Had intended to stick with a claw but since I had the Mightflay on hand, I went with it and have been plowing down mobs with barely any damage nodes taken but running only hatred so far. DPS doesn't seem impressive but it is effective if a bit unpredictable.

Now I had chatted with a high level reaver a while ago and he said his CI build was expensive I wonder if a life build is out of the question? I'm running a little low right now on health.

Questions:

1)What is a good backup skill for reave? I only use whirling blades right now for movement and a finishing move. I was thinking maybe Viper Strike but like an idiot traded in my 10% Q version.
2)Will reave scale well enough to worry about reflect? Is VP the only solution? Making CI ES more desirable?

I have checked 2 versions of this build but neither accounted for aura management so I went for the first reduction and want to hit the big one near templar. Just not sure of an efficient way to do it and still remain alive.

Here is my build at level 43, still early I know.

My first character was a Duelist Reaver. He used Resolute Technique and is a sword-based build and could solo up to lvl 68 maps with ease. Got bored before I tried any higher.

CI is gonna be expensive because you will need highly specialized gear pieces in order to get the best bang for the buck. You might think that you'll just go STR/ES or EVA/ES but therein lies the problem: Socket colors. Once you obtain the already expensive armor pieces, you will then need to spend more in chromes to get the right sockets. Since you'll be playing Reave, I'm willing to bet that majority of your sockets will be Red/Green (which are easiest to get on STR/EVA gear).

Another aspect of this is that you will end up traversing a lot of the tree to get the proper keystones, which means you'll be spending a lot of points in stats instead of actual passive nodes. I know cuz I tried building a 2H CI Spectral Throw Scion and gave up because getting the right color links in the right gear became an exercise in futility and frustration. Even though at that point, I could technically save up 5 passives and get CI along with the passives after it, the sudden encounter with a gear progression cliff before I even hit 60 was a bit too much for me.

Unless you're willing to slog through all that (although you gotta admit: CI with Bloodrage and Blood Dance boots is awesome) I highly suggest you roll a life build for simplicity and sanity.

Here's what I came up with: Lvl 40 Reave Life Build

If you run that, you can run two auras with Reduced Mana: Grace and Hatred. Hatred ups your DPS by adding ice damage based on your physical damage, and Grace makes you tanky because you get Iron Reflexes. If you do want to run two auras though, you will need a Blood Magic gem in one of your Reave Links.

My 5L at the time was:

Reave - Blood Magic - Faster Attacks - Melee Physical Damage - Multistrike

I didn't try if replacing Faster Attacks with Added Fire was any better, but I was topping out 7k-plus DPS with crappy gear.

Ok thanks my build looks like this part now at level 52 still with my nodes to get the mana reduction. I picked up a claw that I can use in 3 levels since I realized the one I have is for level 68. Surprising I was able to go all the way through Piety, Gen and Gardens with just Mighflay. But I grouped for library and yep, dps doesn't stand up to many others right now but should be better once I get a 5 link going.