Guild Wars 2

Hello,

lately it seems that less and less people are bringing a revenant into their raid squad, which is not only caused by dmg-nerfs.
When raids came out, people were bringing a revenant mainly for fury and facet of nature. However, concerning fury, people started bringing two druids who can cover fury as well and additionally bring other great party buffs and healing. Also more and more chronomancers started using boon-duration gear which allows them to get to the 100% boon-duration cap on their own, which makes facet of nature redundant.
This along with only medium damage output lets the revenant be in a bad spot at the moment.

A few suggestions how to improve the revenants current situation:
First, increase its dps, either by buffing the mainhand sword (consider a balance split between pvp and pve here pls!!!) or by buffing offhand sword or axe (consider that you can no longer proc the equilibrum trait then for damage!).
Second, because simply buffing damage is always a bit boring, buff the revenants own class strengths. These are Assassins Presence and Facet of Nature.
Assassins Presence with 150 ferocity is pretty weak. A simple increase could help here.
To make Facet of Nature strong again i recommend to let it ignore the boon duration cap, so that it either increases the base duration of boons or that it just goes over the cap. Another option would be to make it applicable to 10 players.

Lendruil.9061:

To make Facet of Nature strong again i recommend to let it ignore the boon duration cap, so that it either increases the base duration of boons or that it just goes over the cap. Another option would be to make it applicable to 10 players.

I would say that the boon and condition duration cap are there for a reason and should not be fiddled with. Since there is no limit to the total time a boon can be long as long as it stays beneath its max. Stack count. A boon-share mesmer+herald tandem could easily break the game in a way that is undesired.

On the other points your suggestion looks solid to me. Since all the groups are min-maxing their compositions some factors fall out of the equasion. I don’t like the words sword and buff in the same sentence for a revenant (it was nerfed for a reason) but a PvP / PvE split balance might actually be the go to solution.

Putting 10 targets on FoN would not help in my eyes, since the two druids already cover the full team.

Revenant seems like a difficult class to balance well for pve, unfortunately. It provides powerful buffs for a low cost, but most of those buffs are things that can be obtained from other sources. You don’t need a revenant to have might, fury, boon duration, etc – having a revenant just gives those to you easily. So revenant power level is determined by how much damage (and cc to a lesser extent) it does compared to being replaced with a DPS class & having warrior spec for more might and chrono for more boon duration.

In the past revenant personal DPS was so good that bringing 4 (or more) of them was a great comp. Now it’s swung the other way and it’s so bad that revs are taken for only boon duration and CC – if they are taken at all. There is probably a DPS sweet spot that would make them a viable choice for high end pve without making them obscenely powerful again, but I think that a better direction would be to give rev more things it can bring to a party that no other class can. Currently it’s pretty much just assassin’s presence, which is a solid buff but isn’t getting rev taken on its own.

The idea to have facet of nature exceed the boon duration cap is along those lines and would actually be interesting from a raiding perspective, but it would have to be waaaay toned down on allies to not be completely ridiculous. It would probably have little impact outside raids but I think we can agree that a 150% boon duration chronomancer would be ridiculous. You could also have facet of nature have a different effect depending on your current legend, or simply traits that give “whenever you use a [legend] skill grant X buff to allies”. But from a raiding perspective, its much more interesting to have classes that give cool unique buffs than to just have them deal lots of personal damage (RIP Thief), so it would be nice if revenant went in that direction!

revenant is fine
brings massive breakbar utility, useful boons, party ferocity bonus, and decent dps (similar to engi/necro/guardian, higher than warrior, lower than ele/thief)
I don’t see the problem

Or maybe the key it would be just buff the Facet of Nature.

It works really different from PVE and PVP, basically in PvP you shatter it many times, in PVE is just the opposite.

So adding additional effects to Facet of Nature (like yes a damage modifier) could be a solution without having too much impact in other areas.

In general I find the Revenant pretty useful in team, a lot of free boons, great survivability ,average power damage and really useful for CC situations.

Thinking to other legends, i think the Ventari Heal should work in a different way, it should be more fast to use and less tricky, the utilities are really good instead.

reikken.4961:

revenant is fine
brings massive breakbar utility, useful boons, party ferocity bonus, and decent dps (similar to engi/necro/guardian, higher than warrior, lower than ele/thief)
I don’t see the problem

Warrior has lower DPS than rev? I thought even PS war out dps’d the rev nowadays.

I agree tho rev is pretty strong utility-wise and just because it’s not in the high level raid comps doesn’t mean it’s a bad class or needs buffing.

Rev DPS is considerably higher than Warrior’s, but Warrior provides a much higher party wide stat bonus than Rev, which in the end results on higher total DPS and thus, a preferred choice (might stacks can be handled with a Herald and a Chrono).

Rev also provides Fury, extended Boon Duration and even Protection if needed. However, Fury can be handled by Druids which, now again, provide more powerful party wide boosts on top of healing, and the boon duration, which is important mostly for quickness, can be covered with exotic commander trinkets with platinum doubloons.
Protection can be interesting, but far from needed.

Revenants also provide great CC, but that’s something where warriros shine too and both classes tank their DPS in the process.

It’s definitely not an easy case.

Rev DPS contribution going up is not a good solution. If it manages to compete with warriors’ then those will be out of the meta because Revenants can provide protection on top of might, and that could easily become a problem for Guardians too.

The best approach could be about ensuring that the boon duration bonus remains desirable for mesmers (maybe destroy platinum doubloons, although I’m not sure if it would be enough). This could promote the Herald+Chrono two man group, which I find great as it uses a single spot for each class.
Having the Chrono a pretty much guaranteed spot in every raid group, double chrono comps becoming a thing looks quite dangerous.
Same could be said about Druids, whose Fury upkeep make Heralds less desirable.

In any case, Herald, while in danger, is not in the worst position among the nine classes. Too many mirror groups, so too many double-X comps, don’t leave room for all classes to be represented.
Something needs to happen to promote asimetry, like the Chrono+Herald group, the single healer, the old Engineer slick shoes which never had to be duplicated, …

fishball.7204:

reikken.4961:

revenant is fine
brings massive breakbar utility, useful boons, party ferocity bonus, and decent dps (similar to engi/necro/guardian, higher than warrior, lower than ele/thief)
I don’t see the problem

Warrior has lower DPS than rev? I thought even PS war out dps’d the rev nowadays.

A PS warrior with full buffs gets roughly the same DPS against the golem as a revenant with just the meta buffs.

People say that warrior DPS is ok to be low because of how much buffing they do. I suppose then that Druid heals should be nerfed by that same logic.

Vargamonth.2047:

Rev DPS is considerably higher than Warrior’s, but Warrior provides a much higher party wide stat bonus than Rev, which in the end results on higher total DPS and thus, a preferred choice (might stacks can be handled with a Herald and a Chrono).

Warrior: 20 might, EA, Banner of Strength + Disc = 1430 stats
Rev = 5 might, AP, Fury, Facet of Nature = 1470 stats

fishball.7204:

and just because it’s not in the high level raid comps doesn’t mean it’s a bad class or needs buffing.

the main reason why its not in “high level raid comps” is because people dont understand the strength of the class nor how to play it properly.
a little dps buff wouldnt hurt tho.

also anet really needs to nerf ele and thief dps as well as druid buffs. they are the main reason why raid comps lack in variety.

Vargamonth.2047:

double chrono comps becoming a thing looks quite dangerous.

i wouldnt worry about double chrono comps because double chrono is a dps loss.

Revenant looks pretty strong to me. I still see it get taken in pubs, still bring it constantly in my guild group, and it definitely holds its weight well. It’s a strong CC with better-than-medium DPS and great durability. It also enables your Chronomancer to gain ~3k dps by not requiring Commander’s gear at basically no cost to itself.

Definitely a very underestimated class, they also have crazy sustain allowing them to keep the DPS’ing when pressure is high, and the 50% boon duration doesn’t only benefit the chrono but also the warriors. It’s hard to maintain 25 might during matthias last phase, the revenant can help prolong the warrriors might as well as providing passive might.

And last but not least, while not necessary, quick access to passive protection can make a huge difference in fight like sabetha and matthias during their last phase, or even help the chrono tank during VG when for some reasons heal are healing everyone but the chrono.

I thought the reason they aren’t used is because when you’re trying to min max the rev has little to no place in the comp. I was just throwing it out there since most of the low mans and speed clears I see posted on redidt don’t use rev. I only do clears not record/speed runs so idk.

My groups still take rev pretty much everywhere since it’s reliable and even if the DPS isn’t top tier it’s a decent pick which was why I thought it’s somewhat ok.