After my testing today, I have concluded beyond a shadow of a doubt that Carrion revenant/herald is the best.
Why you may ask?
Its basically the new version of the old spirit ranger, but way better overall.
Run glint/mallyx and basically spam boons in teamfights while winning most 1v1s with ease. Mallyx gives you incredible dueling potential against condi classes, however since mallyx is really energy thristy, they can still beat you if they interrupt pain absorption or bait out the resistance. Necros are the other counter due to boon removal, but other than that, they handle skirmishes very well, while spamming boons in teamfights.
It feel similar to the old spirit ranger because the dueling potential is there, and it has so much AoE potential (+other boons) with overall good condition pressure. In fact the only thing the old spirit ranger did better than carrion herald is rezzing, but thats because of the elite spirit, while herald’s radiant revival is strong but very limited. Also with the right trait setup, it has nearly perma-stability, perma personal protection, and a good amount of dodges. Its still helpless to conditions when in glint mode and overall weak to focus fire, but I think it has a lot of potential (especially when ele gets nerfed, since herald could replace them for the boon support/1v1 everything role).
I tried celestial revenant, and while it was decent, carrion just had overall better damage while keeping the same level of utility. This is because mace’s power coefficients on the 1 and 2 skills are abysmal, while sword and staff have no condi pressure at all and you just use 3 off cooldown for mightstacking. Basically, rev doesn’t have a truly hybrid weaponset because most weapons are specialized in their niche to the max (offhand axe works as a hybrid based on its numbers, but its only an offhand). You also need to run traited shiro to stack might fast enough on your own, and I believe that takes away from too many other things. Maybe if some things get changed rebalanced celestial rev will be a thing, but in its current state, each of its facets are too specialized to make a hybrid spec worth it compared to necromancer or elementalist.
A zerker burst build with no condi clear is another option, but for more casual play. MH sword has amazing damage, but overall rev suffers from being outclassed by thief/mesmer burst builds, which also effectively counter it.
Finally I tried a soldier’s build (herald, retrib, invoc) with rolling mists, glint/jalis staff/hammer, and it wasn’t bad. It mainly suffers from jalis skills costing WAY too much energy for their measly effects, but the condi cleanse on the heal, and the invoc cleanse trait were needed to deal with condis at a rate slightly worse than a soldier’s engi with elixirs. Since perma fury is possible, I think this build could totally stand a chance, but only if Jalis was improved, the hammer is made less clunky, and if the build got slightly more condi cleanse.
As for what will be meta in HoT, Daredevil, Reaper, Chronomancer, and Herald all look amazing for what they do. They, and the base classes need some tweaking though, so its hard to say for sure what people will run. I’m mostly excited for ele nerfs, because it will make room for other bruisers that can support/cleave/1v1 very well but have lackluster mobility and no godmode sustain holding them back (ie, like herald, or likely what druid will turn out to be).
