If you’ve read the build notes, you’ll notice that there were 2 main changes to Revenant:
- Retribution line just got more skill-based, i.e. harder to use. This mainly impacted condi rev due to Mallyx’s lack of a stunbreak.
- Enchanted Daggers charges are consumed on every attack, not just every successful attack.
ED falls into my made-up category of “opponent-based heal,” meaning that the actions of the enemy influence the amount of healing. Here’s some examples of this type of heal skill and how much healing you can expect out of them with no healing power:
- Skelk Venom – Initial heal is 4210, with 5 charges that give 965 on each successful hit. Maximum total of 9035 if all attacks hit. Traited CD is 24s.
- Purification – Requires enemy to step on the trap for the big heal. Initial heal is 1608, on trap trigger 6413. That’s a total of 8021, and even if the enemy dodges through the trap it still triggers. Traited CD is 24s.
- Enchanted Daggers – Initial heal is 1640, with 6 charges that deal 858 damage and give 808 health on each successful hit. Maximum is 6456 if all attacks hit. CD is 30s.
- Facet of Light – Purely dependent on incoming damage. Works very well against power, you should get at least 5k health, but doesn’t really work against condis since they’ll last far longer than FoL and might result in net health loss.
The best comparison here is Skelk Venom and ED; SV’s initial heal is 2.5x that of ED, which is why the total healing is more for SV. ED has the additional limitation of only triggering once every 1/2s; attacks with multiple hits but whose hits come more than once every 1/2s won’t trigger on all the attacks. This also affects Impossible Odds indirectly, because with quickness every AA takes 1/4s. The 1/2s restriction gives opponents ample time to block, evade or invuln before more hits land, thus making it very likely that half of your EDs won’t hit.
What I’ve seen from some non-rev users is “just don’t attack until you’re sure that you can land the hit.” Is this a realistic way of playing the game? Remove all pressure until I’m sure that I can land my hits? Just not pressuring your opponent consistently is a stupid way to PvP, that’s just allowing them extra time to counterattack, which I can’t afford due to my terrible heal. At this point it’s clear that ED is an inferior version of a Thief venom, which is just embarrassing. And you can’t trait ED for a reduced cooldown like on SV.
Flipside: ED’s life siphon is superior to SV’s heal-on-hit because it gives more damage. ED does significantly increase damage output on successful hits. Whether or not you think Revs need more heals vs. more damage is a matter of personal opinion and playstyle.