Guild Wars 2

introduction

i picked up revenant during the first beta because i liked the concept of it a lot and have played it since the release of HoT, from berserker through to viper and i like the fast gameplay of it a lot.

so lately i have tried viper berserker because it seems to have a similar playstyle and i wanna list here my build and some stuff that i noticed:

most likely my traits aren’t 100% optimal but this is what worked out okayish for me so far ( http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vJAQRAsf5enMdAVhgdhAmkCEliltA79yGaPtI/tAQoTJGU6aBA-TpRHABAcEAGf/BvLDQwDAQgTAQAHEAA )

sustain

if you compare the warrior’s weapons to the berserker’s weapons you will notice that while the rev’s are a lot more defensive they are also more powerful, especially the sword.

the shield skills, especially shield 5, are very similar. one heals but is rooted, one doesn’t heal but can move. the berserker’s problem is that it lack’s sustain and has less mobility than a revenant. so while you need to be able to move with your shield you also kind of need the healing…

in my build i wen’t for rousing resilience simply because i need the raw healing. once you get low on berserker it’s very hard to heal up again and i’m kind of used to being vulnerable to condis so what i have on the build was working fine for me.

damage

when we compare the damage they are more or less equally potent and similarly destructive (cc, confusion, poison) with the difference that the revenant can deal them ranged and they are aoe, while the berserker’s are mostly close range and cleave skills.

place in a team

setting aside damage and survivability, let’s talk about the benefits of having a revenant and having a berserker.

revenants bring aoe resistance in team fights, mobility for fast +1, aoe cc to lock down or peel, boon corrupt and aoe boons from herald f2.

berserkers bring strong single target lockdowns and mediocre mobility

can you see the difference :^)?

conclusion and suggestions

to be honest, i like how a berserker feels when playing it. what i don’t like is how raw and unpolished it is.

rather than nerfing the revenant down just for the sake of the berserker would be wrong (and won’t change anything). while the revenant is more of an evil warrior i would approach the berserker in a different way. while the revenant is destructive and removes boons of enemies, the berserker should cleanse conditions and give boons to allies:

savage leap – sword 2: cooldown reduced from 8s to 6s to give it a bit more mobility. everything got faster and got close to outrun a warrior although they used to be the fastest.

shield stance – shield 5: each time you block an attack, gain 3s of regeneration with a 1s ICD. this will help a bit with the survivability while allowing counterplay.

skull grinder – primal mace f1: 3 target cleave instead of just hitting 1 target.

blaze breaker – torch 4: aoe knockdown, cooldown increased to 20s. this skill as a whole is just too weak and a knockdown would benefit it as a utility skill.

flames of war – torch 5: removes 1 condition every second for you and allies that stand inside it. cooldown increased to 30s. i feel like 2 condis cleared is just not enough and this skill has the potential to be a situational skill for either supporting allies or hurting enemies.

rousing resilience – defense IX: toughness reduced to 700 but also affects allies around you. or instead of toughness, the healing is aoe.

dead or alive – berserker VI: changes to: heal yourself and allies around you for adrenaline you spend in berserker mode. 1 adrenaline heals for ~200hp. dead or alive suffers from the same problem as rebound – it just doesn’t help much and it would be the perfect spot to allow for some sustain and support. again, counterplay is possible if you don’t feed the warrior with adrenaline.

eternal champion – berserker IX: now pulsing stability around you when in berserker mode and allies also gain might and stability when you break out of a stun. again going for the concept of a more supportish damage dealer.

i feel like those small changes could push the berserker in a healthy spot in a team and might change the double rev meta to a rev + berserker meta.

tell me what you think, and a happy new year.

I think revenant just removes boons. It’s necro that corrupts.

Buff warrior instead of nerf revenant? We’re at a point where buffing classes to compete with over-the-top aspects of other classes is just making the game less and less enjoyable. The game was more enjoyable over a year ago before a lot of the new conditions, status effects, passives and over-abundance of crowd-control-effects were added.

I’d rather see revenant toned down, a long with other aspects of other classes, than see classes like warrior and thief buffed to deal with them. Small buffs in some weaker areas of the professions are of course necessary if ANet sticks to the current movement where other classes are moving away from specialising in a specific role and going for all-round builds, but personally I’d rather see more specialising than jack-of-all-trading.

I don’t think warrior needs more mobility. It should never have had as much as it did before anyway. Giving it some team support is a nice idea, and something I’ve always felt it needed. Warrior should be able to support not through healing or significant cleansing, but by breaking stuns, granting stability, and providing offensive buffs all for their allies. They are best built as offensive team fighters, yet don’t have the viable offensive support options to fit the role properly.

Impact.2780:

I think revenant just removes boons. It’s necro that corrupts.

Buff warrior instead of nerf revenant? We’re at a point where buffing classes to compete with over-the-top aspects of other classes is just making the game less and less enjoyable. The game was more enjoyable over a year ago before a lot of the new conditions, status effects, passives and over-abundance of crowd-control-effects were added.

I’d rather see revenant toned down, a long with other aspects of other classes, than see classes like warrior and thief buffed to deal with them. Small buffs in some weaker areas of the professions are of course necessary if ANet sticks to the current movement where other classes are moving away from specialising in a specific role and going for all-round builds, but personally I’d rather see more specialising than jack-of-all-trading.

I don’t think warrior needs more mobility. It should never have had as much as it did before anyway. Giving it some team support is a nice idea, and something I’ve always felt it needed. Warrior should be able to support not through healing or significant cleansing, but by breaking stuns, granting stability, and providing offensive buffs all for their allies. They are best built as offensive team fighters, yet don’t have the viable offensive support options to fit the role properly.

revenant corrupts boons into confusion. it’s not exactly what a necro does but neither is it simple boon removal.
i feel like revenant has already been nerfed enough and is in a quite optimal spot right now. it is not the strongest 1v1 spec and has taken a big hit against builds with conditions so it would be smarter to offer alternative options so that teams stop picking 2 revenants.

the buffs to warrior are nothing big but i feel like they could be exactly what is needed. shoutbow back in the days was a very popular build albeit being a bit more defensive than what i suggest here – support through aggressive playstyle, healing from using primal skills for example, instead of pressing shout skills.

looks alright except for rousing resilience and eternal champion. the last thing we need in this bunker meta is more toughness, and pulsing stab? cmon man, thats such a bad joke.

people complain about too much cc and now people complain about 1 stack of pulsing stab :^)?

toughness doesn’t scale well at higher levels so what it would do is allow lower armor dps specs to compete with “bunkers” in case the warrior gets cc’d and the allies are in range.

second option for rousing resilience is to make the heal aoe but keep the toughness to the warrior.

I have to disagree to buffing warrior, I myself would rather see a nerf across all elite specs and also some nerfs on revenant. The balance pre-HoT after D/D nerf was very good as far as I remember.

Jekkt.6045:

revenant corrupts boons into confusion. it’s not exactly what a necro does but neither is it simple boon removal.

Actually it is. It’s a skill which removes boons and applies a condition. Corruption is turning a boon into a condition. Corrupting stability applies fear, a revenant would remove it and apply confusioin.

“Deal damage, apply confusion, and remove boons from your foe. "

Impact.2780:

Jekkt.6045:

revenant corrupts boons into confusion. it’s not exactly what a necro does but neither is it simple boon removal.

Actually it is. It’s a skill which removes boons and applies a condition. Corruption is turning a boon into a condition. Corrupting stability applies fear, a revenant would remove it and apply confusioin.

“Deal damage, apply confusion, and remove boons from your foe. "

that’s right. i still call it “corrupting” though because it’s not just a boon removal. but that should really not be the topic here^^

and i can understand why people are opposed to buffing warrior with the over-the-top mess we currently have but let’s face it.. warrior is just really in a bad spot and even nerfing the other elite specs to a degree will most likely not make it viable either.

base professions will never be a viable choice again but rather be the foundation for the new elite specs. build diversity will not be base class vs elite spec anymore but rather elite spec X or elite spec Y in the future.

Make Warrior Primal Burst Skills unblockable/unevadable, how would that break things?

@Jekkt.6045
Nerfing the other elite specs to a degree would make warrior viable. The only question is – will devs do this? Probably not, because they currently insist on making GW2 PvP pay2win.

Vanilla specs could also be viable once again in future if, again, devs wanted to keep the game balanced, but apparently they avoid balance like fire.

@Sarevok.2638
Buffing underpowered aspects of the game to match those overpowered is a flawed way of thinking, leading to chaos. No, the single thing wouldn’t break things, but if you do many single things, they together will.

i do agree that some shaving is needed here and there. some things are a bit too strong and they partly push weaker things out of play. however, i don’t believe that such shaving will save warrior (it might save thief though). so a few changes and a few slight buffs are needed in my opinion.

even if some stuff gets nerfed, berserker will still lack a role in a pvp team. with my suggestions i try to push him a bit into an offensive group support role.

Warrior needs overhaul. His desing is outdated and when i look at weapon skills i want to QQ. Traitline also was kittened up with june 23. If you dont use any physical utility you end up without an adept trait in str line…rofl

With current desing you can either end up being UP as he is now, or overbuff him with insane damage/healing to OP state. He will never be balanced if redesing wont happen. For now i see wars only as pve boring class to buuurrrn raid bosses.

Burtnik.5218:

Warrior needs overhaul. His desing is outdated and when i look at weapon skills i want to QQ. Traitline also was kittened up with june 23. If you dont use any physical utility you end up without an adept trait in str line…rofl

With current desing you can either end up being UP as he is now, or overbuff him with insane damage/healing to OP state. He will never be balanced if redesing wont happen. For now i see wars only as pve boring class to buuurrrn raid bosses.

tbh the damage is mostly on par and i got to a total of + – 500k damage (condi+direct) which is about the same as a mallyx revenant gets.

it’s true that many traits need overhauls, be it vanilla traits or berserker traits. as i’m not sure if arenanet is going for a full overhaul i just posted a few changes here that could be the key to a viable role/build.

that doesn’t mean that everything else is fine.