Guild Wars 2

Is it me or do Revenant’s in fact got better support potential than Guardians? Laughing right now…
Just look at the Invocation line and staff at least.

Yet to be determined. People are terrible at theory crafting in this game, let it actually play out before judgement is made. With that being said it would initally appear they have little to no access to defensive boons so its just raw heals which is not exactly the best type of support. Boons are important since they can proactively deal with damage while heals are only reactive.

A Ventari revenant has some pretty good support, but they should stay at a long range (especially those who pick the % outgoing healing traits) because once they’re targeted they can’t do much to defend themselves (no stunbreak, no defensive cc, no self-heal, weak healing on self, low mobility). This would appear to make the staff a bad pairing with revenants who focus on the ventari legend, not that I’m surprised it turned out this way.
Ironically, the hammer is likely better on Ventari revenants, and the staff is likely better on Jallis revenants.

Manimarco Devil.1790:

Boons are important since they can proactively deal with damage while heals are only reactive.

Jallis applies a fair amount of boons/buffs, and Ventari has that barrier as well, so I’m not sure if you can really say that. I’m not sure if their support is better than a guardian’s, but I just thought I should point that out.

Players who actually thought about how revenant would work predicted this outcome with pretty good accuracy.

Ventari has a lot of healing, but it has little else. However, a defensive support role needs to be able to rez allies, stomp enemies, provide peels, and other forms of support in addition to just healing.

Jalis has some decent support, but its taunt and elite skill both have a hefty energy cost. The stability only affects a specific area in a wide line, making it hard to spread to allies in a circular area.

Mallyx can be used for the displace effect, but then you lose the support of Jalis or the healing output of Ventari.

Bunker guardian can pretty much do everything a bunker revenant can and more. It also does it without the limitation of when it can use certain types of support.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNApeWl8AhWhY/OwUIQQEHLEU++7v/4E0hScDwDGAA-TRCEAB6o8ZIlQU/MwXIwEiBKBba/BFV/pD9BAcCAIFgXTtA-e

Can they beat this

Asmodal.6489:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNApeWl8AhWhY/OwUIQQEHLEU++7v/4E0hScDwDGAA-TRCEAB6o8ZIlQU/MwXIwEiBKBba/BFV/pD9BAcCAIFgXTtA-e

Can they beat this

Q: Mace/shield on wvw with 14k…??
its that mace is required for close combat, shield is defensive weapon wich lacks by alot in the actual state of the game. toughness is only effective against bad players, and i cant imagine u surviving much with that vitality in a front line… that’s a bit of a leeching build isnt it??

Defensive guardians are very weak.

p.s try to see if u share the boon duration to see if that is working properly, i could never maned to give the same duration that i have to allies (at least the ones i tryed to notice, while i was supposedly the only source for that boon).

P.s2, isnt better to swap to septer + focus?

Revenant has better heal,in actual useful support support they are miles behind current guards. We have 100% protection uptime, we have Reflectss and more projectile absorbs than them, we have multiple sources of group aegis, we have group quickness and fury, we have group might, we have multiple group stability skills, and I think we have 1 more fire field than them.

Asmodal.6489:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNApeWl8AhWhY/OwUIQQEHLEU++7v/4E0hScDwDGAA-TRCEAB6o8ZIlQU/MwXIwEiBKBba/BFV/pD9BAcCAIFgXTtA-e

Can they beat this

I sure hope they could, because honestly, I think this isn’t a good build. And I’m not saying this because it’s not meta. I have tried to use all kinds of mace builds from healing to communal shatter. I really want mace to become viable in group wvw, but the reality is that fights are too mobile.

Although I suppose this might be for smaller fights. However, your lack of mobility would hinder you even more.

You have weak condi removal. No purging flame means you really have no burst condi removal aside from expending your f2 and this creates further issues. And, you are taking save yourselves with 0 -condi duration. Plus you’re using a shield, which pretty much means you don’t have an offhand. You stuffed your weapons with worthless boon duration doubloons when you could put sigils that would make a bigger impact. I could accept it just being in some jewelry but not your weapons.

So you’re really only stuck with backline healing/support but you’re vastly inferior to any ele or standard warrior and they can actually hurt the opposition, either with range or with gap closer. You don’t have any of this.

I would suggest something like this instead.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNApfWl8AhWhYzQwcIQQEHJEVeG+vAE3AhQKcLgA4AA-TxCEABRpkwJlYcpE0gTAATKFaa/BFV/RLlBdoPAgDBwDPBASBskUL-e
At the very least, torch will remove conditions with still decent healing and boons. Damage sucks, but still comparable to the previous build.

Guardian support may just feel old since one is so used to it and the new class is fresh and cool, I tried the Ventari tablet out and I don’t know, felt clunky compared to how strong the AOE stunbreak, stab & condition cleanse from Virtue-line itself is, not to mention doubling it with Renewed Focus.
Some raw healing skills like Merciful Intervention and Sanctuary could be updated with the Resistance boon (no blind on you for example when blinking next to focused ally and your bubble from trait or shield #5 wouldn’t miss), or Protection (-33% damage while standing inside that Sanctuary, makes sense right) even but that will probably never happen

I can’t say about Revenant, but healing guardian is awful, I tried every way to make it work but without sucess. They must make the elite signet better (the only good thing of this skill is the visual aura) and buff battle presense that is worthless now (already was weak). Also, some skills have insane bad scaling on healing power, like the old bugged #5 shield (the duration of the dome should be 4 seconds instead of 2) dome from its detonation 1300k (0 healing power) to 1500k with a 1500 healing power doesn’t make any sense, it should be at least 2500 with that healing power.

Even healing Warrior is better because you don’t need to take a lot of specific traits to work and the banner trait is not competing with the shout trait anymore, so you can use both. With the same stats (I tested half zealot half cleric), Warrior heals more (healing per second), have better control, mobility and damage output and maybe even more resilience.

Mikau.6920:

I can’t say about Revenant, but healing guardian is awful, I tried every way to make it work but without sucess. They must make the elite signet better (the only good thing of this skill is the visual aura) and buff battle presense that is worthless now (already was weak). Also, some skills have insane bad scaling on healing power, like the old bugged #5 shield (the duration of the dome should be 4 seconds instead of 2) dome from its detonation 1300k (0 healing power) to 1500k with a 1500 healing power doesn’t make any sense, it should be at least 2500 with that healing power.

Even healing Warrior is better because you don’t need to take a lot of specific traits to work and the banner trait is not competing with the shout trait anymore, so you can use both. With the same stats (I tested half zealot half cleric), Warrior heals more (healing per second), have better control, mobility and damage output and maybe even more resilience.

The only 2 classes that can heal decently are engi and ele and not because they have awesome healing spells but because they have water fields and several blast finishers. Healing spells in this game are noticeably weak.

I think the failure is in the active nature of the Rev’s support skills. Most of the Guard defenses tend to be incidental in nature. What I mean by that is the skills aren’t used selectively against targets (friendly or enemy); You either drop a field, and everyone in it is affected. Or its AOE nature (like shouts) and they find their own targets accordingly. The guard rarely has to think about positioning for best effect, as the only significant requirement is them being within 600 units.

But because the Rev is built on Narrow beam support skills, and Totems in the case of Ventari, not to mention long wind ups on many, the effects take too long to get into place for the majority of WvW fights. They are notably better as opening fields, paving a protection path to the enemy line… but the huge visual projection makes movement predictable for an AOE bomb counter.

Offensively, the lingering AOE beam shape is ideal to scatter a tighter group. But the attack shape when used for support just becomes too big a liability against anything with ranged attacks.

It might be too late in the design phase to suggest this. But it might be better for Rev support to be radiated in bands, their offensive oriented skills to be beams, and find some additional uses (via traits) to leverage the staggered wave mechanic.

Vizardlorde.8243:

The only 2 classes that can heal decently are engi and ele and not because they have awesome healing spells but because they have water fields and several blast finishers. Healing spells in this game are noticeably weak.

Maybe in WvW zergs where people randomly blow blast finishers constantly. Any other situation and a guardian will easily outheal them.

Those who say healing guards are terrible never really understood the healing potential on healing focused guard. It provides insane amounts of ape heals. Think along the lines of giving your party members the equivalent of a full healing skill every 10-15 seconds.

The signet of courage still needs buffing on the passive side both in the amount of heal and in the range of it. However, battle presence is at a healthy spot. Not much bugging is needed on it. They actually buffed it by making purity of body a minor for free when it used to be a gm trait.

I attempted a healing/support rev during the beta. It has great potential but felt a little unsynergetic. A lot of the support is based on outgoing healing effectiveness . I got my healing effectiveness to reach 90% extra. But unlike the guard whose healing is centred around himself, the rev is mostly medium range healing from distance. It felt like it had a moveable healing turret that never dies which was fun to play with but tiring to manage after a while. You end up being obsessed with the tablet positioning that you forget you have other skills to use. This might be something that will come with practice so we’ll see. I did however have to choose between s staff or hammer. Hammer was midline play style which allowed me to stay at a safe distance while I managed my tablet . However, the staff had potential to maximize healing because of the orbs it drops on auto attack. But using staff meant being in the middle of the Zerg fight which would be ok if I wasn’t too obsessed with my tablet positioning.

I feel the support role of the rev will revolve heavily around healing from a distance. Would love to see long range aoe condi clear added to it or more aoe boons application as o felt it was lacking in that area.

Rev vs guard healing :
Guard: frontline healer. Healing aoe around the guard himself.
Rev : midline healer. Healing aoe from a distance . Requires tablet management.

I doubt most people here have played a healing guardian enough to even get a mild understanding of it.

x indigo x.6981:

The signet of courage still needs buffing on the passive side both in the amount of heal and in the range of it. However, battle presence is at a healthy spot. Not much bugging is needed on it. They actually buffed it by making purity of body a minor for free when it used to be a gm trait.

I think I can confidently say Battle Presence is kind of worthless right now. The change that caused it to only be in effect while VoR is up doesn’t even make it worth an adept trait for me.

x indigo x.6981:

I feel the support role of the rev will revolve heavily around healing from a distance. Would love to see long range aoe condi clear added to it or more aoe boons application as o felt it was lacking in that area.

It has Purifying Essence and Protective Solace’s Light Field+Hammer Bolt. I’d argue that it has some of the best long ranged condition cleansing in the game. :>

x indigo x.6981:

Rev vs guard healing :
Guard: frontline healer. Healing aoe around the guard himself.
Rev : midline healer. Healing aoe from a distance . Requires tablet management.

Healer guardians have always seemed more like a mid line thing to me, although I suppose that depends on whether you take shouts or consecrations.

XxsdgxX.8109:

Is it me or do Revenant’s in fact got better support potential than Guardians? Laughing right now…
Just look at the Invocation line and staff at least.

It’s just you.

ArchonWing.9480:

Asmodal.6489:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNApeWl8AhWhY/OwUIQQEHLEU++7v/4E0hScDwDGAA-TRCEAB6o8ZIlQU/MwXIwEiBKBba/BFV/pD9BAcCAIFgXTtA-e

Can they beat this

I sure hope they could, because honestly, I think this isn’t a good build. And I’m not saying this because it’s not meta. I have tried to use all kinds of mace builds from healing to communal shatter. I really want mace to become viable in group wvw, but the reality is that fights are too mobile.

Although I suppose this might be for smaller fights. However, your lack of mobility would hinder you even more.

You have weak condi removal. No purging flame means you really have no burst condi removal aside from expending your f2 and this creates further issues. And, you are taking save yourselves with 0 -condi duration. Plus you’re using a shield, which pretty much means you don’t have an offhand. You stuffed your weapons with worthless boon duration doubloons when you could put sigils that would make a bigger impact. I could accept it just being in some jewelry but not your weapons.

So you’re really only stuck with backline healing/support but you’re vastly inferior to any ele or standard warrior and they can actually hurt the opposition, either with range or with gap closer. You don’t have any of this.

I would suggest something like this instead.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNApfWl8AhWhYzQwcIQQEHJEVeG+vAE3AhQKcLgA4AA-TxCEABRpkwJlYcpE0gTAATKFaa/BFV/RLlBdoPAgDBwDPBASBskUL-e
At the very least, torch will remove conditions with still decent healing and boons. Damage sucks, but still comparable to the previous build.

I agree on most accounts.

simply because the build I posted wasnt ment for a WvWvW scenario or anything in particular (since that was not specified anyways). I didnt put it together for this thread. – I was just seeing how far I can take boon duration(100%) and put as much boon sources as possible in it – hence the shield for a pretty long lasting protection buff. so the build just fitted the question somewhat.

The build was not ment to be a discussion about its performance but a fast comparison of what a guardian could do for support when pushing boons to the limit. However if we are talking about serious builds then more then 50% boon duration is clearly a bad choice.

pretty much on the same page of “its too early to tell”.

Ah, well sorry about that.

I’m just pointing out that support isn’t based solely on boon duration; it’s merely a part of what you can contribute so if I would compare it to Revenant support abilities, I would naturally compare it to the best (usable build) across all classes, not just guardian.

But since people were criticizing in that manner, I figured I’d give my take on how to make the build more practical, and we’re still getting 50% boon duration with a staff and 20 more if you choose boon duration food. And FYI, I actually tested a variant of the build (but without boon duration stuff since I don’t have any of that gear), and it works quite swell anyways in various situations. With boon duration it’d probably be better.

In the end, experimentation is good, so in the end, I don’t want to point out flaws only but try to create something out of it even if it’s not necessarily the best. I don’t like pure theory.

I don’t know if this is class vs. class or spvp or WvW one thing I know since the patch is that frontline anything is 10x more difficult (in my opinion). Small skirmish HAVOC type fights it seems to be going ok.

On the other hand when we are talking about 2 servers zergs or in some cases a 3 way fight there is some much crap flying around and/or focus fire you could have 10,000 toughness and every type of mitigating food, armor, sigel with the wind blowing at your back and still melt

Honor, virtues, and valor – again, just my opinion with what I’ve been toying with @ 3200 armor, mace, focus, staff.. I’ve just not found the right comfort level to do anything in that size of a fight.

Frontlining is easier than it was after the stability nerf. This is because of shielded mind being merged into indomitable courage, giving you a stun break, as well as people around you. Previously if you were too late with the f3 you’d get stunned and unable to break out of it, and usually SYG is the only stunbreak. This is enough for you to die. Also Pure of Voice and Absolute Resolution of which the meta build couldn’t fit back then are a given. The loss of 2hm sucks though.

Although I’ve been on the selfish end and still using renewed focus. :S I believe dead people give no support, and too many stuns would rekt your dps anyways.

Mace/Torch is probably going to be better in a large fight than mace/focus, shield of wrath doesn’t last very long and the blast finisher is on way too long of a cooldown. Cleansing condis off allies while being able to assassinate targets with zealot’s flame or just use it for passive aoe burning is really good. But the problem with Mace/X is that it utterly lacks mobility as opposed to GS. (I think JI/MI is pretty much mandatory). Symbol of faith being a light field I think really is a giant hinderance. Hammer is also immobile but it it makes up for it with powerful CC in the form of ring of warding and zealot’s embrace.

x indigo x.6981:

Rev vs guard healing :
Guard: frontline healer. Healing aoe around the guard himself.
Rev : midline healer. Healing aoe from a distance . Requires tablet management.

This, basically. I’ve run WvW support guard for about a year now. This weekend I ran different permutations on support Rev and Guard is still on top.

Rev Staff, as others noted, is not as good a fit as Rev Hammer. With Rev Hammer in dwarf legend mode, Rev feels tanky and strong with midline AOE and spammable Stability and a really strong elite Damage Reduction ability. But in Ventari mode, Rev feels helpless and ineffective except in niche scenarios: Choke points, defensive stand-offs and covering allies with projectile absorb while they Rez or retreat. Otherwise, the Tablet takes forever to spawn, then move into place. With a fast moving Zerg, you’re seemingly always behind on positioning and spending too much focus on Tablet management takes away from using other skills.

The WvW support guard has his nose up in it but is spamming heals, protection, Aegis, Regen, etc while still doing incidental damage, stopping stomps, rezzing allies, covering flanks with Wall of Reflection, etc. Support guard feels way more effective than Rec Ventari and evenly matched in terms of tankyness compared to Rev dwarf mode.

Even weak as it is, Tablet is now the undisputed champion of projectile blocks. If you have the energy, the Tablet dome blocks projectiles for a long while. But in general it will take more to make support Rev a reality.