Guild Wars 2

This elite just ain’t good. It just keeps letting me down.

I see no reason to ever take it over Golem/Plague.

I feel that it’s close to being good, but it’s being held back in one way or another. If the cooldown was reduced to 90s with the chill duration to compensate, it could be more applicable.

I’m also thinking if they want to keep it at 120s, at least change the stun to encasing foes in a solid block of ice like Deep Freeze on Frost Bow. Would be powerful but well justified and add more to the Reaper’s theme of chilling foes.

90 seconds is way too long. This elite should be a 45-60 second cooldown. I’m leaning more to 45 seconds.

Jade Winds is going to be a Chilled to the Bone but with a very tiny cooldown.

It is a very different skill than what you listed. Plague is about a long duration area denial, it makes it hard to fight against you within its range. Flesh Golem is some extra damage and CC, but nothing compared to CttB which is meant to immediately and heavily swing a fight in your favor by stunning enemies for a long duration and then keeping them weak for quite a while after.

Now, whether it is balanced at the moment for this is up for debate. But it does have a very different function than our other elites.

Edit: Jade Winds can’t be cast often unless you do nothing but cast it, even casting it twice means you can only auto attack. It also doesn’t have the massive follow up of lengthy chill that requires cleansing and the stability on the user. CttB could probably use a CDR, but 45 is way too low.

Wondrouswall.7169:

I feel that it’s close to being good, but it’s being held back in one way or another. If the cooldown was reduced to 90s with the chill duration to compensate, it could be more applicable.

I’m also thinking if they want to keep it at 120s, at least change the stun to encasing foes in a solid block of ice like Deep Freeze on Frost Bow. Would be powerful but well justified and add more to the Reaper’s theme of chilling foes.

The stun on it is, at least currently, unbreakable. Was playing around with it on an otherwise empty sPvP server with guildies when some of them noted that they couldn’t break out of it. I would refrain from buffing it even further because it is really strong right now. Executioner’s Scythe’s stun also prevents stun breaks from working. No idea whether this is a bug or intended as it was originally stated by Robert Gee that it would be a normal stun.

Bhawb.7408:

It is a very different skill than what you listed. Plague is about a long duration area denial, it makes it hard to fight against you within its range. Flesh Golem is some extra damage and CC, but nothing compared to CttB which is meant to immediately and heavily swing a fight in your favor by stunning enemies for a long duration and then keeping them weak for quite a while after.

Now, whether it is balanced at the moment for this is up for debate. But it does have a very different function than our other elites.

Edit: Jade Winds can’t be cast often unless you do nothing but cast it, even casting it twice means you can only auto attack. It also doesn’t have the massive follow up of lengthy chill that requires cleansing and the stability on the user. CttB could probably use a CDR, but 45 is way too low.

Luckily for revenant their highest PvE DPS rotation is from the autoattack, so the energy issue is pointless. It can use Jade Wind on demand more frequently.

Chill is useless in PvE, doesn’t work on bosses or champions. I’m not saying it’s the shout I hate the most, but it certainly doesn’t earn a spot in PvE with a cooldown any greater than 60 seconds.

CCLegion.5936:

The stun on it is, at least currently, unbreakable. Was playing around with it on an otherwise empty sPvP server with guildies when some of them noted that they couldn’t break out of it. I would refrain from buffing it even further because it is really strong right now. Executioner’s Scythe’s stun also prevents stun breaks from working. No idea whether this is a bug or intended as it was originally stated by Robert Gee that it would be a normal stun.

Oh, if that’s the case, I hope they keep that on “Chilled to the Bone!” as that was the point of suggesting altering the stun to encasing foes in a solid block of ice as that does not allow stun breaks. Having it officially Freeze opponents would justify the 120s cd (imo).

On the other hand, Executioner’s Scythe should be fixed if that’s the case of it negating stun breaks. If Anet decides to keep it, maybe up the CD a bit to compensate as it’s powerful if you can land it.

Bhawb.7408:

CttB which is meant to immediately and heavily swing a fight in your favor by stunning enemies for a long duration and then keeping them weak for quite a while after.

I’m not feeling it. In any large fight you will end up getting hit with CCs or Blinds before you can get it off.

Wondrouswall.7169:

CCLegion.5936:

The stun on it is, at least currently, unbreakable. Was playing around with it on an otherwise empty sPvP server with guildies when some of them noted that they couldn’t break out of it. I would refrain from buffing it even further because it is really strong right now. Executioner’s Scythe’s stun also prevents stun breaks from working. No idea whether this is a bug or intended as it was originally stated by Robert Gee that it would be a normal stun.

Oh, if that’s the case, I hope they keep that on “Chilled to the Bone!” as that was the point of suggesting altering the stun to encasing foes in a solid block of ice as that does not allow stun breaks. Having it officially Freeze opponents would justify the 120s cd (imo).

On the other hand, Executioner’s Scythe should be fixed if that’s the case of it negating stun breaks. If Anet decides to keep it, maybe up the CD a bit to compensate as it’s powerful if you can land it.

It should be a necromancer niche to get some unbreakable stuns. If you can’t move around, you should be king at pinning people down for your team.

Aktium.9506:

Bhawb.7408:

CttB which is meant to immediately and heavily swing a fight in your favor by stunning enemies for a long duration and then keeping them weak for quite a while after.

I’m not feeling it. In any large fight you will end up getting hit with CCs or Blinds before you can get it off.

Really? I’ve been getting it off pretty reliably in PvP tonight. I never pop it at the start of a 1v1, though.

Well the skill feels much more like an Eliteskill then before. It still Requires some tuning though, its too underwhelming for how reliable and frequent you can set it up.

1.) I would suggest to cut the casttime to 1 second flat. That way the skill feels a lot better, a player wanting and planning on interrupting you can still do so, but youre less likely to get hit from some random blind negating your skill.

2) Cooldown should be at the very least cut to a max. 90 seconds. Compared to other Elite skills this does not have a prolonged effect, its main effect the stun is easily negated by a simple stunbreak, given how easy stunbreaks are to come by with the new specs i would more lean to 70 -60 second cooldown. Either that or up the stun duration by 0.5 – 1 second and make it unbreakable. The Cooldown in either case should not be higher then 90 seconds though, its a fire and forget Elite skill that has lots and lots of counterplay to it.

3) Increase the Number of Targets to 10. I found this skill to behave a little bit strange, it does not seem to prioritize your selected target, or player over clones / minions reliably. Furthermore this would make the elite feel more like an elite, i cant give more arguments on this, its just a impression thing for me.

So, having made a revenant toon this time around, I decided to do a bit of comparing. This is in PVP with no amulets, runes, or sigils equipped.

CttB: 532 damage 9.5 seconds of chill (trait improves it, can’t remove). 2 × 10 seconds of stability per enemy hit. 2 second stun. 5 targets, 600 range, 1.25 second activation time, 120 second recharge.

Jade Winds: 399 damage, 3 second stun, 600 range, 1 second activation time. Minimum 10 second recharge. Can be charged up to be used twice in a row while in combat.

Now, normally I would come in and talk about how CttB serves a different purpose. How it synergizes with all the chill traits, how it grants stability, how it has higher DPS, etc. and so on. But… that recharge. The ability to fire off Jade Winds consecutively is so strong, that any benefit that CttB had as a group stun is moot.

I’m extremely new to the revenant. I have no perspective on how well the rev sustains energy in PVP, so for “balance” I’m not exactly sure how it would do. But at first glance, I’m sitting here wondering why Jade Winds doesn’t have any kind of internal cooldown.

Revenant is ridiculously strong right now. Herald can sit at a passive 10 might stacks and permanent fury for the group, and with facet of nature can spike those up even more.
Shiro provides incredible quickness bursts.

Bunch of teleports, evade frames on DPS skills as opposed to large wind up skills while being vulnerable.

And one of the strongest autoattacks in the game. Pair that with Glint’s heal, it’s really hard to die.

In terms of gaining energy back, in PvP you’re not very energy starved due to the 50 energy on legend switch and the energy costs are quickly regenerated back unless you are running upkeeps on herald.

I think Reaper only outshines Revenant in the low health aoe department with grave digger. Revenant does more single target DPS, brings actually group utility, and has the better elites.

People complain about Lich form, they can wait till they get touched by a revenant under the Mallyx elite. Standard PvP spec is shiro+mallyx anyways.