Guild Wars 2

A few days ago, sweeping changes to Mallyx were announced, which made many people unhappy. While Roy assured us that the new Mallyx was very potent for condi DPS, a lot of people still felt unhappy to be reduced to condi spam instead of the old, unique condi absorption playstyle. While I agree with these people, I also agree that the old style was too easily destroyed by condi removal from your allies or other Mallyx revs.

So I’ve been playing with a possible new style of Mallyx; one that absorbs condis from allies and and transfers them to enemies, and gains extra power against enemies inflicted with multiple conditions. Also, I’ve listed a suggestion to give Unyielding Anguish some of its old functionality back, while remaining strong for torment application.

The details are below. Quick disclaimer: all condition checks are done before the skill hits, thus before the skill inflicts any conditions itself.

Empowering Misery: no changes

Pain Absorption: no changes

Banish Enchantment: inflicts 2 stacks of confusion. Inflicts 2 additional stacks of confusion if your foe has 3 or more conditions. Other than that, retain the old functionality.

A minor change that allows the enemy to limit your confusion output with cleanses, while removing the friction with fellow condi cleansers.

Unyielding Anguish: reworked (New Cooldown: 5s)
Leap toward the targeted area, tormenting foes and creating a demonic field that torments enemies. The initial hit applies bonus torment to foes that have equal or more conditions than the threshold applied to them.
Damage: 184
Condition threshold: 3
Initial Torment(3): 4s
Bonus Initial Torment(3): 4s
Pulsing Torment: 4s
Number of targets: 5
Pulses: 4
Duration: 4s
Radius: 240
Combo Field: Dark
Range: 600

Transitions into: Shadow Blast (or whatever)
Detonate the demonic field, inflicting fear to foes inside it.
Damage: 368
Fear: 1,5s
Number of targets: 5
Combo Finisher: Blast
Radius: 240

This change is meant to give the rev the option to either simply inflict a pulsing torment field, or to detonate the field early for an AoE CC. While the CC is nowhere near as powerful as the old version, that’s only fair, since the old version’s pulsing, stability-piercing CC was quite ridiculous. The torment numbers are tuned to be slightly higher than the old numbers. The old version inflicted a maximum of 6 stacks for 5 seconds (30 ticks), while this version inflicts a maximum of 10 stacks for 4 seconds (40 ticks). Of course, this number becomes lower if you detonate the field or if your opponent leaves it.

Embrace the Darkness (back to -8 energy)
Summon the power of the legendary demon to transform into a powerful avatar. Increase all attributes, and transfer one condition with its remaining duration to nearby foes every few seconds.
Embrace the Darkness: 15% All Stats
Number of Targets: 5
Conditions Transferred: 1
Interval: 3s
Radius: 240

This is where the proposed condi transfer mechanic comes into play. Since revenants have a fair amount of trouble keeping three or more condis up versus actively cleansing classes in my experience, I believe this would add to the legend in a great way and would be a much more compelling skill than the currently proposed version.

What do you guys think? Is exploiting your opponents condis a viable substitute for exploiting your own condis? Do these changes create a higher degree of uniqueness? Do they feel under- or overtuned? I would love to hear your opinions. Together, we can make Mallyx unique again!

I think now that mallyx skills can only maintain torment and confusion for a decent duration, a threshold of 3 conditions will be difficult to maintain for the bonus effects.

Bean Muncher.5197:

Empowering Misery: no changes

Pain Absorption: no changes

Banish Enchantment: inflicts 2 stacks of confusion. Inflicts 2 additional stacks of confusion if your foe has 3 or more conditions. Other than that, retain the old functionality.

A minor change that allows the enemy to limit your confusion output with cleanses, while removing the friction with fellow condi cleansers.

Unyielding Anguish: reworked (New Cooldown: 5s)
Leap toward the targeted area, tormenting foes and creating a demonic field that torments enemies. The initial hit applies bonus torment to foes that have equal or more conditions than the threshold applied to them.
Damage: 184
Condition threshold: 3
Initial Torment(3): 4s
Bonus Initial Torment(3): 4s
Pulsing Torment: 4s
Number of targets: 5
Pulses: 4
Duration: 4s
Radius: 240
Combo Field: Dark
Range: 600

Transitions into: Shadow Blast (or whatever)
Detonate the demonic field, inflicting fear to foes inside it.
Damage: 368
Fear: 1,5s
Number of targets: 5
Combo Finisher: Blast
Radius: 240

Embrace the Darkness (back to -8 energy)
Summon the power of the legendary demon to transform into a powerful avatar. Increase all attributes, and transfer one condition with its remaining duration to nearby foes every few seconds.
Embrace the Darkness: 15% All Stats
Number of Targets: 5
Conditions Transferred: 1
Interval: 3s
Radius: 240

I think these are solid suggestions. I would very much enjoy playing a revenant with these skills.

Hiki.9310:

I think now that mallyx skills can only maintain torment and confusion for a decent duration, a threshold of 3 conditions will be difficult to maintain for the bonus effects.

If you are using Mace/Axe it wouldn’t be much of an issue between the auto attack and mace two, which has a really low cooldown. You could also use weapon sigils for even more condition variety.

@OP. I like the changes that you mentioned. We need more ideas like this!

I can see the devs argument behind the changes to giving yourself conditions…but necro Corruption utility skills do exactly that, and it benefits the heal skill consume condition…so i can also see the argument that its kinda just a nerf to the legend. Unyielding Anguish displacement was pretty OP and i agree that it needed to be changed… but it was the only cc that mallyx had and should at least be treated as a knockback or Fear or something useful….i mean more torment? All the enemy has to do is wait for you to use maybe 5 or 6 skills…then cleanse once. Honestly my only real beef with the Mallyx changes was the change to EtD.

What if EtD was the only skill that put conditions on self ? I propose…

Self: 1 random condition every second for 3 sec.
Outgoing: 3 conditions (less if you have fewer) copied for 3 sec every second.

This way you can use it strategically with players that are trying to cleanse…rather than every skill giving yourself condis. So plan to use maybe Pain Absorption with EtD, then have your team mate cleanse you or w/e.

Treeoflife.4031:

What if EtD was the only skill that put conditions on self ? I propose…

Self: 1 random condition every second for 3 sec.
Outgoing: 3 conditions (less if you have fewer) copied for 3 sec every second.

This way you can use it strategically with players that are trying to cleanse…rather than every skill giving yourself condis. So plan to use maybe Pain Absorption with EtD, then have your team mate cleanse you or w/e.

I’ve been thinking about something like this too. Since Mallyx still has a lot of resistance application, a limited form of condi absorption could work. But the legend shouldn’t be completely built around it. Your suggestion would basically be a more offensive variation of mine, which is fine too. It might even be better. With your version, reaching the condi threshold shouldn’t pose too much of a challenge.

Bean Muncher.5197:

Treeoflife.4031:

What if EtD was the only skill that put conditions on self ? I propose…

Self: 1 random condition every second for 3 sec.
Outgoing: 3 conditions (less if you have fewer) copied for 3 sec every second.

This way you can use it strategically with players that are trying to cleanse…rather than every skill giving yourself condis. So plan to use maybe Pain Absorption with EtD, then have your team mate cleanse you or w/e.

I’ve been thinking about something like this too. Since Mallyx still has a lot of resistance application, a limited form of condi absorption could work. But the legend shouldn’t be completely built around it. Your suggestion would basically be a more offensive variation of mine, which is fine too. It might even be better. With your version, reaching the condi threshold shouldn’t pose too much of a challenge.

My thoughts exactly. I feel like this would be an acceptable middle ground to what was there before and what they are proposing. Of course they have announced it now so it will be implemented for this next BWE. Hope they do something along the lines of what i mentioned bc it was our only way to stack multiple conditions in a short time. the 25% chance on pulsating pestilence is nice but it will still be random and you could end up transfering 1 condition on a skill that is a GM trait….wouldn’t really be worth it. unless the cooldown is changed to 10 sec and increase it to 33% chance but that could be OP. Either way i expect we will find many unhappy condition players that will find the new mallyx lacking in damage output vs anyone with any amount of condition cleanse. Only time will tell i guess.