Guild Wars 2

Hey guys,

This build has been updated thanks to feedback.

The build:
Staff (Sigils of Blood & Accuracy) & Sword/Shield (Sigils of Blood & Accuracy)
Soldier Amulet with Lyssa Runes
Legendary Dragon Stance & Legendary Dwarf Stance
Herald – Hardening Persistance (or Radiant Revival), Shared Empowerment & Enhanced Bulwark (or Soothing Bastion)
Retribution – Close Quarters, Redeeming Protection & Steadfast Rejuvenation
Invocation – Cleansing Channel (or Cruel Repercussion), Invigorating Flow & Roiling Mists (or Shrouding Mists)

Staff provides a good mixture of sustain (through healing/blinds/invulns(?)/condi clear) and CC. Sword/Shield is taken to close gaps, increase damage (vuln/might), provide soft CC with chill, and provide additional survivability (heals/invulns/protection). Sigil of Blood on both sets helps replenish lost health, while Sigil of Accuracy assists with extra damage. I don’t know for sure, but it seems possible that Roiling Mists may double the bonus from Sigil of Accuracy, for ~60% crit rate with fury.

Soldiers Amulet provides a healthy amount of power to assist with damage, as well as giving both vitality and toughness for withstanding/mitigating damage. Runes of Lyssa provides some extra precision (which allows for ~45% crit rate with fury and Roiling Mists) as well as making Rite of the Great Dwarf an excellent panic button (credit to Demented Yak).

Legendary Dragon Stance provides ‘permanent’ uptime on some very beneficial boons (fury/protection) for all nearby team mates, which should help with team fights as well as sway skirmishes in your favor. Legendary Dwarf Stance provides access to some condition cleansing, stability, team-wide damage reduction, and peels/CC.

Herald traits make use of Glint’s upkeep skills to further boost toughness and provide might to allies damage during team fights. Enhanced Bulwark makes turns Unwavering Avoidance from meh to quite useful. Given the amount of endurance regeneration available to this build, and the boon duration increase of Facet of Nature, it seems quite plausible to maintain a permanent 1 stack of stability through this trait, and pushed me more toward Retribution traits than Salvation traits. . Radiant Revival could also be taken to counter cleave on your downed allies while reviving.

Invocation traits provide a healthy damage increase, mostly through the upkeep of fury, which Glint maintain very easily, and likely permanently. Most notably, Roiling Mists turns your ~12.5% crit rate into ~25% while under fury (45% with fury, and 60% with Sigil of Accuracy). With Glint’s ‘permanent’ fury uptime, you also have a permanent 7% bonus damage.

Retribution traits provide some extra sustain through additional dodges, protection uptime, damage reduction and healing. Synergy with Unwavering Avoidance has already been covered above. Salvation also seemed a plausible option over Retribution for additional group support, with Retribution and Herald offering similar benefits in different forms of application.

Always open to further feedback, and as stated above, this build has grown because of it.

- Ice

I don’t mean to be rude but this is just bad. I do not see any synergy whatsoever. I hope your thought process will explain a lot.

It looks like you’re trying to capture every element of the revenant except the control and tankiness required for a bunker. You’ve got conditions from Mallyx (what?!), boons from Glint, damage from devastation, outgoing healing from salvation and no clear, discernible strategy.

I don’t really think there’s much point in outlining the specific problems until you explain this madness.

I get what you want with getting Mallyx and Glint, as both have effects which would match kinda decap build, but there’s no reason for Cleric amulet whatsoever in your case. Celestial would be miles better.

@dementedyak: Let me explain my thoughts on each choice and you can go from there. I’m happy to have good feedback, even if it means going back to the drawing board.

Weapons: Staff was taken for the it’s healing (self and group), invulnerability/blinds (skill 3? Tooltip is unclear, and I spent the first BWE playing Reaper) and CC that it provides. I wanted to take shield for the heals and invulnerability, and opted for sword main hand to be able to close gaps (especially with staff as other weapon), increase damage (vuln/might) and apply soft CC through chill.

Amulet/rune/sigils: I opted for clerics to bolster healing provided by staff and shield, as well as traits. It seemed the most obvious choice when creating a durable healing build. Runes of the monk were to further boost both boon duration (reaching 80% with traits and facet of nature) and also provide additional healing. Sigils also provide additional healing as well as additional energy for dodges.

Traits: I chose devestation for the grandmaster siphoning traits. “Attack from back/side” hitboxes are reasonably big, which should allow for further healing (and some additional damage) through this trait. The other choices in devestation were just what seemed to be the best from what was available. I took salvation to further enhance the group healing capabilities of the build. Selfless amplification scales with clerics amulet and monks runes. Alternatively momentary pacification appears to have good synergy with mallyx elite (given no cooldown from what I could tell) and would provide a good source of daze. Herald is taken as the elite spec. Radiant revival counters cleave on downed ally. Shared empowerment gives good sustained might with the 80% boon duration. Soothing bastion provides another clutch survival tool.

Stances: Glint was taken for the team boon application. Group wide sustained protection and fury is a huge benefit, plus potential might (through shared empowerment) and regen. Mallyx was taken for dealing with condition heavy fights. With Herald spec, Mallyx can apply 3.6s resistance with each cast of pain absorption. Empowering misery and embrace the darkness are also desirable for increased heals and copying conditions back at their caster.

I’m writing this on my phone, so I hope I haven’t missed any aspect. Look forward to getting some further feedback.

- Ice

I think you should replace Salvation with something else. Probably Retribution. I think Salvation is best to use with Ventari since the Tablet is all about healing your group. Though I do see the allure of Daze. I thought about taking Salv just for the Daze, but the rest of the traits don’t justify it unless I plan on using Ventari, which I will but only situationally, such as with partnering up with a DPS’er.

Oh, I thought this thread is about spamming Unyielding Anguish.

It really seems like you want to play a support class than a bunker. A bunker is what you use to hold/defend a point on your own until reinforcements arrive. As it stands, your build would help if your team is already there, but if you’d die quickly on your own. You don’t have quite enough offence or defence to take on more than one player.

I’ll get down to the specifics.

Mallyx: It seems like you’re using this legend purely for the daze you get when using the elite. A nice daze and displacement is nice, sure, but you’re figuratively and literally crippling yourself for something you can’t take full advantage of without the accompanying traits/mace/axe. It’d be best to switch this out for Jalis or Ventari. Jalis is pretty tanky now and the elite is very usable. Ventari will give you a lot of healing for yourself and allies which it seems is something you’d very much appreciate.

Devastation: It’s a nice trait line but Retribution would just be better for a bunker. You get two -10% damage modifiers, stability on dodge, some extra protection, endurance and healing from Steadfast Rejuvenation. The stability and protection also allow it to synergise better with Glint and Herald.

Herald: Radiant Revival again seems to be more of a support oriented trait. it’d be excellent if you were going for a Ventari/Glint support build but in any other case, Hardening Persistence is preferable. Soothing Bastion can also be replaced with Enhanced Bulwark. This one really just depends on your personal preference but I just wanted to make sure you knew it was an option. It synergises very nicely with Jalis and Retribution.

Salvation: This is definitely more of a support trait line I suppose it can work. I’d personally replace it with Invocation. While this only gives you one healing trait, it does allow you to take advantage of your Glint boons and give you back some of the damage you lose when switching out devastation. You also retain the 10 second cooldown condition cleanse (Eluding Nullification switched for Cleansing Channel). Ultimately, though you will lose a little bit of group healing, you have more than enough utility and damage to make up for it as well as Invigorating Flow to keep your survivability up.

Sigils: More energy is always a good thing but between the Retribution and Herald traits, you should be okay in that department. You’ll end up having a lot more pressing concerns like conditions. Sigil of water is also not ideal. Some more useful sigils include: Leeching, Purity, Generosity, Blood, Force and Renewal. I’m sure you can find a good combination that covers your technical and personal weaknesses.

Amulet: Assuming you’ve lost Salvation, Cleric’s amulet is no longer very useful. You’ll want to go for power, precision, toughness and vitality. The best options would be: Sentinel, Celestial, Soldier, Barbarian and Knight. I personally would go for Celestial or Barbarian because I love the critical chance that comes with Roiling Mists but it’s up to you.

Runes: Again, without salvation, Monk runes are not a good idea. You’ll really want to maximise your defence and cover your weaknesses. You could even go with some power runes. Some options include: Vampirism, Hoelbrak, Pack, Lyssa, Forge, Melandru, Warrior, Traveler. Obviously some of these are better than others but I’m sure you can find a good fit. I personally will be going for Lyssa/Hoelbrak if I go bunker. I really like the idea of Jalis elite having 5 condition cleanse, stunbreak and 50% damage reduction (Panic button!). By the way, if you choose not to remove Salvation and keep your original build, runes of water are better than monk. You get very, very slightly less healing but you also get to remove conditions (albeit only once every 30 seconds) and get an extra 5% boon duration.

While these changes will make your build a lot more like everyone else’s, there’s lots of room for personalisation. There are also a lot of different ways this build could be changed (such as building it around Mallyx). This is just the most obvious one.

I’ve taken your feedback on board, and have attempted to find some further synergy within both trait and equipment choices, as well as keep the focus on bunkering rather than confusing myself by having such a focus on group support as well. I have updated the original post with the changes to save duplication and confusion.

Love to get some further feedback.

- Ice