Guild Wars 2

What do you guys think about for a celestial revenant (or herald, probably including herald) build for spvp? Knowing how great ele and necro can be with cele stats makes me think that Rev has a lot of potential to follow in their overpowered footsteps!

So generally the success of a celestial build is dependent on many things.

Offensive components of a Cele build:

1. Might Stacking- This is very important so you don’t hit like a wet noodle from celestial stats!

2. Mix of power and condi pressure- To take advantage from the 4 offensive stats you get.

Defensive components of a Cele build:

3. Healing- This is important in order to have high levels of sustain and attrition.

4. Relative ability to tank damage- This is more important than most people realize. Right now cele engi and warrior are out of the meta because their tankiness (and healing to a smaller extent) doesn’t let them tank the crazy bursts that the buffed zerker amulet can put out. Elementalist can outheal it and have a ton of protection, while cele necro has a ton of health with DS and perma weakness to reduce that damage.

So does the Rev/Herald have these 4 tools to make a viable celestial spec?

Lets look at our tools. The Glint facets are basically glorified boonspam which provide many of the boons that other celestial builds are known for pumping out to help sustain and deal damage. Facets of Strength gives might with a relatively long base duration that can further be boosted by runes (probably hoelbrak unless you go mallyx on the side). Additionally you can also gain might from the devastation trait with shiro, the invocation trait when consuming energy below 50% and the jalis trait from retal (probably don’t try that last one). The herald master trait shared empowerment aslo gives a huge amount of might to allies, which is honestly quite insane imo. So herald looks like it will have the tools to have mightstacking capability (as well kitten many other boons).

Now for the split between condi damage and power damage, the revenant has a well balanced choice of a hybridized weapon with mace. Its fire field with echoing eruption can even stack help to stack might! Therefore I predict that mace/shield (or OH axe) will be a viable weaponset for a celestial revenant. Sword/axe (or shield, or sword really) looks like a powerful choice for the other weaponset for higher physical damage and mightstacking with sword 3 (so glad it evades now). So overall the weapon skills look greatly supportive of a cele rev at least offensively. Furthermore, skills like elemental burst help maintain the condi pressure.

Now lets look at the rev’s abilities defensively. Most of the defensive abilities are tied to legend skills. While glint will be a most have for the might stacking mentioned above, it also looks like it will bring a ton of regeneration and protection. The shield gives further regeneration and the crystalline hibernation looks like a powerful extra heal, should it’s breakbar not be depleted (it’ll depend on how easy it is to break). Since rev has 2 heal skills, I’m not too worried about its healing ability.

I’m more concerned about its ability to tank damage, but traits like hardening persistence alleviate my concerns, especially if it can be maintained relatively well through massive energy use! Revenant looks relatively weak to focus fire, but so is necromancer, and traits in other lines look helpful for dealing with that weakness. Overall I think the rev/herald’s ability to tank damage and heal through it will determine its viability as a celestial bruiser build, because the offensive tools are all there.

Off the top of my head, I imagine that some combo of mace/any offhand and sword/antother offhand (probably axe so as to maintain condition pressure when switching) with glint will make for a good celestial spec. The secondary legend will be up to the user to decide, but I think mallyx has the best potential for a secondary legend since it increases your overall condi pressure, utility, and ability to manage condis by a long shot, and facets of nature seems almost meant to be used to stack massive amounts of resistance. And banish enchantment and unyielding anguish are amazing utility skills, which helps as well.

Overall the trait spread I’d chose (note I’m a scrub at this class), would be something like

Glint: (1 or 2), 2, 1
Corruption 1, 3, 3
Whereas the third traitline could be any of the remaining ones to round out the build further.

What do you guys think about this?

I’ve messaged Roy a little bit here and there. Celestial would work great if they’d bump the damage from Mace. Currently, mace is a bit like Scepter on Necromancer, where it could be closer to Warrior Sword. Much of the Power related stats on it gets mitigated by low Coefficients, unfortunately. Not to mention, the Burn value on Mace 2 doesn’t quite match up to Ele/Guardian burns. But beyond that, it definitely COULD work.

Here’s to hoping Mace power coefficients get bumped up a little bit to be a better hybrid weapon, while retaining the capability of being a full condition weapon, but not out-class Sword as a primary Power weapon.

That said, I’m almost more excited about Crusader Revenants these days… the synergy is just better there, especially with the newly found evades on sword/Hammer and buffs to Staff. Staff/Hammer or Sword/Shield Hammer Crusader might really work.

(PS: Still bump Power Coefficients on Mace, especially the auto. <3)

ronpierce.2760:

I’ve messaged Roy a little bit here and there. Celestial would work great if they’d bump the damage from Mace. Currently, mace is a bit like Scepter on Necromancer, where it could be closer to Warrior Sword. Much of the Power related stats on it gets mitigated by low Coefficients, unfortunately. Not to mention, the Burn value on Mace 2 doesn’t quite match up to Ele/Guardian burns. But beyond that, it definitely COULD work.

Here’s to hoping Mace power coefficients get bumped up a little bit to be a better hybrid weapon, while retaining the capability of being a full condition weapon, but not out-class Sword as a primary Power weapon.

That said, I’m almost more excited about Crusader Revenants these days… the synergy is just better there, especially with the newly found evades on sword/Hammer and buffs to Staff. Staff/Hammer or Sword/Shield Hammer Crusader might really work.

(PS: Still bump Power Coefficients on Mace, especially the auto. <3)

Yeah that actually sounds like a good idea with all the boosted fury and crit related boosts the rev traits have to offer, crusader looks viable. Would you run that with maniacal persistence? I’ve tried to make crusader work on necromancer with death perception, but the lack of vitality or my horrid trait spreads kinda killed it for me (I tried a crusader unholy santuary, death percepting minion build…)

And yeah, I looked at the mace auto coefficients and tried not to cringe while writing this. I guess part of the issue is that making a hybrid build from class that relies on swapping stances and weaponsets that are generally considered to be highly specialized is a difficult feat.

Luckily, Roy said he might consider Mace Coefficients. Most we can do with that is cross our fingers and hope. I do want to urge him though, nudge, because our only ranged option is Power, so hybrid is really our only good option. Plus, it wouldn’t buff Rabid builds much. Just all around, a good idea for diversity reasons.

Problem move had with Crusader was, yes, the HP, but not because being spiked down. The issue is that conditions MELT you. They have so little condition removal. And most of their heals are very Niche, so healing power isn’t adequately utilized. I have more faith in Celestial, but Mace really needs better coefficients.

Crusader did just get a good buff though with the Evades. Hard to tell how they are “now”, the changes were significant.

celestial will most likely still be the way to go even without access to many conditions because of the healing, the crit chance/damage and the vitality.

nothing else comes close to it, maybe soldiers but i don’t think it will be great.

my guess would be shiro+glinth+retribution/invocation. corruption won’t work because there is no self sustain in that line, something that the revenant lacks a lot.

so shiro will be mandatory for the leech
glinth will be mandatory for the boons
and retribution/invocation both provide defensive and offensive stuff

weapons sword/shield + staff with energy/generosity and lyssa or strength/hoelbrak runes

with the low damage output of mace i don’t see it being better than staff and sword. 25 might on those will hit like a truck and that with the protection and regeneration of glinth will kill.

I’m considering atm Mace/Shield+Sword/Axe Celestial with Hoelbrak/Strength runes.

Going Devastation for leech, Glint for shield and f2 and Invocation (helps as ‘’anti-Crystal Hibernation’’ too if you get CC’d out of it).
I’m really struggling on which legends to choose. Shiro is great for mobility. Mallyx is great for Resistance and utility with boon rip and displacement. Glint has great utility aswell. I’m thinking Shiro is a must for the mobility with ports and stunbreak. Then it just comes down to Glint and Mallyx. Going Glint leaves high vulnerability to conditions. Going Mallyx means missing on everything great for celestial.

That said probably going Shiro+Glint with Hoelbrak runes and hoping the leeching out sustains condis.

you won’t get resistance from mallyx skills if you don’t trait for it.

and idk why people don’t see the synergy between revenant and lyssa runes; it’s a 5condi cleanse on a 45sec cooldown, better than everything revenant has right now.

There’s always Pain Absorption. And yes the 6 of Lyssa is great, but it gives precision which we don’t really need, especially with Roiling Mist.

Jekkt.6045:

you won’t get resistance from mallyx skills if you don’t trait for it.

and idk why people don’t see the synergy between revenant and lyssa runes; it’s a 5condi cleanse on a 45sec cooldown, better than everything revenant has right now.

It’s good if you don’t run Mallyx. It’s terrible with Mallyx.

Cleric works even better. With the toughness converted and the fury from traits, you would be gtg with larger self heals.

Knighthonor.4061:

Cleric works even better. With the toughness converted and the fury from traits, you would be gtg with larger self heals.

cleric doesn’t give you hitpoints, the condis will wreck you even harder and the damage is subpar aswell.

I agree mace could use better coefficients, but when I was playing full cele Jalis/Mallyx (glint wasn’t out), and the torment was destroying people, as well as some decent damage. Even with fairly low coefficients, I was getting 800-900 crits on AA, and the 2/3 skills were 2kish crits. Than ace did very good damage

Mace/axe is my favorite weapon set, and staff is my next favorite. Very good combination

Apologies if this is the world’s dumbest question, but is Crusader a stat combination?

Xernth.8561:

Apologies if this is the world’s dumbest question, but is Crusader a stat combination?

1050 power, 1050 Toughness, 560 healing power, 560 ferocity. (Spvp) intended for crit-substitute builds.