Guild Wars 2

I’ve played a condi build on every class in one way or another, and condi Rev is severely lacking.

Lets talk about the good things first.

It has torment. A serious boatload of torment. Its got the most torment out of anything except… condi shatter-spam Mesmer. . Rev has some sweet and unique moves to apply condi’s. And the Mallyx stance is cool as hell… And look, that’s a great idea, but its got to be the only condi class with NO bleed access… not that bleeds are so overwhelmingly good that I miss them on Rev, mind you… but it has none. Lets look at what exactly makes condi rev lacking.

-NO trait synergy: You can do some cool things with the corruption line, but none of the other traits make those traits feel worth taking.

-NO weapon synergy: If you use anything other than mace/axe you loose out on… virtually all your dps. Staff, Hammer, MH sword, OH sword, and shield just don’t do any condis. This is a problem that no other class has… basically every class that can swap has 2 condi quick bars… even Elementalist has fire and earth.

-NO ranged option: Beyond Mallyx’s Banish Enchantment… and, really… like anyone is gonna spam that standing at range while doing nothing else? Your raid, fractal group, or whatever… might as well have brought anyone else.

-NO Legend synergy: Swapping out of Mallyx just kills condi output, unless you’ve got your mace out. But, due to the above points… What do i do when I’m out of energy, and at range? Just go AFK, grab a soda from the fridge?

So… a few simple solutions that come to me right off the top of my head.

Herald:
-Replace Harmonize Continuity with “Shattered Facets: releasing a facet apply 2 stacks of bleed for 8 sec.” (AoE stun break is cool, but everyone brings their own stun break in content where that is relevant)

-Elder’s Force: also increases Condition damage by 3% per boon on you.

Invocation:
-Fierce Infusion: also does 1 stack of 10sec torment in AoE at 300 radius

-Ferocious Aggression passive trait: Also gives a 10% condition damage bonus while you have fury.

-Replace ‘Incensed Response’ with “Perpetual Narrative: For each second you remain in a legend beyond the first 5 sec, apply 1 stack of 3 sec poison to your current target.”

Rolling Mists: Also grants “+50% condition duration while under the effects of fury” (This effect would stack with the gear cap, like the Necro’s scepter trait does)

Corruption:
-Venom Enhancement: internal cool down reduced to 5 sec poison stack duration decreased to 5 sec.

-Frigid Precision: also adds 50% chance to apply poison for 5 sec on chill. (This allows the sword, Condi Pressure, allowing swap options beyond my edited hammer below… which becomes more condi focused with this trait)

-Replace Maniacal Persistence (not that this is bad, but please… show me one power build where this is needed… especially with that 40% fury in invocation…) “Daemonic Rebellion: for every second not in Mallyx, apply a stack of ‘vile pestilence’ to yourself.”
————-“Vile Pestilence: for each stack on yourself apply 1 stack of poison for 3 sec. when invoking Mallyx. max 10 stacks”

Devastation:
-Targeted Destruction minor trait: also increases Condition damage to targets with vulnerability
-Jade Echo: also increases condition damage while downed by 25%

Hammer:
-Hammer Bolt: make this a 2 attack chain skill. second attack applies 1 stack of 2 sec burning.
-Coalescence of Ruin: Reduce damage by 10% first impact applies 1 burn for 5sec. Second impact applies 2 burns for 7sec. Third impact applies 3 burns for 10 sec.
-Drop The Hammer: Reduce damage by 5%, applies 3 stacks of burn for 5 sec.

I freely admit that these may not be perfect solutions, but they at least address all of the issues without kicking power, tank, spvp, and wvw builds in the nuts.

Anyone have any thoughts? Or better ideas? I hope to grab the attention of the Rev developer, so if anyone has a better way to implement these ideas, or if I’ve gotten durations or whatnot wrong. Please help me find the right balance.

After all, considering the current state of condi Rev, we’re almost certainly not going to see anyone say, “condi rev is good enough.”

The problem with condi rev is that Mallyx had just a half rework. They changed the legend skills but didn’t change the traitlines.
Original condi Mallyx was amazing. Pretty strong, with a higher risk but also a higher reward. Then they changed it because for them the mechanic of giving conditions to youself to make you stronger was a necro thing. So they rushed and slapped a half rework and called it done. And what we have now is this…thing.

Just bring the old Mallyx back and give rev a ranged condi weapon option and you’ll see that they could be as good as any other class.

lmperdigao.2567:

The problem with condi rev is that Mallyx had just a half rework. They changed the legend skills but didn’t change the traitlines.
Original condi Mallyx was amazing. Pretty strong, with a higher risk but also a higher reward. Then they changed it because for them the mechanic of giving conditions to youself to make you stronger was a necro thing. So they rushed and slapped a half rework and called it done. And what we have now is this…thing.

Just bring the old Mallyx back and give rev a ranged condi weapon option and you’ll see that they could be as good as any other class.

I was assuming that we are keeping the new Mallyx rework in my assessment, but that could be cool… but I agree with the developers here… self condi’s is a necro thing.

BrokenGlass.9356:

lmperdigao.2567:

The problem with condi rev is that Mallyx had just a half rework. They changed the legend skills but didn’t change the traitlines.
Original condi Mallyx was amazing. Pretty strong, with a higher risk but also a higher reward. Then they changed it because for them the mechanic of giving conditions to youself to make you stronger was a necro thing. So they rushed and slapped a half rework and called it done. And what we have now is this…thing.

Just bring the old Mallyx back and give rev a ranged condi weapon option and you’ll see that they could be as good as any other class.

I was assuming that we are keeping the new Mallyx rework in my assessment, but that could be cool… but I agree with the developers here… self condi’s is a necro thing.

And retribution a guardian thing but Jailis have it (well just a bit..) legends have an identity normaly, and a different playstyle. When they have designed the revenant they have said they would do something versatile like elementalist. We are far from it, pigeonholed in power build and Glint stance. Jailis isn’t tanky, Mallyx was butchered from last minute and ventari feel clunky. We have just two legends that work and Shiro isn’t really a pve legend…
Now more than one year after the release of the class, the same glitchs are here and the legends haven’t be reworked. I’m pretty pesimistic about the future of the class. It’s like they have understand that the class would be difficult to balance or create and have leaved her alone in one dark corner (after all the guy who created it has gone to others things just after HOT release).

I actually just wish they would give Mace 1 a little more range. Kinda silly trying to melee someone to get that tiny bit of condi while the rest of the kit are actually more than melee range :/

I wish that they added shortbow (900 range) or longbow (1200 range) to revenant with condi , but not to the point that range damage overshadows melee range damage (looking at hammerbolt/CoR on hammer).

I disagree with giving hammer the burn condition, especially when it is multiple stacks.

Has there been any hinting as to when or how the balance team will update the Revenant? All I’ve seen here and there are notes that “It’s being brought up with the team”, but that’s been the standard for almost the last year.

Base Revenant isn’t bad in itself—just not “meta”. And the conditions really depend on how you play. Most classes damage based on raw conditions that damage over time. The Revenant uses conditions that punish an enemy for reacting to an attack (i.e. Torment punishes moving, Confusion punishes attacking/healing). If they simply boost those conditions up (dmg or duration), or make it easier to self-apply conditions and pulse them out (a la Pulsating Pestilence), the Rev could be fixed pretty quickly and have a unique playstyle.

Self-applying conditions is a Necromancer playstyle—agreed. But isn’t pulsing/transferring the conditions also Necro? If we want to get away from being just a Soldier version of the Necromancer, we’d need to axe the Pulsating Pestilence trait and replace it with something else entirely.

Base Revenant is passable for leveling. I did a power build up until the 20s with Jallis and Shiro. After the 20’s I switched to condi but didn’t use Demon Stance for terrestrial combat….however Mace+Axe and Staff for me whilist leveling was awesome.

For open world end game content I am now using Hammer+Staff (my fav weapon comp for sPvP) along side Glint but I am struggling between Shiro and Jallis.

Personaly I wished axe was a mh weapon with the aa of mace combined with it’s current skills as an off hand weapon and that mace was the off hand weapon with it’s current 2 & 3 skills as the 4 & 5. That way condi Revenants would have some insane weapon options considering the fact that we are pigeon holled into Coruption and Herald.

Also as far as the self condi stuff goes…I would be fine with that if Malyx offered something more interesting than spam stuff to get Demonic Defiance up if running Coruption or spamming Pain Absorbtion if not running Coruption….maybe if they reverted Unyielding Anguish back to it’s original form (the one currently available underwater) but give it some sort of projectile hate….so we can make room for a stun breaker on Ventari.

I feel like we ought to add main hand axe, and off hand mace.

MH Axe, ranged condi aplication tool.

OH mace, ranged intereupt, only source of bleeds.

Both should operate at 900 range at least. This would help pve greatly, and would break the “Mallyx uses mace axe… so, we have to stay true to lore” argument.

Also, this post isn’t really about “can you do unorthodox things with Revenant?” It’s about “can you do more than one thing in high end content?”

The answer to the latter question is no, sadly.

Imo Mace skills need some rework – they are too slow for that mediocre damage output. Also demon stance skills need to be cheaper – 35 for 3s Pain Absorption is too much imo.

Garr.1823:

… Also demon stance skills need to be cheaper – 35 for 3s Pain Absorption is too much imo.

Personaly I would make Pain Absorbtion into a part skill and keep the cost spread between both parts. Part A would be Pain Absorption and part B would be Pulsating Pestilence….because if we are going to be propper necro rip-offs in terms of how we protect our team mates vs condis and apply condis,we should at least have Pulsating Pestilence as a utility so we can do the job properly.

I also believe that Opportune Extraction and Demonic Defiance should swap places within the trait line because Demonic Defiance is too strong of a choice compared to the other traits on the same line.

I posted this to a reddit thread last week. Let me know what you guys think!

Disclaimer: These are merely observations from playing the class for 700+ hours since its release. I’ve not done any math or calculations based on dps testing. I’d be happy to dig into it, though, if someone is good at it or has the experience with extensive testing and number crunching.

Corruption

•Replenishing Despair – When compared to other two options, this one is just lackluster. Demonic Defiance would seem quite useful in PvP and Venom Enhancement is essential if you’re going with a condi focus(and if you’re taking this tree, you typically are), so you’re never going to want to take this trait. ~~~ My suggestion would be to change this trait entirely. I’m not quite sure what to, but it should be something pertaining to conditions. Maybe a source of bleeding or another source of burning? Just something to compete with one of the other traits as a decision for the player.

•Venom Enhancement – It’s been beaten to death, but the ICD. It’s unnecessarily long. I’ve not done any math, or whatever, to figure out how much to reduce it or if removing it would be the solution, but it needs to be changed. It’s a good trait and adds some spice to the condi rev, but that ICD just kills your dps.

•Bolstered Anguish – This one might be good in PvP, but if it were on another trait line for a power build. It’s basically just a remnant of the self-applying conditions mechanic when the class was in development. They scrapped the mechanic because it clashed too much, too often with too many other classes and not in just one mode. It was cool, but it didn’t work(IIRC; I could be wrong, but that was the basic jist of it). ~~~ Now this trait could keep it’s basic function and still be effective in all the modes, but change it from “Increased damage…” to “Increased condition damage…” or “Increased damage and condition damage…”. This would just make more sense with the obvious intention of the trait line, and actually help with the revenant’s dps problem(if only slightly).

•Yearning Empowerment – I’ve been saying this before they got new tech to split skills and I’ll keep saying until the condi rev has competitive dps: For PvE only, change the description and function to, “Torment lasts longer and deal mobile damage(x2) to stationary targets.” BOOM Condi rev has decent dps in PvE now. Sure, it’s basically just a rehash of bleeding, but who cares?! It gives the class some flavor, doing something other than bleeding, and aligns with Mallyx’s theme.

•Pulsating Pestilence – This is yet another relic of the old self-applying conditions mechanic. I suppose it could have niche uses in PvE and be mildly useful in the other modes(maybe… I don’t play them much), but it’s really just meant to take advantage of something that’s no longer part of Mallyx’s functionality. ~~~ This could really be changed to anything that has to do with Torment. None of the Major Grandmaster traits deal with Torment and that’s the major condition of the whole tree and legend… Now this is literally just off the top of my head, but what about this?… “Each time you apply a new stack of Torment, there is a chance for all of your Torment stacks currently on the target to copy to nearby foes.” – “Cooldown: 30 seconds; Chance: 50%; Max Targets: 5” Probably too OP… lol ¯\(?)/¯

iroh.2871:

•Pulsating Pestilence – This is yet another relic of the old self-applying conditions mechanic. I suppose it could have niche uses in PvE and be mildly useful in the other modes(maybe… I don’t play them much), but it’s really just meant to take advantage of something that’s no longer part of Mallyx’s functionality. ~~~ This could really be changed to anything that has to do with Torment. None of the Major Grandmaster traits deal with Torment and that’s the major condition of the whole tree and legend… Now this is literally just off the top of my head, but what about this?… “Each time you apply a new stack of Torment, there is a chance for all of your Torment stacks currently on the target to copy to nearby foes.” – “Cooldown: 30 seconds; Chance: 50%; Max Targets: 5” Probably too OP… lol ¯\(?)/¯

How about this?
“Striking a foe with conditions that reach the threshold applies a stack of another condition” with a 10s ICD

Maybe with Poison, Bleeding, Burning, Torment and Confusion. The Thresholds to trigger it can probably be between 5~15 stacks depending on the condition. The duration for each applied stack once the threshold of a respective condition is reached is about 5s.

For example:

Torment (15) = Bleeding
Burning (10) = Poison
Poison (5) = Confusion
Bleeding (15) = Torment
Confusion (8?) = Burning

It probably requires some tweaks, but I’d imagine that the condition threshold with the highest stack would be the one to determine which effect goes off if they all meet the requirement when its triggered.

Euthymias.7984:

How about this?
“Striking a foe with conditions that reach the threshold applies a stack of another condition” with a 10s ICD

Maybe with Poison, Bleeding, Burning, Torment and Confusion. The Thresholds to trigger it can probably be between 5~15 stacks depending on the condition. The duration for each applied stack once the threshold of a respective condition is reached is about 5s.

For example:

Torment (15) = Bleeding
Burning (10) = Poison
Poison (5) = Confusion
Bleeding (15) = Torment
Confusion (8?) = Burning

It probably requires some tweaks, but I’d imagine that the condition threshold with the highest stack would be the one to determine which effect goes off if they all meet the requirement when its triggered.

I actually like that a lot. Part of the inherent problem with condi rev is the nature of Torment. This is a solution that helps supersede the problems of torment by allowing the rev to have more access to other conditions. Number of stacks/other “maths” aside, I like this idea. I think it might require throwing in some other ways for the class to apply different conditions. For example, we have 2 skills as sources of burning(and 1 trait), 1 skill with confusion, 1 skill(and 1 trait) with poision, etc. The point being that your idea for “adding extra stacks upon reaching a threshold” is good, but wouldn’t really syngergize with the class’s current state. There’s just not enough sources of other conditions.

iroh.2871:

I actually like that a lot. Part of the inherent problem with condi rev is the nature of Torment. This is a solution that helps supersede the problems of torment by allowing the rev to have more access to other conditions. Number of stacks/other “maths” aside, I like this idea. I think it might require throwing in some other ways for the class to apply different conditions. For example, we have 2 skills as sources of burning(and 1 trait), 1 skill with confusion, 1 skill(and 1 trait) with poision, etc. The point being that your idea for “adding extra stacks upon reaching a threshold” is good, but wouldn’t really syngergize with the class’s current state. There’s just not enough sources of other conditions.

Hmm. I understand.
I considered such a change might need to account for Runes (particularly condi ones like Krait’s) and Sigils and anything with +Condi Duration to allow stacks built up to last long enough for more than one trigger, but you’ve got a point there about our lack of access to the other conditions otherwise.

Perhaps, the effect could be refocused on the way we apply Torment stacks instead?
Such as the maximum Torment Stack (lets say, 15~20+) also applies Burning (or anything else, really) when striking the enemy with a Legendary Demon skill (while lower stacks can inflict the other conditions) in addition to whatever effects said skill applies?

Euthymias.7984:

iroh.2871:

I actually like that a lot. Part of the inherent problem with condi rev is the nature of Torment. This is a solution that helps supersede the problems of torment by allowing the rev to have more access to other conditions. Number of stacks/other “maths” aside, I like this idea. I think it might require throwing in some other ways for the class to apply different conditions. For example, we have 2 skills as sources of burning(and 1 trait), 1 skill with confusion, 1 skill(and 1 trait) with poision, etc. The point being that your idea for “adding extra stacks upon reaching a threshold” is good, but wouldn’t really syngergize with the class’s current state. There’s just not enough sources of other conditions.

Hmm. I understand.
I considered such a change might need to account for Runes (particularly condi ones like Krait’s) and Sigils and anything with +Condi Duration to allow stacks built up to last long enough for more than one trigger, but you’ve got a point there about our lack of access to the other conditions otherwise.

Perhaps, the effect could be refocused on the way we apply Torment stacks instead?
Such as the maximum Torment Stack (lets say, 15~20+) also applies Burning when striking the enemy with a Legendary Demon skill (while lower stacks can inflict the other conditions) in addition to whatever effects said skill applies?

I would go with procs that activate on critical strike vs targets with Torment in order to make the condi around which Malyx and Corruption is build to be viable in both pvp and pve scenarios. Maybe redo Diabolic Inferno to chill on elite and have another on crit based trait to do Burning vs targets?

lmaogg.7325:

I actually just wish they would give Mace 1 a little more range. Kinda silly trying to melee someone to get that tiny bit of condi while the rest of the kit are actually more than melee range :/

What if I told you rev needed to build 100% adrenaline, then enter berserk mode and then land a 1/2 second melee range burst that can be blocked to apply conditions with a mace that does no other condition damage whatsoever. Would you still think revenant mace AA is a bit silly?