Guild Wars 2

Hello,

Because the next expansions release and balance pass draw near, I am releasing some of my final suggestions for Revenant updates as of now. They are focused on four aspects:

• Strengthening the theme,
• Reducing completly passive traits and procs to minimum,
• Providing interesting gameplay,
• No specific damage numbers. These can be fixed anytime.

Link to imgur album with all the Corruption updates: http://imgur.com/a/LTAId

This one is focused on Corruption specialization – likely one of the most important specializations, if the rumours are true and the next Elite Specialization will offer some support for Condition playstyle. Why does it need an update? Because it has:

• Outdated Traits - Many traits in Corruption were meant to work with the first version of Mallyx, which got removed for BWE3. Holding conditions on yourself for damage modifier, healing per condition but with added ICD are just examples. They are leftovers of the old systems that are no longer in place.

• Blatantly underpowered traits - Traits like Maniacal Persistence which sounded and were useless even before Specialization update and now nobody would ever think about touching them with a stick.

• Abundance of passive procs - Half of the traits are completly passive and don’t affect your gameplay. The procs are not even remotely controllable or fun.

• Mandatory traits - Demonic Defiance. That’s the single reason why PvP Mallyx builds would even go for that specialization. Situation looks similar in other tiers – there’s always a superior trait.

• No flavour - The traits are mundane and uninteresting. Rather than picking a trait that synergizes with your build you pick the one that’s the least terrible or even works at all, because others are bugged. Traits add nothing to the theme of playing condition Revenant besides edgy names and don’t make you feel any more powerful.

I won’t be going into Mallyx reworks, at least for now, just touch on few things before I move on to traits:

• Banish Enchantment -Currently it is a piercing beam in between caster and selected target. To get maximum effectiveness out of it, you have to target the furthest target in line. I would love this skill to fire a beam that pierces in line regardless of chosen target, because this removes the unncessessary target swapping and fighting UI.

• Resistance on Mallyx – I would like to see Demonic Defiance trait removed and Pain Absorption to be changed. Currently PA is problematic because in solo situations the Resistance uptime it provides is minimal and requires heavy boon duration investment while with allies around the Resistance uptime from this skill alone is too much. Find a middle ground for this skill. Possibly 4-5 seconds Resistance and bonus 0,25-0,5s Resistance per condition from ally? If Demonic Defiance (the must-have trait in tier) was removed as well, we could get some baseline Resistance on Legendary Demon’s heal and maybe on something else.

• Echoing Eruption – This skill, while great, faces some really annoying bugs when it randomly changes direction. Sometimes you would like to blast in other direction than target’s, too. To combat this, I strongly suggest this ability to be a skillshot.

• PvE Damage and Condition Revenant – The suggested traits reflect my view on this problem. To explain it in simple way, I believe the way the way to make Condition Revenant damage viable in current PvE where NPCs are mostly static is not to add PvE-specific (?) traits that make Torment work like Burning or Bleeding, but to focus on the dichotomy of Burning and Torment present in Revenant’s kit. If foe is moving, increased Torment damage compensates for the loss in Burning damage. If foe is not moving, increased Burning damage compensates for the loss in Torment damage. The way re-worked Diabolic Inferno trait works supports this vision while not affecting rotation. Core Mace kit brings us triple Blast Finisher on low cooldown and a combo field, giving synergy in here.

Now on to traits, in order:

• Rampant Vex – Adept Minor. Unchanged. Classic critical strike trait, almost every profession has one of these.

• Defy Nature – Adept Major. Replacing Replenishing Despair. This trait gives you a “corrupted” effect of every Legend on heal – the opposite of it’s core theme and gameplay. I thought it would be a fun idea and I think it turned out decent. Has strong potential in pretty much all builds, especially some hybrids. Legendary Demon’s heal is also a Blast Finisher, to fully synergize with further traits in line.

• Demonic Defiance – Adept Major. Changed. I took the idea of Boss characters resistance from Guild Wars 1 and mixed it with Mallyx’s theme. I think it would be very solid defensive trait and an amazing synergy with Pain Absorption.

• Spontaneus Destruction – Adept Major. Replacing Venom Enhancement. Strong trait for all game modes and competitor in the tier. An alternative to Defy Nature in some PvE encounters.

• Opportune Extraction – Master Minor. Changed. This trait now requires a boon to be present in order to trigger.

• Toxic Shock – Master Major. Replacing Bolstered Anguish. A playstyle-defining trait, one of the ones I’m the most proud of. Heavily affects the optimal way you use skills if picked and would often require you to change your rotation on the go. I’m not sure if it should be single or multiple target skill, so I left this bit out.

• Bonds of Torment – Master Major. Replacing Frigid Precision. Named after one of the skills used by bosses in Realm of Torment in Guild Wars 1. Powerful trait that makes thriving in melee range easier and works well with some other traits due to recharging boon removal on demand. Prioritizes player characters over anything else.

• Consume Torment – Master Major. Replacing Spontaneous Destruction. The crit trait for crit specialization, insane when working together with the new Spontaneus Destruction. Very similar to Decimate Defenses in Reaper Specialization, but because Torment is harder to come by than Vulnerability, increasing crit chance more per stack.

• Yearning Empowerment – Grandmaster Minor Changed. Similar traits on other professions are a bit strongers than just duration increase, so to go with the theme of the name, I added a bit of conditional Might.

• Diabolic Inferno – Grandmaster Major. Changed. Now it’s the core of the PvE Mace playstyle, working decently in other game modes as well. Idea behind this trait is to compensate for times when Torment works at half the potential and play into Revenant’s kit. Adds more thought and value into Blast Finishers.

• Bolstered Anguish – Grandmaster Major. Replacing Maniacal Persistence. This simple trait plays well into Mallyx’s tools, works great with Demonic Defiance and gives new life to two odd old traits that were leftovers of Beta Mallyx – Replenishing Despair and Bolstered Anguish.

• Demonic Possession – Grandmaster Major. Replacing Pulsating Pestilience. Final piece if you want to be the horror of builds that spam a lot of boons. Your boons are now my boons. All stolen boons would be normalized so no stealing 10 Stability stacks or 25 Might at once. Still extremaly useful. I was thinking about moving the Opportune Extraction recharge part of the Bonds of Torment trait to this trait, but left it there for now.

If I have time, there may be more Specialization/Legend/Weapon updates of the same quality.

You can find all tooltips in Attachments, together with quick visualization where the mentioned traits would be located.

All tooltips created thanks to that_shaman’s tooltip builder tool. I appreciate all feedback.

Thanks for reading,

Rym

i kinda likes the corruption trait line and skills

the changes i would love to see are mainly to handle conditions and to be more dangerous the more conditions you have on you.

skills:
empowering misery – gain resistance for each condition you have for 1.5 sec each. idea mainly support yourself. so you can have longer duration of resistance like the warrior around 9 sec on 30 sec skill cd.

pain absorption – transfer 3 conditions from each ally. break stun. give 3 sec resistance to allies. gain 1 sec self resistance for each ally you transferred from. idea mainly support your team better and gain self resistance by allies and not conditions so max is 5 sec. in pvp you wont get much but you can support better. in wvw better skill for yourself also.

banish enchantment – not changed

unyielding anguish – leap finisher, range 900 – our way to disengage and move around.

embrace the darkness – increase to -10. randomly pulse torment 5 sec, burning 3 sec, bleeding 5 sec, poison 3 sec. when you reach below 5% nrg you pulse 5 sec resistance around you 20 sec cd. idea here much stronger elite which you consider if you want to use all nrg to gain the resistance aoe while you wont be able to use skills which cost nrg so you play more defensively.

so yes resistance can be stripped or removed this is the idea to handle conditions with it with several skills.

trait changes:
minors
1 – no change
2 – chance on hit 25% to steal boon, cd 5 sec
3 – torment dmg increase by 2% for every condition you have on yourself

adapt – idea here is to choose how condition affects you. healing , resistance , or more poison dmg.
1 – for each stack of condition you gain healing. 3 sec cd. 50 base healing. with 1200 healing power should be 150 (idea option for healing while you are condi bomb. so with 10 bleed, 10 poison from the necro you can have 1000- 3000 healing for every 3 sec which is 333-1000 healing per second while the dmg . don’t forget poison reduce the healing by 33%. so this is its counter.
2 – when you have more than 4 conditions on you gain 3 sec resistance .10 sec cd. should help when condi bomb. . this trait want you to support your allies.
3 – also add the the trait fact. poison dmg increase by 25%.

major – focus on reducing dmg on you and putting more dmg on enemies
1 – for each condition on you increase dmg by 3% and decrease dmg by 3% on you .
2 – i would love if it proc frost aura for 4 sec instead. frost aura chill and reduce dmg on you. so you can choose which trait to take.
3 – banish enchantments range increase to 900,remove 4 boons and apply 6 confusion stacks. the result is the same as the passive trait proc and remove 2 and put 3 confusion. now it enhance the skill itself so you can choose if to become more deadlier in team fight and spamm it twice….

grandmaster – focus on punishing enemies mainly.
1- i like this trait but i would add. gain fire aura also for 4 sec. to gain might aswell within corruption trait line.
2 – like this trait also which increase direct dmg. also i would add you have chance of 33% to transfer condition on critical hits. (no cd trait so 33% chance only which mean 3 sec if all your attack are crits so in 9 sec its 3 conditions in theory.
3 – amazing if it could transferred conditions instead

so basically resistance is more useful and can be maintain by
healing skill – using right with 5 conditions to gain 7.5 sec (15 sec with 100% boon duration. but remember can be stripped)

elite skill – for 5 sec if you reach below 5 nrg (10 sec with 100% boon duration) but force you to play more defense and AA as you have no nrg, no stun break for couple of second…. and its not spammable with 20 sec cd.

PA – in pvp you get in average 3 sec (in 4v4 on mid you have 3 allies) in wvw you will get 5 sec (and 100% boon duration 10 sec)

trait if choose will proc

so yes in wvw, pve you could build perma resistance (warrior can build 42 sec ressitance) so necro should rip it
in pvp you will have about 33% boon duration.

if its too powerful as i havent test it yet nerf it little bit the duration

I’m usually quite a fan of your revamps of trait lines, you know, but I feel this one is a little meh. PvP stuff would work great with other legends/weapons because its centered around torment (and we expect shortbow to have it), but PvE traits are quite focused in blasting fields and I don’t know if Shortbow/New legend will have some blast finishers. Also, Defy Nature has an “issue”. Would you expand the trait with every legend that is added? Or does it only work with core legends?

Maybe Toxic Shock could be a blast finisher (I haven’t understood so if it were) so you have at least some synergy with the trait line while you’re not using mace?

Otherwise, Anet could hire you since you at least try to create synergies and you have eagerness to change wrong-designed trait lines, in comparison with their own skills team.

This one is probably more down-to-earth than other suggestions of mine.

As for the blasting concerns, If my predictions are true the shortbow will have more focus on burning rather than torment. It’s really hard to speculate on the final playstyle and how it would flow with the rest of Revenant’s toolkit because we have no specific info besides predictions, name of the next Elite Specialization, Legend character and weapon type. I think that ideally Condition Revenant would use both Mace/Axe and Shortbow in rotation.

Yes, Defy Nature would be updated for every new Elite Specialization. Finding an opposite theme of new Legend and making it into a simple mechanic is certainly possible, even with minimal creativity. The tooltip already says it works with Legendary Dragon Stance (it just uses different Invocation icon rather than Glint icon because the tooltip builder was missing it).

Toxic Shock being a Blast Finisher is certainly an option. My concern here would be the frequency of Blast Finishers avalible from this trait. It would likely need an ICD which I’m not the biggest fan of, but could see it if proven to be required.

And thanks for kind words.

And after posting this to reddit, we got a try at buffing Corruption. Won’t say no to buffs, just point out few thoughts on new stuffs:

• The new Maniacal Persistence is a bit confusing. This is a trait made for the old Mallyx who could copy conditions baseline, but the old Mallyx is not with us anymore. And the only trait that has decent synergy with the new MP… is in the same trait tier, so you can’t have both. Quo vadis, Balance Team?

• On the other hand, this trait is pretty powerful in PvP and generally anywhere with enemies that move, giving Sword a lot of bonus value in Condition builds and allowing for huge Torment bursts in very short timeframes, upwards to 35+ Torment within 2s. If it’s not supposed to have supporting traits that make the negative effect (self-torment) into an advantage, is it the first ArenaNet’s attempt at traits with trade-offs? Interesting.

• Abyssal Chill – Can we please stop getting traits like this one? “When you apply X condition, apply Y condition”. These traits allows the condition perpetuum mobiles to exist, when by hitting with one non-significant ability players actually apply a lot of pressure and burst with dozens of various conditions. The trait itself is solid power-wise and surely does add some more gameplay to Condition Rev with Chill application, but I’m just not a big fan of this design.

Overall it’s good to see changes. Traits are a bit basic (apart from new Maniacal Persistence), but it’s a big progress from getting barely any updates for the past two years.

Thanks ANet – I just hope it’s not everything you have planned for Corruption and Mallyx.

Do we know for sure its a shortbow? Or can it still be longbow?

Rym.1469:

Abyssal Chill – Can we please stop getting traits like this one? “When you apply X condition, apply Y condition”. These traits allows the condition perpetuum mobiles to exist, when by hitting with one non-significant ability players actually apply a lot of pressure and burst with dozens of various conditions. The trait itself is solid power-wise and surely does add some more gameplay to Condition Rev with Chill application, but I’m just not a big fan of this design.

It’s even worse than that, IMO.

One huge problem GW2 has which has gotten significantly worse since release with both elite specs and the constant stapling-on of extra effects to existent skills is Clarity of Purpose.

In a well-designed setup, most active effects you can produce do one thing, but they do it well. One button press → one effect → one purpose → one thought. Allows for tight and fast-paced gameplay because each momentary decision only has to compare one aspect of each possible action.

GW2 is anything but that. Many many skills do 3-5 things, once traits are taken into account often even more. Plenty traits staple effect X onto Y, others then staple something onto X, and so on. Or worse, “Every 20 seconds, when doing X, also perform action Y”. Note that each of these actions in itself has 2-5 effects.

It’s just a mess. Coupled with the constant barrage of skills, we have 5-10 effects hitting us every 1,5-2,0 seconds from just one enemy. Between direct damage, debuffs, conditions, CC, boons on them, healing, etc. There’s just so much.

So yeah, I agree, those traits are just among the worst ones imaginable, but the problem is so much more widespread.