Guild Wars 2

Overall, I’ve seen people mention this skill a few times and felt it needed it’s own thread for discussion.

I’d generally agree against power builds, the reset ability it has is a bit strong on a 20s CD. At base, it heals 975 base, 500 Healing, the skill heals about 1200 a tick. With block state, it becomes incredibly difficult to interrupt and deal with. With a 1800-2.1k (500 base HP) heal and protection on 4, and 2 available heal skills, a midst other regen possibilities, it’s rather much.

Against condi bursts, if you fall back on it to keep you alive, it might mitigate some of the damage burst but basically doesn’t save you. Poison also highly removes it’s strengths. So essentially you’re using it to hope you can outlive a condi burst if you don’t have a glint heal and get it off CD.

So we have a skill that essentially overly useful and near over powering versus one style of play and pretty weak against another.

My general recommendation is that, rather than seeing something uninteresting like a Cooldown tweak, the base heal itself be reduced to around 500-600 per pulse, but in replacement there is a pulsing 1 condi removal with the heal pulse. This way, you have less of a reset without healing investment, a selfish condi removal that isn’t overpoweringly strong against being bombed but reliable, and feels more of a “save me” button. This turns what is essentially another 3k-3.5k heal without investment (cause Regen) to a 2k-2.5k heal with some new play involved.

Thoughts on the skill in general, plus fixes?

I’d like to start with that I disagree, I personally don’t have a problem with the healing from Crystal Hibernation nor the fact it was changed to a sustained block mechanic.

From a Dev stand point, Roy has on numerous threads stated that Revenants are supposed to be weaker vs. Condis. Trying to sneak one in under the guise of a nerf, while sneaky, is not going to happen.

Also, if this post is about Crystal Hibernation, don’t bring up Envoy of Exuberance, two different skills, and while they are on the same weapon, the skills purpose and balance should be left up to the individual skills them selves.

Second, your forgetting to mention the three second root this skill applies if your going for the full heal. If the person fighting against the Revenant has any vested interest in playing PvP well, they just use this time to set up large hit skills like Dragon’s Tooth. Outside of PvP, this skill barely registers as a heal and is more of a three second rooted block.

Third, back on the Pvp angle, most people’s basic auto attack crit can shave off 2-3k with a single hit and combos can easily reach 5k+. Adding a little healing power gives this skill vastly more sustainability at the cost of having to pick up healing power.

Last but not least, comparing it to the Warrior’s Shield Block, they can move while Blocking, but get no heal. I like the skill, it feel comparable to other skills of the same vain, but retains the Glint-theme uniqueness special to the Revenant.

Crystal Hibernation is fine. If people QQ that its too strong bring a Necro with unblockable fear or Warrior with Signet of Might.

If your dieing to Condis in Crystal Hibernation you can pre-cast Mallyx ultitlies for resistance so it doesn’t effect your healing before it activates, or activate Glint Heal as last resort if your going to go down to condis at 25% health.

Greek.4396:

Crystal Hibernation is fine. If people QQ that its too strong bring a Necro with unblockable fear or Warrior with Signet of Might.

If your dieing to Condis in Crystal Hibernation you can pre-cast Mallyx ultitlies for resistance so it doesn’t effect your healing before it activates, or activate Glint Heal as last resort if your going to go down to condis at 25% health.

This is important to note. I actually think it’s important to have new skills like this that indirectly buff the necessity of certain traits and skills, such as unblockable (Nothing Can Save You, Signet of Might, etc).

Sarif.1827:

I’d like to start with that I disagree, I personally don’t have a problem with the healing from Crystal Hibernation nor the fact it was changed to a sustained block mechanic.

From a Dev stand point, Roy has on numerous threads stated that Revenants are supposed to be weaker vs. Condis. Trying to sneak one in under the guise of a nerf, while sneaky, is not going to happen.

Also, if this post is about Crystal Hibernation, don’t bring up Envoy of Exuberance, two different skills, and while they are on the same weapon, the skills purpose and balance should be left up to the individual skills them selves.

Second, your forgetting to mention the three second root this skill applies if your going for the full heal. If the person fighting against the Revenant has any vested interest in playing PvP well, they just use this time to set up large hit skills like Dragon’s Tooth. Outside of PvP, this skill barely registers as a heal and is more of a three second rooted block.

Third, back on the Pvp angle, most people’s basic auto attack crit can shave off 2-3k with a single hit and combos can easily reach 5k+. Adding a little healing power gives this skill vastly more sustainability at the cost of having to pick up healing power.

Last but not least, comparing it to the Warrior’s Shield Block, they can move while Blocking, but get no heal. I like the skill, it feel comparable to other skills of the same vain, but retains the Glint-theme uniqueness special to the Revenant.

In regards to your 2nd, you must consider an entire class’ kit in regards to it’s capabilities for every skill, especially a class so locked into it’s utilities and weapon skills.

D/D ele wasn’t strong just because of burn ring. It’s strong because legitimately everything has so much synergy that allows it to the capability to do everything, contained in traits, utilities, and weapon skills, which is why multiple things felt nerfs and not just one skill. High amounts of damage reduction, high vigor up time, constant healing, high healing burst skills with significant condi removal, high might gain, burn burst, stab, stun breaks, significant movement options, and control, all of which offered group support, was what made D/D absurd. Now it has everything but the burn burst and the high vigor time, which also reduces it’s healing potential.

Mallyx taking on a bunch of conditions from allies to use them only to have a slightly stronger heal and resistance up time has now felt like it’s destroyed it’s utility synergy.

Crystal Hibernation on it’s own isn’t impressive. Crystal Hibernation combined with perma regen, then a 2-3 second evade state on a 12 second CD, then life steal potential and straight damage mitigation, makes it extraordinarily strong against power builds considering how little investment is involved from a PVP. The root is absolutely a downside, but the skill is able to be canceled with a roll or movement, so set ups into it are easily able to be evaded. It is also a significant sum of time for energy gain, in which when you leave Crystal, you can expend as you wish. An evade to avoid a burst that would inevitably be coming in or out of the block isn’t a waste. The skill also being able to be canceled whenever is a straight benefit.

And all of the mitigation potential combined means that after a power build Rev with no investment into vit just healed around 1/5th / 1/4th of its HP, it also recovered endurance and energy, and waited out more CDs for more potential healing, nearing a thief invis reset.

My math was wrong. Crystal’s duration is 3 seconds, yet pulses 4 times, meaning a 3.5-4.5k heal with little investment, which means 500 investment heals about 1k less than the base Jalis’ heal.

In regards to your post about a weakness to condis; you’re absolutely right. But the change itself is a suggestion, not an absolute. I also like the flavor of the skill. I am not suggesting the flavor itself change. But since we are seeing SIGNIFICANT complaints about the combination of UA and Crystal because of the ability they both have to cause damage avoidance and resets, I’d rather offer a change to what seems to be the stronger of the two skills as one (UA) already has clear weaknesses for outplay potential, and I’d rather not see that specific skill change.

My suggestion is a buff with a nerf, rather than a straight nerf, to something Revenant suffers massively from more so than most other classes because of it’s inability to switch utilities. This makes significant investment in the stat associated worth it, while still being a solid skill on it’s own. It’s possible we’d see a CD change back to 30, which is a far more boring fix.

Greek.4396:

Crystal Hibernation is fine. If people QQ that its too strong bring a Necro with unblockable fear or Warrior with Signet of Might.

If your dieing to Condis in Crystal Hibernation you can pre-cast Mallyx ultitlies for resistance so it doesn’t effect your healing before it activates, or activate Glint Heal as last resort if your going to go down to condis at 25% health.

Any sustained Condi build essentially negates the power of Glint’s heal, or any smart plays in response to seeing it go off, nor does it respond to any other prevailing condition that isn’t damage related.

I also have no issue with the other legends being incredibly weak against condis. I do have an issue where they are near useless against condis since changing legends requires an entire utility bar change, meaning a near entire build change. The change I offered itself is just a suggestion, as placing a 20 second, out playable, and possibly low amount of condi removal on a support weapon isn’t a horribly strong counter to conditions.

ronpierce.2760:

This is important to note. I actually think it’s important to have new skills like this that indirectly buff the necessity of certain traits and skills, such as unblockable (Nothing Can Save You, Signet of Might, etc).

I actually generally agree. I like seeing a larger presence of unblockable and revealed skills. I think having responses to skills is a better addition to the game than straight nerfing of them.

As with all things Revenant simply stacking conditions before will:

1. Not be blocked.
2. Negate healing (Poison and damage).

I mean look, personally, I’m all for nerfing these anti-power tools with our evades and blocks if it means you’re going to give us decent condition management in return. But if you’re not willing to boost our ability to deal with conditions, which we have literally like 2-4 skills/traits that remove conditions (one of which is in a full on support legend), then this is what we get to compensate.

Reducing the heal ticks to replace it with pulsing condi removal will be a huge buff, also since its just on a 20 sec cd.

Revenants as a whole are just too strong against power damage and are just too weak against conditions in general even when fully traiting against them with Malyx and Ventari, both extemes need some sort of balance.

For instance, Staff skill Warding Rift needs to only block projectiles, and its projectile damage significantly increased to compensate. You can chain blocks and evades like crazy right now. Also, Renewing Wave’s bug needs to be sorted out and cleanse conditions from you too.

Crystal Hibernation’s healing (and heal scaling) should be cut in half, but in return it now cleanses a condition on each pulse. EDIT: I forgot about Soothing Bastion. Such change should come with a CD increase as well.

I sincerely hope the healing per pulse is reduce and pulse condi removal is added.

i love it but sometimes im bombed with effects and i cant move only wen i look at my hp going up slowing or the blocks i wouldnt realize its been activated and ill continioue spaming left or right or just move