Guild Wars 2

Am i the only one who would much rather keep the defiance bar on crystal hibernation and just fix the amount soft ccs chunk off of it? I feel like it is WAY stronger than a block that can be interrupted by any unblockable daze or even fear mark.

The only stab that i can think of that rev could use to cover crystal hibernation would be the stability road from jalis and that combo is a hefty energy sink.

Traited Reaper’s Mark vs a few Chills/Cripples/etc.

I’d rather take the Block honestly.

These kinds of decisions usually boil down to while it’d be ideal to fix Break bars for PCs compared to NPCs there may not be enough time to make it happen and so the idea is being scrapped until a later date (maybe next round of Specializations?).

Nah. It’s better this way. The break bar was stupidly easy to counter, and this one has legitimate, but relatively rare counterplay.

And why complain about Reaper’s Mark. Necromancers could use a few cookies here and there.

You can also trait for stab on dodge and then follow it up with an immediate block.

Vegito.3048:

Am i the only one who would much rather keep the defiance bar on crystal hibernation and just fix the amount soft ccs chunk off of it? I feel like it is WAY stronger than a block that can be interrupted by any unblockable daze or even fear mark.

The only stab that i can think of that rev could use to cover crystal hibernation would be the stability road from jalis and that combo is a hefty energy sink.

The defiance bar was extremely unreliable when bunkering on point. The awkward moment your bunkering vs someone on point. A thief comes and +1’s you, ur Crystal Hibernation trait auto procs, then you die faster before you can blink cause the thief would CC through that thing using there new physical elite, and you got 25 stacks of vul cause it broke.

You can get hella Stab on Rev if you build for it with Ret. You can take the trait that gives you an extra 5s stab stack whenever you gain stab and then chain that with the stab on dodge. It’s short but it’s so frequent.

Vegito.3048:

Am i the only one who would much rather keep the defiance bar on crystal hibernation and just fix the amount soft ccs chunk off of it?

mmm yes…almost same function without the downside and with more customization with runes/traits.
Block anyday

Well there are quite a lot of unblockable skills out there and ways to get unblockable attacks. I don’t think this skill is going to be as good as we might think, I hope to be wrong.

I like the block a lot more. But since it roots us in place (and since there are those unblockable attacks out there) I would prefer it if this skill had a shorter duration. But really I think crystal hibernation is in a much better place now and I can see myself actually using the shield.

Adamantium.3682:

Well there are quite a lot of unblockable skills out there and ways to get unblockable attacks. I don’t think this skill is going to be as good as we might think, I hope to be wrong.

if someone is fast enough to deplay an ublockable attack, it was fast enough to deploy a cc when we had a breakbar. Fact is, in the latter case, we were punished hard .
Also there are way more CC skills than Unblockable skills, and not every class has them.

Block

It has more counterplay with unblockables but CD got reduced by 10s (33%). That’s huge.

I daresay this is one of the best shield skills in the game atm and amd looking forward to Sword/Shield on zerk Shiro with hammer or sword/sword (for another block on OH sword).

Block is a terrible idea, it is a kittening 4 seconds root…. Seriously wtf are you guys thinking this is a kittening free 7 hit phoenix = insta death !

Kaizoku.1298:

Block is a terrible idea, it is a kittening 4 seconds root…. Seriously wtf are you guys thinking this is a kittening free 7 hit phoenix = insta death !

1: It’s 3 seconds.

2: Well kitten it. If there’s even one skill to be afraid of then there can never be any benefit gained from this skill. Let’s all quit. On the other hand, we could just cancel crystal hibernation and dodge it.

Kaizoku.1298:

Block is a terrible idea, it is a kittening 4 seconds root…. Seriously wtf are you guys thinking this is a kittening free 7 hit phoenix = insta death !

3 seconds. How is it insta death when it’s also healing.

Skills need to have counter play.

Kaizoku.1298:

Block is a terrible idea, it is a kittening 4 seconds root…. Seriously wtf are you guys thinking this is a kittening free 7 hit phoenix = insta death !

You could, I dunno, pay attention to what weapons/skills your opponents use to see if Shield 5 is worthwhile. If you’re fighting a Scepter Ele and don’t time his attunements you deserve to eat that phoenix nuke.

This new version of skill 5 is much better. The defiance on the original variation felt waaaay too fragile, and then you’d really end up a sitting duck with the daze and full vuln stacks.

I take 20s cooldown over 30s one.

Gaaroth.2567:

Adamantium.3682:

Well there are quite a lot of unblockable skills out there and ways to get unblockable attacks. I don’t think this skill is going to be as good as we might think, I hope to be wrong.

if someone is fast enough to deplay an ublockable attack, it was fast enough to deploy a cc when we had a breakbar. Fact is, in the latter case, we were punished hard .
Also there are way more CC skills than Unblockable skills, and not every class has them.

That’s not really a fair comparison because the breakbar was basically broken.

I like active blocking, my main is an Engi. The only reason I have a problem with this skill is because of root. Blocking by itself is great, but when you stand still and your enemy has 3 seconds to prepare themselves to roflstomp you then that’s what’s going to happen. Engi blocks get interrupted all the time, so does Guardian shelter. If players know it’s something they need to prepare for, it’s something they will have ready. It’s not like a Rev with a shield will put up a block and the player will be like “whoa a block I had no idea he could do that, let’s see do I have unblockable skills… maybe I do where are they… oh staff! cool I’ll use that— oh he’s done blocking now”. Fingers will be hovering over unblockable skills that’s for sure.

If Roy says the skill would have to be worse without the root then I’ll have to live with the root I guess. If the heal gets nerfed down to ~1k then that really doesn’t do anything and it might as well not be there. If the duration gets nerfed down to s then 1.5s or something that is really short, trust the Static Shield on that one (great skill, just saying the block feels very short). If the cooldown gets nerfed back up to 30s+ then that might be too long, but in all honesty it’s the nerf I would want to see most. I would rather have to time the use of it carefully because of the cooldown and be able to move I think if all the other elements remain the same.

Overall I’m fine with testing it, I just have a bad feeling. I’m not really that concerned but it’s just not my preference. I hope the bad feeling turns out to be stupid and the skill is great. I can’t wait to spend all of an upcoming weekend trying it (and Scrapper!).

Vegito.3048:

Am i the only one who would much rather keep the defiance bar on crystal hibernation and just fix the amount soft ccs chunk off of it? I feel like it is WAY stronger than a block that can be interrupted by any unblockable daze or even fear mark.

The only stab that i can think of that rev could use to cover crystal hibernation would be the stability road from jalis and that combo is a hefty energy sink.

It would never work out. The reason, is the balance between duration of the skill in effect, and the time it takes to shut down Defiance. in PvE which is designed for NPC to fail, the bar time is not important so its always designed to fail at some point.

In PvP, the bar is meant to save the source with a side effect fail element. But it cant be designed with failure in mind since its meant to be defensive against other players.
so both sides have to be kept in mind (offense attackers and defend source of defiance) in PvP. there is no way to balance that.