Guild Wars 2

Am I the only one who thinks this trait needs to be Grandmaster? When combined with Pain Absorption, Rev can be very, very resistance to conditions, and excels at clearing condis from teammates without dying in the process.

I had a lot of fun using this trait in PvP and WvW, and IMO it is build defining. I think it should be grandmaster level and compete with a good condi damage trait (e.g. Diabolic Inferno, if it were good). Pulsating Pestilence does not seem all that great at first glance (though I did not test it), and perhaps could be swapped with Demonic Defiance?

It’s funny that you say that because you obviously didn’t play much PvP with revenant.

Mesmer, necro, guardian, thief, and revenant basically spam boon removal/boon corruption as part of both their power and CONDITION BUILDS. The resistance is 100% useless due to all the passive boon removal on normal attack skills/traits.

That being said, this should really be a base trait. If resistance is reworked to be a non-removable buff (like stances) then I can see it being a GM trait. In its current form, you’re better off cleansing the conditions since if you pull them, you are guaranteed to kill yourself since someone will strip the boon from you in a second or two.

Yes, resistance can be cleansed, but it can also be reapplied fairly easily. Uncounterable condition immunity would not be fun. I think the trait provides a high-risk, high-reward style of gameplay. But that is just my opinion, you are free to disagree.

I’d almost argue baseline because it’s pretty much needed to make Malyx builds function.

fluidmonolith.3584:

Yes, resistance can be cleansed, but it can also be reapplied fairly easily. Uncounterable condition immunity would not be fun. I think the trait provides a high-risk, high-reward style of gameplay. But that is just my opinion, you are free to disagree.

The problem is that it gets passively cleansed by builds that it is supposed to counter. That makes it very high risk and very low reward (lets keep in mind that it does nothing vs power builds).

Compare this to berserker stance, diamond skin, obsidian flesh, distortion, evades, blocks, etc which all prevent condi application and can negate way more damage. All of these can’t be removed when activated.

Or, just look at the condi transfers on necro. On my necro I can instantly put all stacks of most of my condis from long range onto any opponent. That is a “high risk, high-reward” gameplay style. I regularly run through fire fields on my necro to build up 8-12 stacks of burning on me and then transfer them onto my opponent. I tried doing something similar with revenant and just died miserably since the elite transfers only at 240 yards in a random direction and my resistance got passively stripped by the burning.

I think it’s a cool mechanic, but it is destroyed by passive boon removal. Either other professions’ passive boon removal needs to be reworked, or resistance needs to be reworked.

Kharr.5746:

fluidmonolith.3584:

Yes, resistance can be cleansed, but it can also be reapplied fairly easily. Uncounterable condition immunity would not be fun. I think the trait provides a high-risk, high-reward style of gameplay. But that is just my opinion, you are free to disagree.

The problem is that it gets passively cleansed by builds that it is supposed to counter. That makes it very high risk and very low reward (lets keep in mind that it does nothing vs power builds).

Compare this to berserker stance, diamond skin, obsidian flesh, distortion, evades, blocks, etc which all prevent condi application and can negate way more damage. All of these can’t be removed when activated.

Or, just look at the condi transfers on necro. On my necro I can instantly put all stacks of most of my condis from long range onto any opponent. That is a “high risk, high-reward” gameplay style. I regularly run through fire fields on my necro to build up 8-12 stacks of burning on me and then transfer them onto my opponent. I tried doing something similar with revenant and just died miserably since the elite transfers only at 240 yards in a random direction and my resistance got passively stripped by the burning.

I think it’s a cool mechanic, but it is destroyed by passive boon removal. Either other professions’ passive boon removal needs to be reworked, or resistance needs to be reworked.

I am not so sure that Demonic Defiance + Pain Absorption is similar to things like Berserker stance, distortion, etc. Those are are short-lived abilities that can be used to avoid a quick burst, or allow the user to continue to put out offensive pressure for a short time while being avoiding a counter-attack. Demonic Defiance + Pain absorption is probably a little too expensive in energy for that purpose, since you won’t be able to easily pair it with your own burst.

I am also not conviced that resistance is useless against power builds. To be sure, it is likely more useful against condis, but even against power builds it prevents immobilize, cripple, chill, slow, and vulnerability.

I can’t defend the Mallyx elite though. I was using most of my energy to maintain resistance, so I probably wouldn’t have been able to upkeep the elite skill to transfer condis to enemies.

My best success with Demonic Defiance + Pain absorption was in using it for survival or to keep condis off teammates. Doing this limited my offensive capabilities because much of my energy was spent maintaining resistance uptime. Just casting a single Pain Absorption wasn’t enough unless a zealous Necro or Engie decided to load me up with 5-6 conditions at once. I’d often have to cast it 2-3 times to make sure the resistance duration exceeded the duration of the conditions I already had. I don’t have a problem with this. If it could be maintained indefinitely and simultaneously didn’t reduce Rev’s offensive pressure, it would probably be OP. Unlike Berserker stance and the like, I can keep spamming Pain Absorption every 7 seconds.

I can see where it may never become meta because it doesn’t necessarily contribute to the bottom line of getting things killed. But it does have situational uses to keep teammates up against condis, or to buy yourself time in 1vX situations (against some builds). And it’s a lot of fun.