Guild Wars 2

I have been experimenting for a while with the idea of a Revenant bunker build for PvP but haven’t been successful yet. Outside of the Ventari bunker build, but that’s more of a healer build, IMO, so I’m not considering it to be a bunker.

I’ve tried using Jalis in a bunker build but have come up with the following shortcomings:
-highly susceptible to conditions
-despite stacking damage reductions (Vengeful Hammers, RotGD), can still be killed really fast except around 3500 armor (e.g. Knight’s or Cavalier’s amulets)
-lacks sustain if paired with Shiro
-super vulnerable to immobilize if paired with Glint
-poor capacity to deal with stuns, and high energy costs if paired with Mallyx
-Forced Aggression is very mediocre, often blocked, and slow projectile
-Vengeful Hammers give okay sustain when surrounded by lots of enemies, but low damage and sustain when 1v1 (even when coupled with Focused Siphoning in Devastation)
-Inspiring Reinforcement is generally useless and very expensive, can be used to secure stomps however

In general, I’ve gotten better sustain from Glint (through the heal skill alone) or Ventari, despite that fact that Jalis seems to be built around tankiness.

Has anyone had success with Jalis in PvP, and if so, how do you use him?

You use him by not using him at all. Hes trash.

In wvw Jalis is ok, I have tried Jalis/Mallyx combo and it is ok if paired with food and correct stats. But in pvp I do not think it will work that well. CC combo and condi pressure is too strong in my opinion. But I skipped this season so maybe others would be more helpful.

While i’m only begginning to use rev in pvp i can say this for sure:
Jalis is a party animal, solo he’s terrible. The area of pulsing stab, vengeful hammers, Rite, they’re all tools for big fights on a small point.

jalis has no actual place in pvp even in group fight. pvp is all about dmg.
the taunt is 2 sec compare the loss of defense if you play jalis. dmg reduction is nice for 5 sec but cost too much so maybe only in sync group who play together.
so the stability – common…
the aoe hammer which do 600 dmg which is very low to be a burst dmg while you lose 10 nrg….

think again

jalis build for bunker but needs more support or dmg

I’ve actually been messing around with Jalis (mainly for the Hammers and the Heal skill it has) and I’ve found a build I actually really like in PvP and PvE.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vlAQNAsXinvNWNS6JrJRVl/ksrygSYW5QJYscrkFNFpdRgIqz2Fktc62A-TJBFwAAeCAk2foaZABnCAA

For the most opening burst damage you use the Shiro Healing skill granting you fury (giving you about 90+% crit chance) and the six dagger shards, then switch to Jalis and activate the Hammer skill and then open up with your Sword 3, followed by your Sword 2. That usually procs enemy Invulnerable passives unless they are outright bunker build and then you can start actually fighting.

I’m not sure how exactly the 3 works to be honest, but I guess it considers you behind the person while using it because it usually procs Assassin’s Annihilation from the Dagger shards/Hammers/ and Sword 3.

Cheshire.2465:

I’ve actually been messing around with Jalis (mainly for the Hammers and the Heal skill it has) and I’ve found a build I actually really like in PvP and PvE.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vlAQNAsXinvNWNS6JrJRVl/ksrygSYW5QJYscrkFNFpdRgIqz2Fktc62A-TJBFwAAeCAk2foaZABnCAA

For the most opening burst damage you use the Shiro Healing skill granting you fury (giving you about 90+% crit chance) and the six dagger shards, then switch to Jalis and activate the Hammer skill and then open up with your Sword 3, followed by your Sword 2. That usually procs enemy Invulnerable passives unless they are outright bunker build and then you can start actually fighting.

I’m not sure how exactly the 3 works to be honest, but I guess it considers you behind the person while using it because it usually procs Assassin’s Annihilation from the Dagger shards/Hammers/ and Sword 3.

This in an interesting idea, I hadn’t considered a glassy / aggressive build using Jalis. And it’s even a core Rev build (no Herald).

I tried a somewhat similar build a little bit tonight using Demolisher amulet to try to push up the Vengeful Hammers contribution as much as possible. It gets pumped up by Assassin’s Annihilation, Focused Siphoning, Mutilate Defenses, and Hardening Persistence. Inspiring Reinforcement was still useful for stomping (and not much else), and Forced Engagement can be very useful in the rare moments when your foe isn’t blocking, invuln, evading, or body blocked by someone else.

I’ll keep trying it, but I’m still not convinced yet that Jalis can ever be more useful in sPvP than Glint. For example, in your build you take Invocation instead of Herald, so you get Roiling Mists, but your only sources of fury come from Invoker’s Rage and Fierce Infusion. If you time your heals well to take advantage of this it could work, but otherwise you may have a low fury uptime. I would argue fury uptime is better with Herald (One with Nature)? Then, of course, there’s the Enhanced Bulwark synergy with Retribution that is pretty nice that you’re missing out on.

It can be tedious to try and work around the low fury up-time, so switched out my armor runes with Runes of Rage and went with a Diviner’s Amulet for 100% Boon Duration on Fury as well as an additional source of fury.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vlAQNAsXinvNWNS6JrJRVl/ksrygSYW5QJYscrkFNFpdRgIslT3Wd2ufA-TJBFQB2Y/BDWGoAnCAA8EAAA

It does lower critical chance down to 80% but gives a much higher fury up time to benefit from Runes of Rage 5% damage bonus and the 7% from Ferocious Aggression minor trait.

It feels like it has a lower initial burst but it does a better in longer situations.

Cheshire.2465:

It can be tedious to try and work around the low fury up-time, so switched out my armor runes with Runes of Rage and went with a Diviner’s Amulet for 100% Boon Duration on Fury as well as an additional source of fury.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vlAQNAsXinvNWNS6JrJRVl/ksrygSYW5QJYscrkFNFpdRgIslT3Wd2ufA-TJBFQB2Y/BDWGoAnCAA8EAAA

It does lower critical chance down to 80% but gives a much higher fury up time to benefit from Runes of Rage 5% damage bonus and the 7% from Ferocious Aggression minor trait.

It feels like it has a lower initial burst but it does a better in longer situations.

That’s cool, you get 100% fury uptime just from the runes, when you have 100% boon duration (assuming you don’t get boon stripped).

That said, it’s still far easier to have 100% fury uptime just by swapping out Jalis for Glint, and you’ll also get that really nice heal, and decent damage from Elemental Blast.
I’m still skeptical about swapping Glint for Jalis, even though Jalis has some cool skills (mechanically).

I’ve tried out Jalis a bit more. I really like the hammers, and your combo (shiro heal > swap to Jalis, hammers > sword 3 > sword 2) is working pretty well for me as well. I find that sustain is lacking without Glint, and once my health gets low it’s hard to heal up and get back into the fight. I’m using Herald instead of Invocation and I use Sword/Shield + Staff for better sustain (previously I had tried Sword/Sword, but sustain was poor), but certainly I don’t get really high crit chance doing this since I sacrifice Roiling Mists.

Short answer: No.
Long answer: Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

Yes, there are a few builds that I play. I have a tanky setup (Mallyx/Jalis), Healer setup Ventari/Jalis, and condi (Mallyx/Jalis) There’s such a low level of skill currently that you can play anything.

Also, running glint is obsolete. Any decent player doesn’t hit you when using the heal anymore and most are smart enough to condi-bomb you immediately after swapping from it.

jalis seam to be the bunker type
50% dmg and condition reduction mainly to support it with aoe stability and nice cc

but at the moment its condi cleanse cant support it very well so it must take mallyx to do so

but for pvp you also want from your bunker to be able to push off the point with kb which jalis and mallyx dont have so just standing on point doing nothing and even no boons to share with your team you are useless at the moment and the better alternative is using ventari and mallyx as healer bunker / support

Pyriall.1683:

Yes, there are a few builds that I play. I have a tanky setup (Mallyx/Jalis), Healer setup Ventari/Jalis, and condi (Mallyx/Jalis) There’s such a low level of skill currently that you can play anything.

I can only remember one tournament at the beguinning of HoT (or just before?) in which Mallyx/condi build was used, in the times in which 2 class stacking was allowed, destroying enemies with a double axe #4. Since then not a single build outside power Shiro + Glint was used in any big PvP tourmanent and the only variation was to either use retribution or invocation; ANet saved us from such terrible trouble of being able to chose effectively destroying the retribution trait line in the patch of October 2016.

So… No, Jalis isn’t even remotely near to be “viable” in PvP. Of course, a bad build used by a better player can outplay a good build used by a worse player, but becomes increasingly hard to run the more skilled players you fight.

Buran.3796:

Pyriall.1683:

Yes, there are a few builds that I play. I have a tanky setup (Mallyx/Jalis), Healer setup Ventari/Jalis, and condi (Mallyx/Jalis) There’s such a low level of skill currently that you can play anything.

I can only remember one tournament at the beguinning of HoT (or just before?) in which Mallyx/condi build was used, in the times in which 2 class stacking was allowed, destroying enemies with a double axe #4. Since then not a single build outside power Shiro + Glint was used in any big PvP tourmanent and the only variation was to either use retribution or invocation; ANet saved us from such terrible trouble of being able to chose effectively destroying the retribution trait line in the patch of October 2016.

So… No, Jalis isn’t even remotely near to be “viable” in PvP. Of course, a bad build used by a better player can outplay a good build used by a worse player, but becomes increasingly hard to run the more skilled players you fight.

Unless you are playing at ESL levels, you can play virtually anything. Since most are not, I don’t see an issue. Jalis and Mallyx fills in the areas of weakness of revenant and adds a bit of team utility.

Pyriall.1683:

Unless you are playing at ESL levels, you can play virtually anything. Since most are not, I don’t see an issue. Jalis and Mallyx fills in the areas of weakness of revenant and adds a bit of team utility.

That “you can play with anything, any character or build is viable” can work -to some extent- for PvE, but is FAR away from being true in PvP. And the lowest you push the bar in terms of exigence the worse is going to go for any Revenant build, since the lower is the skill the easier is for “cheap” builds as Berserker or Dragon Hunter to crush handicaped classes as the Revenant.

The thing with pvp is that at least in theory you can make anything get to about a 50% win rate over time due to match making. Say you have been a gold rated player using a meta build. Then you start using a very bad build, your rating will go down into silver and maybe bronze but eventually you will reach a tier where you start winning regularly again. This tier may just be where everyone else is also using stupid non nonsensical builds or a tier where you completely out skill everyone there and are only held back by your build. Regardless eventually you will be playing against players that are just as effective on their builds as you are on yours. At this point you should be winning roughly half of you matches, with you not needing to be carried by your teammates, and the build will be “working”.