Guild Wars 2

Hello folks!
It’s already a week that I’m preparing a massive balance/review spreadsheet for the revenant class, to be used even on release to track the status of our beloved class.
Since this project is taking so long I’ve decided to write down here my biggest concerns on Rev after the last BWE3, to give Roy the much needed feedback

Basically this is a TL:DR; of just what seems UP, OP or not working ATM.

MOST NOTABLE BUGS

• Skills like hammer’s Coalescence or Ruin(#2), Phase smash (#3), mace’s Searing Fissure (#2), sword’s Grasping Shadow (#5) suffer badly from uneven terrain like stairs.
• phase smash also has wrong range
• Shooting Bastion trait bugs out the Shield’s Crystal Hybernation (#5) if used during trait’s CD (animation up, but no effect whatsoever)
• Mid stomp quickness brokes the animation and sometimes the stomp itself (this is gamewise, but hits us the most, since we can reliably, on purpose experience it)
• sword’s Unrelenting Assault (#3) , Jalis’ Vengeful Hammers (#9) and Reflexive Summon cancel when next to walls
• Staff’s Renewing Wave sometimes do not clense conditions

UNDERTUNED BUILD

CONDITIONS
Main tools for conditions: Mace/Axe and Mallyx.
We are all sad about lost Mallix’s gameplay but, supposedly, we should have now a condi powerhouse. Not true. In fact during BWE3 condi Rev is what i had least success with, while was my most successful build in BWE2.
Torment application that scared Roy is in fact weak and we lost many useful and cover conditions we had with self application in BWE2’s iteration of the legend.
Looking at skill facts it seems you can push torment up to 25+ stacks.
While this is good on paper, in fact is not possible, here’s why.

• Echoing Eruption (Mace#3) says it applies 3xtorment 6s: this is cumulative 1 per blast. You reliable can put 1, if lucky 2
• Searing fissure (Mace#2) is nice on paper but too easily avoided in pratical situations. Make it like the new ele’s ring of fire: big chunk of burning on hit, lower from field (2x burning 6s on hit, 1 burning 3s per pulse). Field shape should be a bit wider.
• mace#2+#3 blast might application: Echoing Eruption triple blast is almost impossible to pull of since the “wave lenght” is longer than the fire field (also the most of fields) and the first hit happen after a small leap. IDEA: make the 3blast cuncked in a triangle? This would solve torment application too.
• Unyielding Anguish (Mallyx#9) should be, with Embrance the Darkness(Mallyx#0), the most reliable torment application. Actually you burn out energy quickly and you can’t even reach 10 stack after 100% energy consumption. And this requires people to stay in UA field. With such insane cost torment on UA must be tripled and EtD doubled.

I’m not scared to push torment stacks that high because, well, we apply just torment with some burning and poison. This can be wiped with even weak condi removals (that usual comes with short CD).
Alternatively, as suggested below, tweaking Corruption spec might also be a good idea.

HEALING
Ventari. I so love the concept around Ventari and the tablet gameplay but in reality it still feels clunky. We supposedly should be the best sustained healer in game, while druids should be the best burst healer.
Fact it the druid is a SUSTAINED BURST (celestial form recharges in 3 sec with right circumstances…wut?). We fall terribly back in terms of row numbers.

Sure, we have amazing utilities (Natural Armony, that should be a delayd burst heal, should be at least double tho to be considered bursty) but the main utility Ventari’s Will (tablet movement) is just slow and costy and doesn’t fit well in GW2 fast combat: having heal on the tablet’s path is hard to pull of since people will be moving. Remove haling on path, make a 25-50% healing increase just on destination, with insta-cast and faster movement (even teleportation).

Puryfing essence is still a bit too costy, make it 30 energy.
Energy Expulsion also seems still costy for the overall effect.

Finally coming from engi and medpack drops i use to give, i’m not sold on healing crystals(Staff#, Ventari Elite, Traits..): the effect is not that great to force someone to run to them, and they count in the skill balance (like Energy Expulsion). Might be boring but i’d like them replaces with plain, small heals.
Rym.1469 alternatively proposes for a longer duration (and i’d say wider trigger aoe) in orther to fullfill the “sustain” role of those fragments.

OP STUFFS
Coalescence of Ruin at max range hits like a kitten truck. This is no brainer. But hits -50% at close range. I’d suggest to even the damage to the mid hit so it can be used iven in shorter range situations.

Phase traversal raises a lot of complaints. While it is ok to be no line of sight insta teleport (like other skills in the game) being able to chain them to cover 2400 might be a bit broken. So a fix like Elementalist’s Ride the Lightning might be good: 0CD if you hit the target, 3-4CD if not (no more otherwise we loose the unrelenting killer vibe)

Glint’s heal, while I do not feel it OP i think needs a better tell. The counterplay is there (stop attacking) but the enemy must be aware.

FINAL THOUGHTS
I see the Revenant in a very good place now, with some little adjustments it will become the most balanced profession in the whole game.

EDIT: typos/formatting

Speak about Jalis who is extremly undertuned. The hammer 3 skill, phase smash, had a range problem too last BW. Smoothing bastion trait had a problem with rune of vampirism too, both activating at the same time (25% health).Maybe you can speak about the overpower that Glint have other other legends (and his heal that need tweek, at least one major visual effect to warn better, coz in the two last BW it was like a second health bar for revenants)

Nice feedback thread, I also had the most succes with a condition buid in Bwe 2, and it felt way weaker now.

To me the problem lies in that they made the decision to give weapon swap to the revenant after they had designed most of it. It was a good call but you can see the class wasn’t designed with this in mind.

This is very apparent with the condition sets as only mace and axe really do any condition damage. Direct damage has a ranged and a melee option so you don’t really end up lacking for direct damage. Sword fit’s both an offensive and defensive role with UA so you can happily pair it up with shield and staff for defence.

Ideally they should add another condition weapon or buff the corruption line to apply conditions outside of weapon sets.

Diabolic inferno needs a halving of ICD, pulsating pestilence is odd given the change in direction of mallyx. Spontaneous Destruction could do with an ICD of 15s instead of 25s. Venom enchantment I would love to see apply poison on crits for 2s but have no ICD so you could really stack it to decent levels with investment.

I still think a second condition weapon would be a good idea though.

Oh and I wouldn’t buff the confusion and torment of revenant too much, do you know what other class applies them in abundance? Yep condi Mesmer and it is hated by a lot of people.

Thanks for the feedback guys.
About jalis, I thing is in good place generally, especially the Retribution spec. What I dislike, which is different from being OP UP or broken, is that is so much situational, that’s why I havent listed it above.
Honestly I don’t know how i would fix it.

I agree on glint’s heal, forgot to add. Thanks for other suggestions, i’ve added them to the OP as well.

Agree on Mace. This weapon still kinda falls behind others. Mostly because it supports playstyle that is very heavily limited on Revenant and got no such buffs like Sword or Hammer.

I disagree on making all fragments/orbs into regular heals. They just need better indicators for allies. Green glow or “+” above them would help everyone with understanding what these do instead of ignoring or even avoiding these, because non-Revenants don’t know what they do.
Fragments need to have longer duration if we’re supposed to be about “sustain”. Making them last 10 or 12-15s and maybe ge affected by Tranquil Benediction trait for better synergy + visual clues described above would fix the problem and let us keep interesting playstyle.

Finally, I like your suggestion on Phase Traversal. I myself suggested bumping the range to 1500 and adding 2s CD, but your suggestion flows better I think.

Rym.1469:

Agree on Mace. This weapon still kinda falls behind others. Mostly because it supports playstyle that is very heavily limited on Revenant and got no such buffs like Sword or Hammer.

I disagree on making all fragments/orbs into regular heals. They just need better indicators for allies. Green glow or “+” above them would help everyone with understanding what these do instead of ignoring or even avoiding these, because non-Revenants don’t know what they do.
Fragments need to have longer duration if we’re supposed to be about “sustain”. Making them last 10 or 12-15s and maybe ge affected by Tranquil Benediction trait for better synergy + visual clues described above would fix the problem and let us keep interesting playstyle.

Finally, I like your suggestion on Phase Traversal. I myself suggested bumping the range to 1500 and adding 2s CD, but your suggestion flows better I think.

Yeah your suggestion about Fragments is a valid alternative. Beside the duration they have to be “wider” in the aoe to trigger them…it’s really SO tiny (like medipack if not smaller). Adding this too.