Guild Wars 2

So, Rev is shaping up to be pretty awesome.

I’ve been lurking the forum, mostly because of the amazing communication between dev and players (also, hoping this communication doesn’t stop after HoT release!) as well ad the potential for a solid support revenant in PvP.

… But I can’t help but wonder, what does the Ironhammer stance do?

Is it support? Defense? Why ever take it over Ventari/Herald? Which would be the best for a pure support revenant?

Tank and support.

• Healing skill is pretty solid. 3 conditions removed, good base heal (4600), plus retaliation.
• AOE stablity (unfortunately you need to be standing in the pulsing aoe, while in the past it lasted longer)
• taunt+slow
• upkeep is a skill that activates aoe rotating hammers that deal damage and reduce physical and condition damage by 20%
• elite is rite of the great dwarf, an aoe skill that makes 5 targets around you (and you included) made of stone for 50% reduced damage.

For more: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Legendary_Dwarf_Stance

It can sponge a ton of direct damage with some stability at high costs, and a subpar option for taunt. If you manage to get weakness and protection up in there you can sit idle for their durations and lose like 10% of your health at most, couple it with shield and you have the shield tank a lot of Rpers and tank players have been asking for, without even needing Thoughness gear.

I think we can assume that Jalis’ Inspiring Reinforcement will get updated and buffed, so I won’t mention it.

As it is for BWE3, Jalis offers:

• Good heal, which also removes conditions (important for Rev) and provides Retaliation (synergy in Retribution).

• Taunt on 35 Energy cost. Can be used to interrupt rezzes/stomps, but rather weak in 1v1 due to cast time, high energy cost (you have to save up for it).

• Hammers which will proc tons of various effects, reduce all damage and heal you, while mercilessly poking your foes.

• Elite which offers 50% damage reduction for 5 people with no cooldown (high energy cost tho), stacks with all other damage reducing effects.

BWE2 I often replaced Ventari with Jalis for support build, just because it has more utility and self-sustain. And Protection+Jalis Elite on first teamfight engagement pretty much wins fights for you. 1,5k backstabs.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

So, Rev is shaping up to be pretty awesome.

I’ve been lurking the forum, mostly because of the amazing communication between dev and players (also, hoping this communication doesn’t stop after HoT release!) as well ad the potential for a solid support revenant in PvP.

… But I can’t help but wonder, what does the Ironhammer stance do?

Is it support? Defense? Why ever take it over Ventari/Herald? Which would be the best for a pure support revenant?

Dwarf just like Centaur legend were built around Raid content for HoT, not vanilla GW2 which is why they stand out so much.

Dwarf is meant to provide groups controlled damage reduction in Raid coordination (something that isnt needed in Vanilla PvE)
while also providing a source for Aggro control for the Revenant in the PvE raids when taunt is needed.

Dwarf also provides group stability for group movement in dangerous Raid situations.

Everything about the Dwarf is around HoT content. Dont over think it too much. It sucks in Vanilla because it was never built for vanilla. Same with Centaur.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

So, Rev is shaping up to be pretty awesome.
Is it support? Defense? Why ever take it over Ventari/Herald? Which would be the best for a pure support revenant?

I played 80 ranked/unranked games with the Rev on BWE2 as a bunker support so I’ll take time to answer the question.

Everyone so far pretty much answered what Jalis can do, but honestly some skills need work.

Keep in mind you can still give perma protection and regen to your allies without going into Glint using the Herald trait that gives protection on heal and Dwyana Runes

Your Heal that you can spam in Ventari will heal you, and give perma regen and Protection (600 range) when you activate it, Regardless on where you move your tablet, which is very important because it takes away pressure from micro managing that thing. Also combine this with your elite specialization facet for more boons.

If you only wanted to give perma regen and protection to your allies you don’t need to take Glint. Take Glint if you want the strong heal, stunbreak and stealth reveal.

Vise Versa with Ventari as well, I dont think you should bring BOTH Ventari and Glint stances if you want to give protection and regen, because they both can do that.

If you want to be bunker I recommend using Mallyx over Jalis because you are tankier cause of the resistance to condis. You dont need the dmg mitigation Jalis has cause you already have a huge up time in protection. You can also take condis away from your team mates.

+ It costs huge amounts of energy to use the dmg reduction skills on Jalis while protection is practically free allowing you to use energy for other skills.

When you 1 v 2 people on point in Ranked Que, and one person is pure condi, Mallyx will make that person useless if they cant strip the resistance. So you could go Mallyx, give yourself 10+ seconds of resistance, switch to Ventari, and just out sustain the physical dps, allowing you to effectively 1 v 2. With the buff to crystal hibernation I wouldn’t be surprised if you could pull a 1 v 3.

Also the Heal in Mallyx (in settler gear haven’t tried it with other stats) is literally a full heal with a couple of condis on you. You will go from 1% to literally 100%.
—————————————————————————-

If you still want to take Jalis I then Highly recommend using staff for the extra condi clear.

Jalis is only really worth picking due the nice healing and the hammers. The other skills are pretty donkey.
Inspiring reinforcement got nerfed way too hard while it wasn’t even functioning properly. I’ll just copy the feedback I had on jalis bwe2:

• Inspiring Reinforcement, aka ‘’the road’‘, was decent, but I couldn’t believe what I saw in the BWE1 patch notes. While I found this skill was pretty terrible due the fact that it’s very slow with applying stability, it also made you very static that way. The only reason for using it was to stomp people. Now I do agree the duration of 6 seconds is a bit off the limit, while 1 second is just way too bad. My suggestion is to apply instant stability the moment you use the skill and have constant pulsing of short durations. Up the stability stacks to 3 seconds each instead of 1 and the skill should be good to go.

I have no comments on vengeful hammers as I like how it is currently

• Rite of the Great Dwarf: Honestly.. It’s just not that great. While -50% damage reduction is nice for your whole party, 5 seconds is just fairly short. Then again it’s also pretty easy to spot someone with the buff, the casting time is long and the stunbreak could probably be either transfered to ‘’the road’’ or ‘’the hammers’’ with such long casting time. Either make it a stun break and make it instant cast, or keep the 1.25 sec CS and add stability to the skill. This way revenant have some non-static way to apply stability, while sacrificing quite a lot energy for it. Obviously the stability should last around 5 seconds and apply at least 3-5 stacks.

I agree with BlackDevil. However dwarf rite is potentially op. If you have enough accumulated protection with Glint, plus Jalis 20% damage reduction upkeep, then you can reach almost 100% damage reduction under dwarf rite.
I still need to test it, because it’s strange that you get 0 damage. I don’t think it’s going to work this way.
It’s the first thing I’ll test in BW3.

Kidel.2057:

I agree with BlackDevil. However dwarf rite is potentially op. If you have enough accumulated protection with Glint, plus Jalis 20% damage reduction upkeep, then you can reach almost 100% damage reduction under dwarf rite.
I still need to test it, because it’s strange that you get 0 damage. I don’t think it’s going to work this way.
It’s the first thing I’ll test in BW3.

I think it’s a percentage of a percentage what you already have added on it. So for example if you would have 50% damage reduction you would have another 25% by RotGD adding up to 75%. Probably doesn’t work exactly like that but I think that’s more accurate than just simpily adding up numbers.

That’s a lot of work to put in for just a short duration of so much damage reduction. That, while you’re still vurnable to CC seems a bit over the top. Just look at endure pain. 0 Damage for about the same duration as you would have +/- 100% dmg reduction but with just 1 skill instead of… 3? And you will actually be able to do something during that period, it’s a stunbreaker and it’s instant cast. Getting the combo off you mentioned, takes either a CC on yourself or a legend swap, elite and utility skill. That’s at least 100 energy and +/- 2-2.5 seconds you would need to get around 5 seconds of nice damage reduction. That honestly doesn’t sound very exciting to me.

Kidel.2057:

I agree with BlackDevil. However dwarf rite is potentially op. If you have enough accumulated protection with Glint, plus Jalis 20% damage reduction upkeep, then you can reach almost 100% damage reduction under dwarf rite.
I still need to test it, because it’s strange that you get 0 damage. I don’t think it’s going to work this way.
It’s the first thing I’ll test in BW3.

Dont forget frost aura that’s another 10% though you wont be able to have all these things on you forever. The 5seconds you have rite of the Great D on could make a difference in the total outcome. Even though i’ll personally be using shiro/glint.

BlackDevil.9268:

Kidel.2057:

I agree with BlackDevil. However dwarf rite is potentially op. If you have enough accumulated protection with Glint, plus Jalis 20% damage reduction upkeep, then you can reach almost 100% damage reduction under dwarf rite.
I still need to test it, because it’s strange that you get 0 damage. I don’t think it’s going to work this way.
It’s the first thing I’ll test in BW3.

I think it’s a percentage of a percentage what you already have added on it. So for example if you would have 50% damage reduction you would have another 25% by RotGD adding up to 75%. Probably doesn’t work exactly like that but I think that’s more accurate than just simpily adding up numbers.

That’s a lot of work to put in for just a short duration of so much damage reduction. That, while you’re still vurnable to CC seems a bit over the top. Just look at endure pain. 0 Damage for about the same duration as you would have +/- 100% dmg reduction but with just 1 skill instead of… 3? And you will actually be able to do something during that period, it’s a stunbreaker and it’s instant cast. Getting the combo off you mentioned, takes either a CC on yourself or a legend swap, elite and utility skill. That’s at least 100 energy and +/- 2-2.5 seconds you would need to get around 5 seconds of nice damage reduction. That honestly doesn’t sound very exciting to me.

Uhm, may be.
100%-50% = 50%, 50%-33% = 33%, 33%-20% = 26.4% (even changing the order the result is the same), so a total of 73.6% damage reduction.
Without dwarf rite it’s only a 47% reduction, so even like that it’s pretty strong. Goes alone from 47% max reduction to 74%.
If you add frost aura then it’s 76%. Given that Revenant also has a lot of damage mitigation with healing on skill use, Regen and siphons, you basically take no damage for 5 seconds under Protection+dwarf rite. Add shield 5 and sword 3 and here you have 10+seconds of invuln.

The difference with endure pain is that dwarf rite is AOE. You give that huge defense bonus to the whole group. Imagine giving that bonus to a Guardian.

However I still want to test it.

It’s multiplicative. So, for instance, if you have hammers active with rite going, it is only 60% total, not 70. That is, you get 20 percent protection from the remaining damage after taking rite into account. I don’t think I tested it, but presume standard protection would work that way as well.