Guild Wars 2

Too busy playing other games and school to test this out right now, please explain responses.

nearlight.3064:

Too busy playing other games and school to test this out right now, please explain responses.

No.

Sustain and healing is still lacking.

No, it’s not. It’s hillarious decapper though and could maybe hold points.

EDIT: So far, I’ve had best success with this build: .

Make no mistake, this is not nearly as powerful as Power Revenant or Condi Rev, but does the best of all post-patch Ventari builds I’ve tested today and is at least something refreshing. It’s certainly not ESL competitive, but gameplay is fun and there are many little cool things you can do with it. Heals are decent and damage isn’t terrible due to semi-offensive amulet. Addition of mandatory PvP Legend – Shiro – gives it some decent mobility and stun break.

I guess Devastation could be better than Salvation for personal sustain and damage, since Salvation is pile of kitten in general, but I kinda like the regeneration/blind and I enjoy picking up healing roots if the RNGesus is merciful and they spawn within reach.

Rym.1469:

No, it’s not. It’s hillarious decapper though and could maybe hold points.

EDIT: So far, I’ve had best success with this build: .

Make no mistake, this is not nearly as powerful as Power Revenant or Condi Rev, but does the best of all post-patch Ventari builds I’ve tested today and is at least something refreshing. It’s certainly not ESL competitive, but gameplay is fun and there are many little cool things you can do with it. Heals are decent and damage isn’t terrible due to semi-offensive amulet. Addition of mandatory PvP Legend – Shiro – gives it some decent mobility and stun break.

I guess Devastation could be better than Salvation for personal sustain and damage, since Salvation is pile of kitten in general, but I kinda like the regeneration/blind and I enjoy picking up healing roots if the RNGesus is merciful and they spawn within reach.

Looks interesting, thanks!

In general, I could give four bullet points explaining four main reasons why you don’t see any Ventari Revenants:

• 1. Druid exists. And it’s not burst healer – it’s burst and sustain healer. It not only brings heals, but also unique damage buffs, most importantly Grace of the Land. If Celestial Avatar went to 15-20s CD, problem would be fixed, but that would require lowering powercreep.

• 2. Ventari has no real defensive ability to prevent focus or lower damage it takes for some period of time. Now you can at least knockback foes with #0, but it doesn’t help much.
  To improve Ventari here, Protective Solace should do something more than just block projectiles – it should be something Ventari Revenant could use to lower the pressure.

• 3. Ventari has no stunbreak. Stunbreak on Purifying Essence or Elite would fix the problem.

• 4. Salvation specialization is outdated, but most importantly, doesn’t synergize enough with concepts behind Ventari. Legend has been tuned to have it’s healing output based on very high +% outgoing healing bonuses, but Salvation doesn’t give enough +% baseline. Almost all bonuses like these require specific gear, traits that restrict more valuable utility choices in same tiers (condition cleanse for example).

• How to combat this?: Salvation Grandmaster minor increasing outgoing healing % by 15% (same as Tempest and less than Druid which weren’t balanced as much around this and have stronger base heals) should probably be bumped to 30-50%, so any Ventari Revenant picking up Salvation can play Legend as it was meant to be played.

These would be my top 4 reasons.

Imo they killed ventari with the raised cooldown of 4 instead of 2 seconds, which was the only point that made him viable. Nothing improved except a little more healing on one skill. Those no more small delays are nothing. And their goal for this quartely update was to improve ventari. Great way to waste a quarter year.

I played around with Ventari a bit last night. I did decently well, but I definitely felt like I was working way harder than my opponents to get half the results.

I agree with Rym’s assessment. I don’t even use Salvation in my Ventari build because the self sustain is more important to me than outgoing healing to other people. You can’t heal anyone if you’re dead, and since having Ventari active dramatically lowers your defensive options you need every little bit of self sustain you can get.

Ventari needs something to keep enemies off you. An idea I think would be fitting is if moving the tablet with Protective Solace active had a knockback effect if it passes through an enemy. Being able to shove enemies around with a giant energy barrier would go a long way to stopping pain trains from focusing you while still not being entirely spammable because of the high cost of maintaining Protective Solace and the natural cooldown on moving the tablet.

I think Rym’s summed it up well.

Just to add from my experience testing:

- You can’t switch out of Ventari in teamfights, making you have to manage your Mist Power beyond what is possible. The fact you have no kill pressure anyway basically means you are doing this job less well than either Druid or Tempest. (Plus the range on the Tablet is PATHETIC – you can’t play the build on Foefire at all). So either the mist costs for Ventari need to come down or we’ll have to wait for changes to Jalis(?) perhaps.

- You are locked into taking Retribution for the stab and herald for the double stab and prot on heal. What you need is Assassin’s Annihilation but instead you’re offered the terrible Steadfast Rejuvenation (got to be up there as one of the worst Rev Grandmasters).

- Sure you can decap, but you are essentially waiting for your team to win somewhere else and +1 you or you’re waiting for the enemy to do it to you. So you can’t even think of yourself as bunker/bruiser – so what are you actually bringing?

- Glyphs druid and D/F ele do your job better than you so you’d be better off bringing what Rev is actually good at.

Suggestions:

- Increase tablet radius to 300.

- Shave some Mist Power cost from Ventari (5-10 on utilities – heal cost and elite are fine).

- Re-work Protective Solace, -5 not -8, have it break stun on you and allies on re-pop. Give some sort of active mitigation trait – e.g ‘Sanctuary’ – When Protective Solace ends, Allies are granted Aegis and enemies are blinded (in place of Tranquil Benediction).

- Make Eluding Nullification a Minor (in place of Disarming Riposte).

- Change Natural Abundance to something like – ‘Primal Energy’, create energy fragments when you cast Ventari skills (same as before), should an enemy step on a fragment, it heals you for half of its potential and damages your enemy for the other half. Basically, you need to give Ventari Revenants a way to become a bruiser so you give support Rev more comp scope.

Offer some off-Ventari options. Jalis should be next in line to receive changes.

- Change ‘Versed in Stone’, give Jalis elite baseline -25% condi duration – instead offer ‘Final Stand’ – Vengeful Hammers costs -5 and grants 1s of fury to all allies in range every 3s, Forced Engagement is 120 AoE (but taunt is halved) and Inspiring Reinforcement also grants 1s of Ret per pulse.

- Roll Steadfast Rejuvenation into Improved Aggression – combine both aspects but add taunted foes heal you on all their hits.

Whatever happens, there need to be several linked-in changes to offer something that will make Revs consider playing anything either Ventari or Jalis. Plenty of Flavour but zero actual role or impact.

If anyone is interested, there’s short VoD from my today’s Ventari Revenant stream in Unranked PvP:

https://www.twitch.tv/rym69/v/62150062

It is obviously Unranked so quality of matches is questionable and as I said above, it is obvious that Ventari is not worth playing over other Revenant builds or other supports, but if someone, like OP, is wondering how’s Ventari doing, there you go.

Build

Rym.1469:

In general, I could give four bullet points explaining four main reasons why you don’t see any Ventari Revenants:

• 1. Druid exists. And it’s not burst healer – it’s burst and sustain healer. It not only brings heals, but also unique damage buffs, most importantly Grace of the Land. If Celestial Avatar went to 15-20s CD, problem would be fixed, but that would require lowering powercreep.

• 2. Ventari has no real defensive ability to prevent focus or lower damage it takes for some period of time. Now you can at least knockback foes with #0, but it doesn’t help much.
  To improve Ventari here, Protective Solace should do something more than just block projectiles – it should be something Ventari Revenant could use to lower the pressure.

• 3. Ventari has no stunbreak. Stunbreak on Purifying Essence or Elite would fix the problem.

• 4. Salvation specialization is outdated, but most importantly, doesn’t synergize enough with concepts behind Ventari. Legend has been tuned to have it’s healing output based on very high +% outgoing healing bonuses, but Salvation doesn’t give enough +% baseline. Almost all bonuses like these require specific gear, traits that restrict more valuable utility choices in same tiers (condition cleanse for example).

• How to combat this?: Salvation Grandmaster minor increasing outgoing healing % by 15% (same as Tempest and less than Druid which weren’t balanced as much around this and have stronger base heals) should probably be bumped to 30-50%, so any Ventari Revenant picking up Salvation can play Legend as it was meant to be played.

These would be my top 4 reasons.

While those are your top 4, I’d add in that one of the biggest probable reasons is the tablet micromanagement needed to play Ventari. I hear this, and I include myself in it, as one of the most common reasons.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Rym.1469:

In general, I could give four bullet points explaining four main reasons why you don’t see any Ventari Revenants:

• 1. Druid exists. And it’s not burst healer – it’s burst and sustain healer. It not only brings heals, but also unique damage buffs, most importantly Grace of the Land. If Celestial Avatar went to 15-20s CD, problem would be fixed, but that would require lowering powercreep.

• 2. Ventari has no real defensive ability to prevent focus or lower damage it takes for some period of time. Now you can at least knockback foes with #0, but it doesn’t help much.
  To improve Ventari here, Protective Solace should do something more than just block projectiles – it should be something Ventari Revenant could use to lower the pressure.

• 3. Ventari has no stunbreak. Stunbreak on Purifying Essence or Elite would fix the problem.

• 4. Salvation specialization is outdated, but most importantly, doesn’t synergize enough with concepts behind Ventari. Legend has been tuned to have it’s healing output based on very high +% outgoing healing bonuses, but Salvation doesn’t give enough +% baseline. Almost all bonuses like these require specific gear, traits that restrict more valuable utility choices in same tiers (condition cleanse for example).

• How to combat this?: Salvation Grandmaster minor increasing outgoing healing % by 15% (same as Tempest and less than Druid which weren’t balanced as much around this and have stronger base heals) should probably be bumped to 30-50%, so any Ventari Revenant picking up Salvation can play Legend as it was meant to be played.

These would be my top 4 reasons.

While those are your top 4, I’d add in that one of the biggest probable reasons is the tablet micromanagement needed to play Ventari. I hear this, and I include myself in it, as one of the most common reasons.

While it can be another reason, I think rather than concept of Tablet micromanagement being bad, the issue lies within small things, like a tad too small radius (240 instead of 300), #6 having shorter range than Tablet’s leash range, it being too slow sometimes. Honestly, recent patch showed that small changes to Ventari can improve it’s gameplay – you can easily see the difference if you played it before.

Next small changes like making Tablet healing more obvious to allies (green “+” above fragments for example) could surely make it even more intuitive for both Revenant and allies.

I see and understand that not everyone might be sold on Tablet micromanaging, collecting shards/fragments to heal, but after playing it for a bit you can get use to it and I like the concept. It’s a unique playstyle, something that requires more thought and feels more fun than nearly every other support in this game which is basically mindless shout spam. It certainly has it’s flavour and I’d prefer for Ventari to stay.

To me, Ventari Revenant as a concept is basically the healthy design GW2 should have more of.

Rym.1469:

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Rym.1469:

In general, I could give four bullet points explaining four main reasons why you don’t see any Ventari Revenants:

• 1. Druid exists. And it’s not burst healer – it’s burst and sustain healer. It not only brings heals, but also unique damage buffs, most importantly Grace of the Land. If Celestial Avatar went to 15-20s CD, problem would be fixed, but that would require lowering powercreep.

• 2. Ventari has no real defensive ability to prevent focus or lower damage it takes for some period of time. Now you can at least knockback foes with #0, but it doesn’t help much.
  To improve Ventari here, Protective Solace should do something more than just block projectiles – it should be something Ventari Revenant could use to lower the pressure.

• 3. Ventari has no stunbreak. Stunbreak on Purifying Essence or Elite would fix the problem.

• 4. Salvation specialization is outdated, but most importantly, doesn’t synergize enough with concepts behind Ventari. Legend has been tuned to have it’s healing output based on very high +% outgoing healing bonuses, but Salvation doesn’t give enough +% baseline. Almost all bonuses like these require specific gear, traits that restrict more valuable utility choices in same tiers (condition cleanse for example).

• How to combat this?: Salvation Grandmaster minor increasing outgoing healing % by 15% (same as Tempest and less than Druid which weren’t balanced as much around this and have stronger base heals) should probably be bumped to 30-50%, so any Ventari Revenant picking up Salvation can play Legend as it was meant to be played.

These would be my top 4 reasons.

While those are your top 4, I’d add in that one of the biggest probable reasons is the tablet micromanagement needed to play Ventari. I hear this, and I include myself in it, as one of the most common reasons.

While it can be another reason, I think rather than concept of Tablet micromanagement being bad, the issue lies within small things, like a tad too small radius (240 instead of 300), #6 having shorter range than Tablet’s leash range, it being too slow sometimes. Honestly, recent patch showed that small changes to Ventari can improve it’s gameplay – you can easily see the difference if you played it before.

Next small changes like making Tablet healing more obvious to allies (green “+” above fragments for example) could surely make it even more intuitive for both Revenant and allies.

I see and understand that not everyone might be sold on Tablet micromanaging, collecting shards/fragments to heal, but after playing it for a bit you can get use to it and I like the concept. It’s a unique playstyle, something that requires more thought and feels more fun than nearly every other support in this game which is basically mindless shout spam. It certainly has it’s flavour and I’d prefer for Ventari to stay.

To me, Ventari Revenant as a concept is basically the healthy design GW2 should have more of.

And I see myself agreeing with you again.

Still, most people don’t use Ventari because of the micromanagement, like it or not. It has nothing to do with small changes. It’s the entire mechanic people don’t like.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Still, most people don’t use Ventari because of the micromanagement, like it or not. It has nothing to do with small changes. It’s the entire mechanic people don’t like.

There are two working healers for those…

You’re not forced into something you don’t like, though. If you don’t like complexity or more micromanagement, you can always run Tempest for example.

Maybe I worded my “4 reasons” not clear enough – what I meant was to list main reasons why people who would like to play the Legend don’t do it. There’s no point in including “I don’t like the gameplay” among those reasons, imo.

Not everything has to appeal to everyone. If it was to be like that, there would be nothing unique.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Still, most people don’t use Ventari because of the micromanagement, like it or not. It has nothing to do with small changes. It’s the entire mechanic people don’t like.

True that. For that sole reason ill never touch ventari (+my selfish nature.)

Its unique mechanic, no doubt but at same time its not something that will work well.. The tryhard with some of the stuff is real just to make rev look unique.

Rym.1469:

You’re not forced into something you don’t like, though. If you don’t like complexity or more micromanagement, you can always run Tempest for example.

Maybe I worded my “4 reasons” not clear enough – what I meant was to list main reasons why people who would like to play the Legend don’t do it. There’s no point in including “I don’t like the gameplay” among those reasons, imo.

Not everything has to appeal to everyone. If it was to be like that, there would be nothing unique.

And again, I’m just stating the reason I always hear why people don’t like Ventari. I can name only 2 people who use Ventari in WvW of a T1 server, and I’m one of those. Like me, the other guy only runs it once in a blue moon.

In this case, I think the Legend has a problem, especially if there’s only like 1 or 2 out of 100 using it.

For me it isn’t the micromanagement that is a problem. I actually LIKE having a lot of things to worry about. I enjoy micromanaging my ranger pet and I enjoy the more intricate stance dancing of my elementalist. On my necro I enjoy managing my minion skills to chain control people.

The tablet isn’t any harder to work with than these once you get use to it. The problem is the reward for mastering this level of complexity isn’t nearly as high as it is for the others. You do more work to get less reward.

They just need to make the tablet have a bigger impact on the battle to make it worth using.

Ehecatl.9172:

For me it isn’t the micromanagement that is a problem. I actually LIKE having a lot of things to worry about. I enjoy micromanaging my ranger pet and I enjoy the more intricate stance dancing of my elementalist. On my necro I enjoy managing my minion skills to chain control people.

The tablet isn’t any harder to work with than these once you get use to it. The problem is the reward for mastering this level of complexity isn’t nearly as high as it is for the others. You do more work to get less reward.

They just need to make the tablet have a bigger impact on the battle to make it worth using.

Exactly.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Rym.1469:

You’re not forced into something you don’t like, though. If you don’t like complexity or more micromanagement, you can always run Tempest for example.

Maybe I worded my “4 reasons” not clear enough – what I meant was to list main reasons why people who would like to play the Legend don’t do it. There’s no point in including “I don’t like the gameplay” among those reasons, imo.

Not everything has to appeal to everyone. If it was to be like that, there would be nothing unique.

And again, I’m just stating the reason I always hear why people don’t like Ventari. I can name only 2 people who use Ventari in WvW of a T1 server, and I’m one of those. Like me, the other guy only runs it once in a blue moon.

In this case, I think the Legend has a problem, especially if there’s only like 1 or 2 out of 100 using it.

Well I’ve seen one other Ventari user in my WvW server. And the problem is there isn’t enough reward for the extra work.