Guild Wars 2

So a Google search for ‘Revenant hammer pvp build’ or ‘Revenant Jalis pvp build’ turns up nothing other than outdated beta weekend stuff.

I’ve used a Jalis/Glint “bunker” build with some success in tiers up to sapphire. It does, however, lack some of the burst, and gap closing ability of Shiro. And using Jalis/Shiro never seems to have enough survivability. So much so, that the popular meta power build fails to ever even use to use it, despite it being our only real reliable condi clear. (The heal clears 3, and the elite can give you, if traited, 50% damage reduction. The hammers a further 20%.) Instead we go with invocation to drop 1 every few sec, and leadership runes, to drop 2 every 45 sec.

Yet, Mallyx/Jalis is unviable as a condi build. And Shiro/Jalis is unviable as power. Glint/Jalis isn’t bad, but looses a lot of damage output and utility.

I guess, what I want to know boils down to a few questions…

Is there a situation in SPvP, where you would use it?
If not, what makes it unviable?
Is it, ‘fine like it is, but not for SPvP’?
What could be changed about Jalis to make it more viable?

Has anyone had good luck using it?
If so, what build was it… and how did you apply it?

The problem about Jarlis is that it was supposed to feel tanky and brawly, but it simply isn’t.
I really can’t see myself using it in any situation. The heal cleanses you after the healing, so poison can affect it. The brick road is slow and clunky, and just not very effective because you will already have stab on dodge (I’m gonna suppose that you play Jarlis with retri) and just one stack for your allies is easy to break. The taunt is only useful in 1v1 and quite expensive. The hammers are super buggy and doesn’t deal enough damage to be a dangerous. The elite is great, but 50% of energy is too much for spvp.

I really don’t know how to change Jarlis to be more useful in spvp. Maybe the road being faster, more responsive and giving AoE protection? Or the hammers not being counted as projectiles, so they’re not destroyed/reflected. And fixing the heal cleanse.

On paper, with AoE stability, taunt and damage reductions, Jarlis was supposed o feel like a tank. But it just doesn’t. I only use it for frontline in WvW (where you can focus in only spam your elite and nothing else) and PvE raids.

Number of reasons for that:
1. Heal is too slow, its not a bad heal on paper because of how hard condi hurts rev but 1 sec cast time is too much, also the healing for a legend that is supposed to be a tank is too low
2. Brick road is ehh, doesnt really feel impactful
3. Taunting chain is pretty ok-ish in some situations, rare situations I should add.
4. Hammers, the biggest issue is that they are projectiles and they are buggy af (lovely dissapearing when hitting a wall), also the upkeep cost is pretty high. If they reduced the cost and changed it to a buff that pulses some damage every second, it would be pretty nice I think.
5. Elite is actually ok imo, it costs a lot but using it in a big team fights might change a lot of things.
I think it all comes down to simply Jalis being too situational while glint/shiro work in every scenario and ofc Jalis should feel tanky but you can survive way more thanks to the dodges from shiro or full hp heal from glint.

The problem with Jalis is that, with the exception of chains, none of the abilities are really impactful in a sPvP situation. Stability/Weakness from the Dwarven Road are both easily obtained elsewhere. Hammers is a waste of energy and more of a liability than a boost due to reflects/the on-block traits of other professions. Cleanse on heal is nice, but not a reason to take Jalis—if conditions are giving you trouble you can just take Mallyx and be done with it. And Rite of the Great Dwarf is tempting, but not super great… Most teams will be focus firing, so the group effect is wasted, and you’re still open to condition bombs. It’s only really dominating if you take Retribution for the condi-reduction, but if you take retribution, you gain traited Rite and access to Stability, so you don’t really need to take Jalis in the first place.

A few thoughts on fixing it to be more useful in SPvP

My question here is, would these changes break Jalis is PvE, or WvW?

Heal- reduce cast time by 33%, cleanse condis during cast in three very fast pulses, allowing counterplay. If it was interrupted on the 2nd pulse, you would still clear 2 condis, but miss out on the 3rd, and the heal.

Road- AoE places faster, it should expand to its full length 33% faster. Apply 2 stacks of stab per pulse, and destroy projectiles. Reduce energy cost by 5.
(Also, pulsing protection, as one of the previous posters mentioned may be the better approach than projectile destruction.)

Hammers- increase the self healing component. Rather than being projectiles, make the effect pulsing, and unblockable. Also, when ending the hammer effect, they should fly out from you as projectiles, dealing a 1sec slow to enemies and a 2sec protection to allies they strike each bouncing once

Chain- reduce the energy cost by 5. Using this move in PvP tends to kill your energy, and takes away your other resources…

Elite- Reduce energy cost to 30, remove area affect unless cast on the road. Increase self duration to 8sec. If cast on the road, AoE for 5 sec.

I don’t think these proposed changes are too strong. But what do you folks think?

In my experience Jallis is designed as a camp legend,where the utilities are not as strong/usefull as weapon skills if your energy level is at 50 or bellow and therefore you need to stay in Jallis so that you can spam any road,elite and in certain situations the hammer….from my perspective Jallis main combo takes place at 80 energy and is road into elite.

For sPvP I found Jallis very usefull in securing takedowns and scaning for stealth players, but I rarely got to use the chains as a interupt, the self heals were overall average, but having Jallis at 60 in sPvP was pretty bad.

Bottom line: Jallis is a situational legend which is built around the notion that Revenants want to conserve energy within one stance.
Personaly I find it hard to find fault within Jallis stance as I feel that the problem with Revenant is that all 4 core legends are designed to be camped to a certain extent (Malyx with demonic defiance at probably 65 for 3x banish enchantment + random weapon skills, Shiro at 70 for double PT or 65 for single use PT+whatever, Jallis at 80 for various combos with the utilities, and Ventari is somewhere between 70 and 100, the more energy the more heals).

I don’t know if it was designed to be camped, as camping a single legend is super counter productive, because you can have twice as much energy per second if you swap on cooldown. But I see the reasons to think that and in both ways it also shows how it doesn’ work.

Something else that someone else briefly mentioned is that there’s even fewer reasons to take Jarlis when you have the retribution traitline, that already gives you stability, taunt and damage reductions passively. Both the Retribution traitline and Jarlis legend were supposed to make you feel tankier. But one of them does it passivelly without effort and acomplishes it, while the other doesn’t acomplishes it, while needing active input and spending energy.

I can see how Jarlis spread what Retribution does not only to yourself but also to your allies, but Jarlis not only feels bad but also redundant if you take Retribution too.

I just made some random combinations of utilities and weapon skills from all core legends including Jalis and saw that most of combinations leave either exaust your energy instantly or leave you with too few to do anything.

Here is a list of said combinations using Jallis
inspiring reinforcement (road) + elite = 80 energy
forced engagement + staff 5 = 50 energy
forced engagement + axe 4 + sword 3 = 60 energy
hammer 4 + jallis elite = 60 energy

The combinations become more situational and less impactfull the less energy you use…at least in my opinion.

Pre PT nerf Shiro could make lenghtier combos of utilities and weapon skills compared to Ventari, Malyx and Jallis.

Jack Skywalker.5674:

I just made some random combinations of utilities and weapon skills from all core legends including Jalis and saw that most of combinations leave either exaust your energy instantly or leave you with too few to do anything.

Here is a list of said combinations using Jallis
inspiring reinforcement (road) + elite = 80 energy
forced engagement + staff 5 = 50 energy
forced engagement + axe 4 + sword 3 = 60 energy
hammer 4 + jallis elite = 60 energy

The combinations become more situational and less impactfull the less energy you use…at least in my opinion.

Pre PT nerf Shiro could make lenghtier combos of utilities and weapon skills compared to Ventari, Malyx and Jallis.

I mean how is this all unique to the dwarf? Shiro has pretty much the same costs.

@OP While I’m nothing exceptional, I’ve been really enjoying Glint/Dwarf.

Forced Engagement especially is one of my favorite abilities with only kitten CD it’s easily chained with Hammer Stun or Staff #5.

The Taunt is just a great interrupt and at a 1,200 range you can stop stomps, stop runners, etc. Anything really, spell is versatile.

I run invocation/herald/retribution, marauder + leadership runes. Between Dwarf Heal, Staff #4, leadership rune set and cleansing channel Conditions aren’t an issue.

Hammer with 40% extra crit during Fury does pretty hefty damage too.

Anyway for casual SPvP this is my go to build, I just came back from a year+ break and I can hold down and assault points easily and I still have great sustain. No complaints so far