Guild Wars 2

I really like the GW2 combat and trait system (to the point it’s quite the only thing that keeps me playing the game even after trying other games), however active combat makes purely focused roles way less needed since you have access to both active and passive defenses and damage modifiers/output. Which means things passive heals tend stronger than active heals in long fights and also because you can block/blind/dodge and reduce directly the damage from heavy attacks you just need to know the skill animations, the best way to build around PvE is by maximizing your possible damage output while still bringing support to the party, with damage modifiers either vs enemies (might+vuln+condition stacks, which at a threshold do enough damage without having condition based gear) or by mitigating damage (weakness, aegis, blind, protection, regeneration), to make a full support build you would need to do alone the mitigating damage job alone, and still having a way to add or compensate for the lack of personal damage i.e. sacrificing all of your dps but still be able to make the party not lose the value of a 5th member doing damage.

Thanks to the community we know that Glint will probably be signets (if Roy hasn’t changed his mind) according to datamines, so unless the passives are solid and super strong and the actives either OP or the signets are in a relatively low CD I don’t think it’ll do much… mainly because most signets just affect yourself and not the party.

Legendary Assasin Stance/Devastation Traitline: The ferocity trait is roughly 7% DPS party wide and since it boosts critical damage you need party wide fury and you don’t have access to it, the utilities in the stance are selfish buffs and I see their use in WvW roaming and as a PvP Side node attacker, unless Jade Winds it’s like Deep Freeze and can interrupt important attacks it’s weaker than snare options that can be brought by other classes because of the delay in cast time, Impossible Odds is great for 1v1, but has no use in PvE asides boosting your own dps at a high energy cost (since Chronomancer will have acces to party wide quickness), there’s not much place for Phase Traversal asides WvW roaming and PvP because unblockable isn’t a mechanic currently needed in PvE and the same could be done for Riposting Shadows it’s only use is in fights like Lupicus phase 2 and 3 and that’s the most useful situations you’ll find yourself using it, the devastation line is just good for personal DPS and outside of the party wide ferocity trait it brings nothing but compensating for the lack of damage modifiers in weapons and the other stances, also the daggers from the heal have a 1 second interval in between them, which forces you to use the heal above 50% or you’ll probably end up dead if the enemy blocks/blinds you.

Retribution/Legendary Dwarf: Centered around the “tank”/payback feel I feel it needs more active damage mitigation/punishing mechanics. Spammable stability isn’t enough to say it has enough party support on Jalis, as forced engagement taunts 1 target which shuts it down for a while which is nice, what bugs me is that it grants no party wide benefits aside Stability and the invulnerability from Rite of the Great Dwarf which like Jade Winds has a predictable animation and long cast time and thus makes it suceptible to interrupt easily, Vengeful Hammers do no damage whatsoever and I don’t see the point in using them as the accompanying weapon for the traits is long range, yes they want the feel of making the enemies not wanting to hit you but then it either needs insane damage or an effect that is punishing enough, for me Jalis needs acces to protection instead of reataliation, and retaliation uptime IMO is low and you don’t even notice the procs that give retal or increase damage while you have it up.

Legendary Centaur/Salvation: like Jalis, good but lacks something, the trait line is a lot of healing power buffing that could be compressed into 1-2 traits, it needs to give some buffs to be more solid IMO, the whole tablet following you is not needed unless there’s some kind of content that needs that but it just feels like depending on it moving aorund renders you to be ineffective because even if you’re good at positioning if your party misses the animations (which will happen most of the times) your healing uptime will be lower, Protective Solace will never be stronger than Feedback or Wall of Reflection simply because it destroys projectiles and doesn’t reflect which is an effective DPS increase for the party, even Black Powder is stronger because you can blast it for blinds to achieve a similar effect you would have to burn all your energy and trait for blind on heals, purifying essence is 35 energy and removes 3 conditions only meaning that to remove spammed conditions from your party you would need to use half of your energy so you’re choked in high pressure situations whereas a water ele can usea cleansing wave and mitigate damage with party wide regen while still being able to obtain other passive protections and more regen, Natural Harmony and the Elite are the best skills, but they’re not cost effective unless you need burst healing, again no party wide boon support asides regen (and only if traited), some acces to aegis, protection or resistance would be nice.

Legendary Demon/Corruption: Mallyx has low condition output and to me the whole theme isn’t about spamming conditions but rather manipulating and sucking them to you and then transfering them which seems interesting, the problem is the mechanic relies on the resistance while using demon stance trait and the elite to manage the conditions, and it has no condition damage modifiers on the trait lines so it relies on condition damage food/gear in PvE, WvW for damage so it either leaves you with Shiro/Jalis as a secondary option which pigeonholes you to either Sinister or Carrion, or an Awkward stat combination Apostate, which currently isn’t availeable in PvP. Special note to people that think that Mace/Axe is tied to Mallyx: there’s no traits in corruption tied to any of the weapons.

The Weaponskills need some checks to damage and added effects:

Hammer: damage output is too weak for the attack speed of the weapon, otherwise it’s ok, I guess it’s asking too much that Field of the Mists reflected projectiles, feels kind of clunky to use a ranged weapon with a traitline that mitigates damage in close range though.

Staff I think that Punishing Sweep+Debilitating Slam is too much energy cost vs effective weakness uptime/utility, let alone damage, other skill effects are a nice bonus, surge of the mists could give you swiftness because asides blasting Inspired Reinforcement Rev has no acces to swiftness (which in PvP/WvW/Trash mob runs or open map content is direly needed).

Sword as mainhand has great attack speed, but it’s damage is rather lower than I expected (as all the other weapons) and most of it comes from getting the attack speed modifiers and procs from the ferocity traits (low base damage-high critical damage), also the only cleave it has it’s on AA 3rd hit and it just hits 3 targets (thus making revenant the only class with no cleave on AA chains, asides hitting lined up foes and not with all of the attacks), chill on Precision Strike seems rather offplace since you already have enough mobility to stick to your foes and already have taunt for skill shutdown in another stance, and also have a chill on crit with corruption, unrelenting assault should make you invulnerable while the animation has turned you into mist, or atleast make it a single target attack, no point in spreading out the damage in between foes (yeah it looks cool and all but it overall reduces the damage output), it seems that duelists preparation roots you in place which makes you predictable and makes the block feel rather awkward as most blocks allow you to move and also contradicts the whole sword=high mobility playstyle, grasping shadow seems solid excepting for PvE content unless you could pull the bosses to your party (however the range is quite short for that).

Mace is good, however I’d rather Have Searing fissure put 2 seconds of burning and the fire field last 5 seconds, again Mallyx (and overal, revenant) needs the extra damage from might and it’s one of the few ways to give party wide support.

Axe is Good too but itit’s your only reliable source of AoE damage, I feel it needs the CD’s reduced and/or the energy costs lowered.

TL;DR/final notes The problem that I see at the moment is that the Revenant currently does nothing better or even in par than any other of the classes except maybe for burst healing, in dire or difficult situations you find yourself in a drought of energy i.e. in a 2v2 (PvP/WvW) heavy condition pressure will starve you on energy and you’ll go down fast even when using both heals and Jalis/Ventari, burst healing at the moment at least really isn’t needed in any game mode excepting maybe WvW and some situations in PvP, it’s DPS is lower/on pair with the Necro, other classes are in between 12kish to 19kish which isn’t a problem asides PvE, yet I felt the lack of damage in every game mode in the last beta, it has no access to cleave unless you use certain attacks of certain weapons and the cleave is just applied to lined up foes, the profession is quite selfish in the sense that it gives almost no boon support to the party in fact it felt like you relied on your party to carry you around with the ocassional massive heal from your part, finally I feel you find yourself using stances for having acces 2 heals, 2 utilities (from each stance) and maybe an elite that might not always be useful.

Playable? Yes, but I don’t expect to be any more welcome than the underdogs, and if it still is in the same state that it was in the previous beta, it worries me that it struggles to even hold itself 1v1 in PvP which kind of could be solved by getting the damage output up.

Roy has done a really great work in designing the class and adressing feedback, outside of a couple traits and Salvation focusing too redudantly on healing traits are almost flawless for each of the roles they’re meant to be used in, the animations are top notch and it has a ton of potential and room for improving, I’m looking forward to see future changes and to test the revenant in future iterations of the profession.

How can you judge stuff that you haven’t tried? And Devastation is not just 7% damage, but also vulnerability and 300 ferocity. That line alone is a 40% damage boost, not to mention Sword attacks and Impossible Odds.

Mallyx doesn’t transfer any condition. Only copy and for a limited time.
Even worse then you described, and currently has a big flaw with conditions that stack in duration (you can stack a lot of cripple and not enough Resistance to make up for it).

Also you should really check the thread with the upcoming chanfes. Many of your critics have already been addressed (like hammer damage)