Guild Wars 2

After getting a little bit of time to play around with the new Revenant changes, I wanted to document my thoughts here. Note that I will discuss the changes from a PvP and WvW perspective – I do not play enough endgame PvE to give valuable commentary on it. Overall, my impression of these changes is favorable. Condition damage of the Revenant has been increased substantially. Attacks that were ignored by other players (like Echoing Eruption and Unyielding Anguish) are now taken seriously, and this is a good thing. Some of Rev’s weaknesses in condition builds (e.g. easily kited, susceptibility to focus fire) still exist, but with increased damage you can build around them a bit more. Overall I think the changes may have done a lot to make condi Rev more viable without making it OP, though a few of the redesigns are unusual and perhaps a step backwards.

Weapon Skills

Mace auto-attack: The condition damage of all sequences of the mace auto-attack have been increased. This is a good change, since the auto-attack was previously a bit weak.

Echoing Eruption: The damage of Echoing Eruption has been increased A LOT. I am okay with this. It’s kind of hard to hit, and the condition is long-lasting (10-20 seconds depending on expertise) which renders it vulnerable to cleansing. The change to the targeting method does make it a little harder to hit, and I’m not sure why it was changed. I view this skill as being similar now to Warrior’s Eviscerate. It should be hard to hit, enemies should be able to see it coming, and if you do hit, you are rewarded generously. Finally, increasing the damage on the mace main hand weapon skills permits more freedom to choose an offhand weapon. Previously the bulk of condi damage you could deal was on Axe #5, meaning that you would always use Mace/Axe. Now that Mace#3 potentially out-damages Axe#5, you have more freedom to pick other offhand weapons without losing as much damage.

Frigid Blitz: Revenant was originally supposed to be all about short weapon cooldowns, and this is the first time in a while that a weapon skill cooldown has been decreased rather than increased. I applaud this change. They also added a slow effect, which provides great utility as well.

Temporal Rift: This now applies confusion when it interrupts. I am not sure this change was needed. Temporal Rift was already a good CC skill and did decent (condi) damage. As I said above, moving most of the condi damage from Mace/X onto the Mace is a good move IMO, so boosting Temporal Rift’s damage runs counter to that idea. The delay on the rift is also too long to really use it as an intentional interrupt, so triggering the extra damage is more RNG than skill-based.

Invocation Traits

Ferocious Aggression: This now increases condition damage and direct damage when you have fury. This is a good change. Invocation should not be just about direct damage, since it’s a sort of utility specialization that should be able to fit within any type of build. Critical chance already benefits condi damage through the first Corruption minor trait (torment on crit), so adding condi damage when you have fury here makes sense.

Incensed Response: This now grants might when you get fury. The previous version of this trait was very situational, now it might be more universally applicable. Still, it’s strong with Glint and a mediocre without, which does limit it a bit. I’m not sure this change is better or worse than the previous version.

Fierce Infusion: The icd and fury duration granted by this trait have been reduced. I have no problem with this change.

Rapid Flow: This now gives swiftness when it triggers. This is a pretty significant change that I’m surprised that no one has mentioned on the forums. Rev now has access to a permanent runspeed boost outside of Glint! Yes, this trait triggers while out of combat.Yes, it’s a little clunky to use, since you need to refresh it every 5 seconds. In the future it could perhaps be revised, just as Engineer’s Speedy Kits trait was historically, to have a longer duration and cooldown to improve QoL. I would recommend changing Rapid Flow to: When you use a skill that costs energy, you gain swiftness (20s) and Regeneration (8s). ICD = 20 seconds. But overall, this is a great addition that has been overlooked.

Corruption Traits

Venom Enhancement: The icd on this skill was reduced from 20 seconds to 10. This is a good change. Demonic Defiance is a really strong option, and Venom Enhancement now provides a little bit more difficulty in deciding between sustain (Demonic Defiance) and damage (Venom Enhancement).

Opportune Extraction: This trait has been nerfed in that now your target needs to have 4 stacks of torment to remove a boon. However now the boon is stolen rather than removed. I’m not sure why this change was made. Each specialization should be useful within some variety of builds. Now that torment is required to trigger opportune extraction, the Corruption specialization is pretty much saying “only use this specialization in Mace/X condi damage builds, and use it in every Mace/X condi build.” Does Corruption really need to be that specialized?

Yearning Empowerment: This now increases torment damage by 20% but only increases duration by 20% instead of 33%. This is a good change, IMO, since individual torment ticks were often somewhat weak. It is a little harder now to reach the 100% duration cap though.

Abyssal Chill: This is a great change. The original trait (Frigid Precision) was very weak and flavorless. Abyssal Chill opens up specific synergies that didn’t exist before, adding lots of condi damage to Unyielding Anguish and Precision Strike, and increasing the value of chill-based rune sets. I’ve heard that players now actively try not to stand in Rev’s “purple pizza”, and this is a good thing. One difficulty is that Unyielding Anguish and Embrace the Darkness before the patch were pretty similar in effect and energy cost. With the addition of Abyssal Chill, however, Unyielding Anguish completely overshadows Embrace the Darkness to the extent that it’s now pretty much useless to ever use the Mallyx elite (outside of triggering Diabolic Inferno). I would like to see Embrace the Darkness changed to have a more utility-based effect (e.g. pulsing condi copy to enemies) so that it can still be useful. Buffing its damage to keep up with Unyielding Anguish would be too much power creep and wouldn’t solve the problem of both skills filling the same role.

Maniacal Persistence: This is a weird change. This skill now triggers a Maniacal Pulse that torments enemies around you when you gain resistance. It also applies self-torment. Firstly, this trait competes with Diabolic Inferno, and both are point blank AoE condition damage dealers, so in that regard this seems redundant. Secondly, this can mostly just trigger from Mallyx skills (and only from Pain Absorption if you don’t take Demonic Defiance). Banish Enchantment is a 600 range boon removal that you will often be out Maniacal Pulse range of your target when using. Pain Absorption and Empowering Misery are used defensively, so you also may not be in range of a desired target when using them. It seems optimally designed to function with Unyielding Anguish, since Maniacal Pulse triggers once you land. So you now have two Corruption GM traits which both deal decent AoE condi damage, one of which comes from using any elite, and the other most optimally comes from Unyielding Anguish. The new Maniacal Persistence seems to have an unnecessarily narrow focus IMO. The self-torment is unusual and could seem to have some synergy with a few things like Empowering Misery. It also synergizes with Replenishing Despair, but you’d never take that trait because you’d have to give up Demonic Defiance, without which Maniacal Persistence is almost useless. The self-torment can also synergize with Pulsating Pestilence, except you can’t take that and Maniacal Persistence at the same time. I’m not sure what the redesign of this trait is intended to accomplish, unless the idea is simply that Corruption vomit out as much torment as possible…?

I haven’t played with Ventari yet, so I won’t comment on the changes to Energy Expulsion.

EDIT: Diabolic Inferno: It was pointed out on Reddit that this will now auto-trigger while you are upkeeping Embrace the Darkness, and the icd has been reduced to 8 seconds. That’s pretty cool. If the next expansion’s elite spec features a lot of burning, then I could see value in the two competing condi damage Corruption GM traits.

with invocation new trait you can achieve 25 might stack easy with fury – maybe dragon wont be needed.. i manage to do so without dragone stance but with herlad.
so now you can go full offensive yolo build. shiro/x or even hybrid sage amulet shiro/mallyx hit and run play style with condi and direct dmg with 17% more direct dmg and 7% more condi dmg and 20% more torment dmg and with rune of chill with 7% more dmg to chilling foes and sigil 5% so total direct dmg increase by 29% and condi dmg (torment 27%)

will test it later on

messiah.1908:

with invocation new trait you can achieve 25 might stack easy with fury – maybe dragon wont be needed.. i manage to do so without dragone stance but with herlad.
so now you can go full offensive yolo build. shiro/x or even hybrid sage amulet shiro/mallyx hit and run play style with condi and direct dmg with 17% more direct dmg and 7% more condi dmg and 20% more torment dmg and with rune of chill with 7% more dmg to chilling foes and sigil 5% so total direct dmg increase by 29% and condi dmg (torment 27%)

will test it later on

I just took a closer look in Heart of the Mists and the new Invo trait (Incensed Response) does not trigger out of combat, so you won’t be able to use it to pre-stack might before getting into combat. The highest I could get my might stacks with 100% boon duration is 14 out of combat (Glint + Incensed Response + Shared Empowerment). You could push it up by 1-2 stacks on average by using One with Nature on cooldown, which I did not do.

Now, once I got into combat I could maintain 23-25 stacks because Incensed Response would trigger. I was still using Glint though. I didn’t test without Glint but with other fury-granting skills/traits such as Fierce Infusion or Invoker’s Rage, since most of the time using a heal skill or swapping legends is done situationally and not just to grant more might through Incensed Response.

How did you get 25 might stacks without Glint?

these are the ways to maintain 25 might stacks. choose what you like . you dont need all of them

one with nature – 5 might – must have
3 might from glint
1 fury – 2 might

heal skill – 2 might (out of combat) – not must
legend swap – 2 might
sword 3 – 5 might
or
combo mace 2+3 = 3 or 6 might

when your nrg below 50% gain 2 might – must have

sigil on hit 1 might every 2 sec – not must but useful

rune altruism – 3 might + fury (2 might) – out of combat even – not must but useful

fluidmonolith.3584:

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EDIT: Diabolic Inferno: It was pointed out on Reddit that this will now auto-trigger while you are upkeeping Embrace the Darkness, and the icd has been reduced to 8 seconds. That’s pretty cool. If the next expansion’s elite spec features a lot of burning, then I could see value in the two competing condi damage Corruption GM traits.

Diabolic inferno should increase burn duration as well like Incendiary Powder.

Overall they did well some things but theres still a lot of overlooked stuff (looking at Mallyx elite..) and mace 3 is literally impossible to land in pvp.

here is vid on my support rev having 25 might stack fast
https://youtu.be/QlYMPIqH10I?t=351

fluidmonolith.3584:

Rapid Flow: This now gives swiftness when it triggers. This is a pretty significant change that I’m surprised that no one has mentioned on the forums.

Probably because no-one cares. They stuck this in the least attractive specialization.

One of the main selling points of the revenant profession is it being energy rather than cooldown driven. You know, you playing your character rather than your character playing you – courtesy of predefined optimal rotations.

Invocation favours swapping legends…. which is on a cooldown.

Even if you don’t mind manically swapping legends every 10 seconds, different legends tend to favour different stats so legend swapping might give you 50 free energy but you’re then stuck with a legend less suited to your stats.

Invocation has a few potentially useful GM traits – like boosting outgoing healing or crit chance with fury – but otherwise is very easy to pass on. Even with this change.

fluidmonolith.3584:

Rev now has access to a permanent runspeed boost outside of Glint! Yes, this trait triggers while out of combat.

Rev has always had this.

Inspiring reinforcement creates a lightning field. Blast finisher (which rev has on several weapons) on a lightning field gives 10s of aoe swiftness.

More tedious than glint but still perma-able.

Caeledh.5437:

fluidmonolith.3584:

Rapid Flow: This now gives swiftness when it triggers. This is a pretty significant change that I’m surprised that no one has mentioned on the forums.

Probably because no-one cares. They stuck this in the least attractive specialization.

One of the main selling points of the revenant profession is it being energy rather than cooldown driven. You know, you playing your character rather than your character playing you – courtesy of predefined optimal rotations.

Invocation favours swapping legends…. which is on a cooldown.

Even if you don’t mind manically swapping legends every 10 seconds, different legends tend to favour different stats so legend swapping might give you 50 free energy but you’re then stuck with a legend less suited to your stats.

Invocation has a few potentially useful GM traits – like boosting outgoing healing or crit chance with fury – but otherwise is very easy to pass on. Even with this change.

fluidmonolith.3584:

Rev now has access to a permanent runspeed boost outside of Glint! Yes, this trait triggers while out of combat.

Rev has always had this.

Inspiring reinforcement creates a lightning field. Blast finisher (which rev has on several weapons) on a lightning field gives 10s of aoe swiftness.

More tedious than glint but still perma-able.

This method was highly build dependent, however, It requires running Jalis. It also requires either mace or staff. If using staff # 4 as the blast finisher you would need +50% boon duration (or swiftness duration) for perma-swiftness, or you would need Shiro as your second legend to use Impossible Odds to fill in the gaps. Hammer #3 blast finisher would not be very effective since it roots you in place while you cast it.

This method was so build-limited that I wouldn’t really count it as a reliable method for perma-swiftness in most circumstances.

While Rapid Flow might not be very exciting for perma-swiftness right now, I imagine it may be more appreciated when the next expansion comes out and people stop running Herald. Of course, I still recommend the changes to Rapid Flow that I described above to make it less cumbersome to use.

i think ppl yet have to discover th possibility not using dragin stance

with invoction anet gave us the ability to build might as high as dragon, perma fury and swiftness so more legends can be used

dragon is nice but the healing skill now preety much useless in pvp and if you ant to explore way without sharing boons you have the ability now

like shiro/jalis for more sustain or shiro/mallyx for condi handling

think like a thief combine with ele who switch attunment constantly

yes you would need to switch accrouding the situation and act and react

now we have more ways

will it be more useful time will tell do we have now the option now we do