Guild Wars 2

Prior to getting into this post I want to openly state that this is my personal opinion of the Revenant and is not meant to target anyone or any ideal the current player base has.

Being a solid player from the 3-day head start after beta testing Gw2 I can easily say that I’ve seen this game develop from the beginning. That said – I am aware that what I’m about to get into may have no relevance to the final product when HoT launches.

TL:WR
The Revenant isn’t ready for the real Gw2 world.

NOTE:
Before getting into the details I want to make sure that the I explain the gear I used. I will list them in the order I felt turn out to be most effective.

Celestial: Balanced – Moderate sustain – Slightly lower than average DPS/CDPS
Berserker: Respectable DPS under Jalis, but otherwise worthless
Cavalier: Rather poor sustain compared to DPS output
Apothecary: Used to test Ventari + Mallyx – no major sustain – very low DPS/CDPS.

Breakdown:
The current version of the Revenant has…
3 Legendary Stances
4 Weapons
4 Core Specializations
1 Downed State

Starting off with the Legends:

Jalis:
Focused on DPS – this Legend is your standard combat go-to option. You get condi-cleanse wrapped up in your heal, stability for a control fight, the only Taunt skill of the Revenant, a vortex of swirling hammers, and a defensive elite skill.

Bugs/Issues:
The heal skill has too long of a recharge to be a main source of condi-cleanse.
The heal skill’s total healing gets affected by poison (even though it cleanses it).
Vengeful Hammers will cancel out if persistent collision detection is met.
The Elite Skill takes too long to cast and lasts for too short of time.

Mallyx:
Focused on CDPS – this Legend is your go-to option for playing condi. You heal for more per each condition on you, can absorb conditions from allies and gain Resistance, can remove boons and confuse your target, leap towards your target and displace them while applying torment, and can copy your conditions to nearby foes every 3 seconds.

Bugs/Issues:
Playing condi-control is very risky with the latest change to conditions.
Traited resistance doesn’t last long enough to help control the condi.
Unyielding Anguish displaces foes with defiance that would otherwise be “immune” to control skills and doesn’t decrease the defiance counter or interrupt the target.
Embrace the Darkness places too much strain on your energy bar to maintain resistance during fights.

Ventari:
Focused on healing – this legend is your go-to support option. You get a skill set that is initially fully disabled until you conjure Ventari’s tablet. Then you get a heal skill that must pass through its targets to heal them, a shield that drains your energy, a delayed heal, a condi-cleanse that heals based on conditions removed, and an elite that destroys your tablet while knocking back foes and creating healing fragments for you to pick up.

Bugs/Issues:
Being as this is a healing legend it is horrid at healing (even when traited).
You have to conjure the tablet to use the skills which means further delay on healing during combat.
The primary heal skill has the most pathetic healing in the game.
The primary heal skill demands the tablet pass through you to work.
The skill set requires focus during combat which means you will suffer a major DPS cut.

Moving to Weapons

Mace/Axe:
This is your DPS/CDPS weapon set. You gain access to a standard attack chain, burning fire field, blast finisher, teleport/chill, and a linear pull/torment skill. This weapon set is clearly designed for conditions, but has a very power-based heavy combat presence.

Bugs/Issues:
No major concerns.

Hammer:
This is your pure DPS weapon. Your auto-attack is ranged and very slow. You gain a skill that damages foes more that further away from you with no push-back options for close foes (nor a blast finisher). You gain a “leap-skill” that chills foes at the “impact-site” while executing a blast finisher near the “impact-site”. You gain the ability to create a protective wall against ranged attacks. Lastly, you gain the ability to summon a hammer at a specific location to knock down foes and create a blast finisher.

Bugs/Issues:
The weapon set is all around too slow and is geared towards ranged combat, but has no way to keep the foes ranged.
When pairing Field of the Mists and Phase Smash you can expose yourself from the wall briefly once you “phase-leap” towards the foe(s) as the wall stays in front of you too far to protect you once at the “impact-site”.

Staff:
This weapon is an interesting hybrid of offense and defense. Your attacks are melee based. The auto-attack is melee based and has a whirl finisher tied to the end with a healing orb that spawns near your character. The second skill damages foes and flips to a new skill that can weaken them if you struck them while they were using a skill. The third skill is your anti-ranged skill and can blind nearby foes. The fourth skill heals you and your allies while removing up to 2 condi’s. The fifth skill is the most interesting – charge towards your foes and knock them back – possibly multiple times.

Bugs/Issues:
The healing from the orbs is pathetic and takes too long to get to spawning enough to create a noticeable affect on your health bar during combat.
Due to the low damage output – the recharges are too long.

Moving to Core Specializations

Corruption:
Clearly mostly geared towards conditions. Has 1 offensive mark and 2 defensive marks. The healing from Replenishing Despair is pathetic to the damage actual conditions can do.

Bugs/Issues:
None if you’re playing condi.

Retribution:
This is your combat utility line. Has a bit of everything.

Bugs/Issues:
This line almost feels like it’s trying to do too much (like the rest of the revenant).
Improved Aggression is near worthless with only 2 ways to Taunt foes currently.

Salvation:
This line is supposed to be focused on healing and support.

Bugs/Issues:
The healing effects and augmentations are far too small to make any noticeable effects in actual combat.

Invocation:
This is your “Revenant” trait line. You can take a Legend Swapping approach or an offensive/defensive mix.

Bugs/Issues:
This again feels like it’s trying to do too much, but it’s still semi-focused.

Moving to Downed State:

Well – you probably saw this state a lot if you were adventuring alone.

Bugs/Issues:
Forceful Displacement will sometimes shadowstep a ranged foe right on top of you.

Putting it together:

The Revenant has no weapon swap and each Legend and Weapon are geared toward a specific purpose. Each Legend controls all your 6 -> 0 skills with no alternate skill choices available. Due to these limitations I developed gear and builds around that concept and tested them out in low and high level zones and dungeons. These are the builds I used in order of effectiveness.

NOTE 1:
These are the builds I settled on after extensive testing of all traits and Legend combinations. What you read here is not indicating that I only attempted the build present, but that this was the most effective build I came across for that gear.

NOTE 2:
Reasons for certain choices are as follows…
Celestial: Balanced and given by default.
Berserker: Typical Meta style – tested for that reason.
Cavalier: Compared to Berserker – Higher toughness – Corruption + Invocation can yield very high crit chance.
Apothecary: Tested maximum healing options and moderate condi output.

Celestial:
Weapons were swapped out based on occasion.
Corruption + Retribution + Invocation
Jalis + Mallyx

Result:
This build had the highest sustain of all the builds. DPS and CDPS were comparatively lower than Berserker or Apothecary. It was still a nightmare to play since conditions would eat me alive and there was too little healing output for the amount of damage i’d receive.

Berserker:
Typically Staff, but I used Hammer too.
Corruption + Retribution + Invocation
Jalis + Mallyx

Result:
Similar issue with Celestial when it comes to sustain. I was able to kill mobs faster which left me alive better in most cases (typical zerk mentality). But, if I got caught – it was game over with no recovery options.

Cavalier:
Typically Staff, but I used Hammer too.
Corruption + Retribution + Invocation
Jalis + Mallyx

Result:
This build would have worked well if there was more condi control options and higher healing that isn’t directly proportional to the amount of condi’s on me. DPS was similar to Berserker, but overall sustain was lower due to the slightly lower DPS in combat.

Apothecary:
Staff or Mace/Axe
Corruption + Salvation + Invocation
Mallyx + Ventari

Result
Though you can certainly put out good CDPS – your normal DPS is just gone. This is a setup for failure as there isn’t enough condi-control or healing to go around. The fact that I had to wait for Ventari’s tablet typically was the death of me. If that tablet persisted for 20-30 seconds I may have been okay, but mostly it was impossible to play correctly solo. When using Ventari you end up spending activation time on tablet skills and no time attacking – this is the main issue. Healing also doesn’t scale near enough and is too circumstantial for general play to have any lasting benefits for the player.

Conclusion:
The Revenant has a lot to bring to the table – so much so that typically there isn’t enough room or the table collapses under the weight of it all. It’s like a confused child that doesn’t know what it wants to do. It wants to play condi – but condi is just horrid to use if you don’t push condi stats into the gear since this last patch. It also wants to beat everything down with shear power, but it can’t do that too well since it has so little sustain. It also wants to try to heal, but it can hardly care for itself. It’s certainly a jack of all trades, but a master of none.

Legends are designed around specific concepts (Damage/Conditions/Support). This is great, but it really limits how effective your builds can ever be unless you use gear tailored for the selected legends – unless of course you just play Celestial gear – then you’re prepared for everything.

Weapons are designed around Legends which are designed around the concepts above. You have no weapon swap which means that if you gear up for a specific style of play that you are forced into specific weapons. If you play condi – you’ll want Mace/Axe. If you play healing power, Staff. If you play pure damage, Hammer. You could always pick a weapon that isn’t suited for your Legend or gear, but you will lose effectiveness in some aspect of that weapon.

With the above determined – you’re left with Specializations. The also have mostly very clear roles and will be used based on the role you’ve selected. This doesn’t differ much from standard build making, but the versatility available to other classes is clearly not present in this one.

I tested them out in WvW, All Dungeons, Fractals, Queensdale, Kessex Hills, Gendarran Fields Harathi Hinterlands, Bloodtide Coast, Sparkfly Fen, Mount Maelstrom, Straits of Devestation, Malchor’s Leap, and Cursed Shore. I played solo and with guild teams. In solo play – I was near worthless against Elite or higher mobs. In team play I was able to “help a little”, but it was nothing compared to any of the other classes right now.

All in all I can easily say “The Revenant is not ready for the real game yet”.

There is a problem with axe. Axe 4 skills, sometimes bug out n doesn’t register hit.
It’s closing gap skill. I suspect it’s the same problem we have with the like of Rush or Leap of Faith.

Well thought out and articulated post. I definitely agree with most the points on here, especially that the DPS is rather weak and the overall survivability of the class is mediocre.