Guild Wars 2

Hello everyone, I figured I’d share my 2 cents on the revenant.
Over the weekend I played about 25-30 hours as a rev and all exclusively in WvW (except about 30 min. doing a single map in PvE for 1 Transmutation charge). During this time I played a sustain-y/DPS hybrid even though we don’t have a DPS line yet, and I mainly used staff. Overall I feel this class is coming together with only a few minor tweaks here and there I would offer. One of the biggest criticisms that I would say is that some of the utilities need some form of stun break because if you get stunned the main stun break you have is swapping legends which is not helpful if you have set the legend up properly while being pressured (namely if you swap too centaur stance, this legend is difficult to set up if you are being hit). This is a class of set-ups and planning out how your opponent would move and not so much of a reactive class, because of this fact and the fact that you can’t customize your utility skills, these utility skills have got to be able to support you in every situation, currently they support you in *most situations making the class difficult to play effectively.

Staff:

The auto-attack is fairly decent, I would consider raising the base damage but only by a few points.
(2) Punishing Sweep/Debilitating Slam: I rarely used this skill; personally it didn’t feel Punishing or Debilitating in any way. I believe it’s because of the cast time, make the activation slightly faster and it might be used as a different auto attack but in my opinion that is all it’s good for.

(3) Warding Rift: I like this skill, however it’s easy to get interrupted while using it. Also it’s a huge tell for other people to interrupt you. I might consider increasing duration by ¼ or half a second.

(4) Renewing Wave: Blast finisher and maybe knockback/knockdown, the root tied to this skill makes it so that using it comes with the risk of continued pressure. Options are either make the skill have something that effects the opponent to ease pressure or make it so that you can use it while moving.

(5) Surge of the Mists: Best Skill on Staff. Main source of burst on staff, but long cooldown. Considering whirling wrath on guard is 10 second CD even though Surge deals over double base damage. I found myself wishing there was a trait to take that would reduce that 20 second CD.

Hammer Skills:

Hammer Bolt: I felt that the base damage needs to be raised just a little to compensate with the slower fire rate. It has the same fire rate as Elementalist Fireball skill on Staff but it’s almost half the damage, which feels a bit off.

(2) Coalescence of Ruin: I feel like this is a solid skill. I did not play hammer much so I would prefer not to say how best to improve it one way or another.

(3) Phase Smash: Wonky Skill, I like the mechanics of it, but I feel like it should give you 1 or 2 stacks of stab considering the only times I found myself wanting to use it was in situations where I wanted a second Drop the Hammer hit (which was quite frequently behind an enemy wall or static field which would interrupt the cast.)

(4) Field of the Mist: Solid Skill, it actually promotes mindful play because you have to keep in mind where your camera is facing.

(5) Drop the Hammer: Solid Skill, Nice blast finisher at range with decent damage. I found that I was switching to hammer often when I was resetting with the zerg in WvW to blast fields and switching back to staff.

Mace Skills:

Auto: I think it’s pretty solid but obviously a condition damage weapon. I like the attack speed on this weapon the most out of the weapons revealed for the revenant so far.

(2) Searing Fissure: Solid fire field but the setup is crazy. 3 second cast time in melee is a difficult thing to pull off.

(3) Echoing Eruption: Love this skill, either no change or add a movement impairing condition to it so that you can keep up with more mobile targets easier.(like 1 or 2 second cripple).

Axe Skills:

(4) Frigid Blitz: No change, but should be looked at because I found that often times I was too far away from the target after the cast by a few units. The attack would hit I would just not be close enough for a subsequent auto attack follow-up.

(5) Temporal Rift: No Change, the only thing I would change personally would be making the range longer so I can pull people off walls in WvW.

Dwarf Stance:

(6) Soothing Stone: Great heal skill. High recharge time.

(7) Inspiring Reinforcement: Great skill and a good example for how the class plays best. It’s a setup skill that is best used when you know where your target is going (or going to get downed) so that you can best use the valuable stability. I just wish it would pulse 1 stack of stability during the cast just so you’re not sitting and waiting to get a stack.

(8) Forced Engagement: I’m going to echo the sentiments from another post. Much too high of an energy cost associated with it. No skill should cost as much as an elite skill to cast and it requires more energy than the Dwarf elite to cast.

(9) Vengeful Hammers: I think this skill needs to be looked at because every time I was near a wall the channel would end, after a while I thought I was double clicking my 9 key or I thought it was stuck.

(0) Rite of the Great Dwarf: it’s very underwhelming considering you can be interrupted during the cast, and you don’t get any stability with the duration. Even though it’s a stun break you need to be able to A. Finish the incredibly long cast time and B. make sure you have some way of securing some kind of stability and if you use the (6) skill that’s 65 energy just to engage which means you would be very low while you’re attacking.

Demon Stance:

(6) Empowering Misery: long cast time and recharge considering you apply weakness to yourself. I feel that to promote people to use it while they have conditions on them, this skill needs to apply resistance to you. This is only a minor complaint however because the legend is solid and filled with condi-mitigation.

(7) Pain Absorption: Great Skill, and manageable to spam if you need to help your party. Slightly high energy cost in comparison to the (8) skill. I feel like a management/preservation skill should have a lower energy cost and maybe a higher CD than a skill that effects enemies.

(8) Banish Enchantments: Very Powerful skill, however I feel like the range is very low. Thus I found myself never using it, 600 range is striking distance for many classes and I found myself focusing on other things. Maybe other people saw use out of this skill, but I didn’t, even though it incredibly powerful and useful.

(9) Unyielding Anguish: Great skill to use for a leap/movement and the displacement field is great when you’re trying to prevent people from going into a keep or tower. I think this skill on the demon line, more than any other skill should be a stun break, to help you get out of rough spots.

(0) Embrace Darkness: I found that I never ran a condition build so I never used this skill effectively, I kind of feel like it should apply resistance to you in pulses, but the (7) skill is easy enough to use during the cast.

Centaur Stance:

(6) Project Tranquility/Ventari’s Will: I like the fact that it has a cast time on the summon, but the movement of the tablet should be instance cast and able to be used during other skills. I have read that some people want the travel time to be increased but I think that the travel distance should offer enough in terms of a cast time.

(7) Protective Solace: Great upkeep skill, however I wish Diminish Solace would deal damage or maybe divert all the projectiles absorbed back at players.

(8) Natural Harmony: Great heal skill but the energy to cast is a bit high for a solid heal without moving the tablet.

(9) Purifying Essence: Great cleanse but I wish it would also break stun considering it has the highest energy cost. I think this stance should have a stun break in tight spots but not a spamable one, I found that I often had too little energy or no energy at all after the cast of this skill.

(0) Energy Explosion: I love this skill but a 2 second cast is too high making landing it very difficult.