Guild Wars 2

Here is my review of the Revenant from BWE1. I played Rev in a mixture of new HoT content, WvW, and sPVP.

Summary

What was good
+great animations and smooth gameplay, for the most part
+pretty good versatility; Rev can have unique roles not shared by other professions
+energy mechanic gives the “push/pull” feel intended which is refreshing
+high skill ceiling / low skill floor, so there is always more to learn

What was not so good
-build diversity was pretty poor (I main Engi, so perhaps I am biased)
-multi-target dps is pretty poor
-‘emergency’ buttons almost non-existent; hard to respond to anything without pooling energy for it first
-sluggish, due to long cast times and important skills hidden behind legend and weapon swap

Weapons

Sword (main hand and off hand)
Decent single target dps. The autoattack is great at stacking vulnerability (I had no trouble getting close to 25 stacks in 5-10 seconds with the Devastation traits). #2 is underwhelming. I don’t think it necessarily needs a dps increase, but perhaps greater range, or a longer chill, or 1 sec. slow along with chill. #3 has low damage, it could perhaps be increased since the cooldown and energy cost prevent spamming. #4 is very expensive, IMO, energy costs could be reduced. #5 is underwhelming due to bugs and long cast / short range.

Mace
I didn’t use this weapon, so I will not comment on it.

Axe
Great. #4 is responsive and offers thief-like in combat mobility. #5 works as expected.

Staff
I enjoyed staff and find it’s strengths and weaknesses appropriate. Staff does good AoE damage (but not great) with autoattack, #2, and #5. Block on 10sec cooldown is appropriate. Poor ability to chase a moving target and also hard to hit mobile targets with #2, but this is expected for a defensive weapon.

Hammer
I didn’t find hammer very enjoyable, but it was generally functional. The animations are good and timed well with the damage and sound effects. Most attacks are targeted ranged attacks, requiring very little skill to hit with. #3 and #5 are exceptions, but #3 is still slow and doesn’t work on terrain that the Rev cannot walk across (e.g. gaps), making it unusable in many long-ranged environments.

Legends

Shiro
Works as intended. Jade Winds has a good power to energy cost balance. The heal is a little weak as many have said, but I would rather buff the overall healing (e.g. healing per trigger) than the initial healing because it would fit well with the theme and balance well against other heal over time skills (like Troll Unguent). Furthermore, removing the ICD on the heal triggers might cause too much spike damage – though perhaps this is acceptable. Phase Traversal and Riposting Shadows work well, no complaints here. Overall, the application of Shiro seems limited. It can be used for mobility or spamming CC through Jade Wind, and not much else. Fortunately, mobility is useful in many types of builds.

Mallyx
I really like Mallyx. Mallyx skills are multifunctional and can be applied for condition tanking, boon manipulation, condition damage, mobility, and crowd control. As a result, Mallyx can be used in burst builds, condi builds, and bunker builds. Unyielding Anguish, in my opinion, should remove stability rather than ignore it. Ability costs in general seem appropriate for their effect.

Jalis
I want to like Jalis, but most of the abilities are too weak. The heal is uninspiring but useful and effective. Inspiring Reinforcement is great party support through both stability and weakness, and is great for stomps and rezzing. But the cast time and delayed effect make it impossible to use for personal survivability in an emergency. Forced Engagement is very expensive for the effect, I could rarely justify using it. Vengeful Hammers is good, but bugged (disappears during collision with terrain). Rite of the Great Dwarf is not useful. This is, in my opinion, due to the long cast time, the high energy cost, and the poor defensive support – the damage reduction should be supplemented with condition damage reduction by some means and/or CC protection (e.g. stability). There are not many few scenarios where direct damage reduction alone will save people, especially when it has to be cast 2-3 seconds ahead of the damage. Jalis seems like it could be multifunctional with damage, control, and defensive support all in one package, but most of the defensive capacities are locked behind high energy costs and cast times.

Ventari
I did not use Ventari, so I cannot say much. I do have the impression that Ventari has poor versatility. Almost all of the Ventari skills heal and scale well with healing power – as such, Ventari is only really useful in a healing build (outside of the projectile blocking dome). I would like to see Ventari useful for something other than healing. Energy Expulsion could be used for crowd control, for example, if the energy cost and cast time were reduced. Using the tablet is very slow and, like many of the other skills, not functional to save the Revenant in an emergency.

Traits

Devastation
Not much to say here. Everything seem to work generally pretty well and fit with the theme.

Corruption
This traitline seems plagued by indecision about it’s role and old (weak) traits. It has traits which influence crit rate with very little that synergizes with a high crit rate, it has underwhelming traits (like Frigid Precision), and it has traits that are generally ineffective (Maniacal Persistence).
I’ve said this before, but it also has IMO the most fun trait in the Rev’s kitten nal – Demonic Defiance. This trait needs to be Grand Master. It is solely responsible for allowing Rev to be an almost game-breaking bane of all Necromancers everywhere. In my opinion, the grandmaster should allow the Rev to choose between condition tanking with Demonic Defiance, condition damage with Diabolic Inferno, and one other role

Retribution
Not much to say here. Lots of damage reduction. Redeeming Protection is welcome and much needed, due to Rev’s lack of emergency defenses. May need more access to retaliation to make use of Retaliatory Evasion.

Salvation
Like Ventari, this traitline seems fairly ineffective for all but healing builds. Momentary Pacification is a poor grandmaster since it doesn’t work well with most elites: Jalis’ elite doesn’t trigger it until the end of the long cast. Shiro elite stuns enemies anyways. Ventari elite knocks back anyways, so the daze doesn’t add as much (and it also has a long cast time). It’s great with the Mallyx elite but really needs to be compatible with others as well. The control traits (e.g. Disarming Riposte and Blinding Truths) seem like weak effects behind unncesssarily long cooldowns.

Invocation
Not much to say here. Traits focus on fury and damage, legend swapping, and energy balance, with a trait or two dedicated to healing, which seems a little out of place (e.g. Invigorating Flow).