Guild Wars 2

STAFF CHANGES:

-Staff 1: Chain 1 and 2 unchanged, final strike grants a short burst of quickness. No more random shards falling on the ground. The healing works differently with the new ventari mechanic I’ve outlined. See below.

-Staff 2: Change to a leap skill. Revenant needs movement. Leap 900m, strike inflicts aoe weakness in a small radius where it hits. Cripples the primary target also.

-Staff 3: Unchanged, decent skill.

-Staff 4: Borderline useless. Now grants temporarily invulnerability when activating. CD adjusted. Vulnerable to interrupts. Healers get focused, they need something like this.

-Staff 5: Unchanged.

TABLET CHANGES:

-Do away with tablet pathing. Tablet instantly teleports to the location instead and spawns healing fragments in that area when it does so. If the tablet bubble skill is active when the tablet teleports, players in that area gain protection. Tablet effect range increased.

Tablet now instantly spawns without having to press the summon/heal key when swapping to ventari.
Just in case you didn’t get that last part
Tablet now instantly spawns without having to press the summon/heal key when swapping to ventari.
And one more time:
Tablet now instantly spawns without having to press the summon/heal key when swapping to ventari.

If you go too far from the tablet, it teleports to you.

-Tablet passive changed. Instead of pulsing heal, a each time the revenant deals damage allies around the tablet are healed for an amount. Synergizes with the staff quickness, allowing the revenant to land blows quickly in aggression and heal for more. Works like the Chloromancer from RIFT. While in ventari stance the revenant gains half of this healing even if the tablet is not in range of him. He gains the full bonus if it is in range.

-Tablet Utility 1: Now allows allies inside the field to resurrect downed players 10% faster.

-Tablet Utility 2: Grants aegis immediately on command then the delayed heal hits after. Allows the rev to save people being bursted.

-Tablet Utility 3: Now grants resistance after removing conditions to allies in range.

-Tablet Elite: Energy fragments now grant protection as well as healing.

Not sure I’m proposing something changeable, but while I generally like the staff and the way it handles, there’s one thing that just boggles me and that is the en-garde stance.

Because with the Mistward armor, it just does this… and that seems downright impractical x)

The biggest thing Staff needs is for the #1 autoattack to cleave 5 targets instead of 3 and increase the range to the same as Guardian or Warrior GS autoattack.

Secondary Tablet needs to be always centered on the player and automatically follow the player like an aura. It’s just unfun tedium to have to continuously spam that move tablet button.

It feels like the mechanics were done for the sake of theme over actual fun gameplay or quality of life. That’s the exact wrong approach.

lordhelmos.7623:

STAFF CHANGES:

-Staff 1: Chain 1 and 2 unchanged, final strike grants a short burst of quickness. No more random shards falling on the ground. The healing works differently with the new ventari mechanic I’ve outlined. See below.

-Staff 2: Change to a leap skill. Revenant needs movement. Leap 900m, strike inflicts aoe weakness in a small radius where it hits. Cripples the primary target also.

-Staff 3: Unchanged, decent skill.

-Staff 4: Borderline useless. Now grants temporarily invulnerability when activating. CD adjusted. Vulnerable to interrupts. Healers get focused, they need something like this.

-Staff 5: Unchanged.

TABLET CHANGES:

-Tablet movement speed and pathing increased. Tablet now teleports to the player instantly if stuck.

-Tablet passive changed. Instead of pulsing heal, a each time the revenant deals damage allies around the tablet are healed for an amount. Synergizes with the staff quickness, allowing the revenant to land blows quickly in aggression and heal for more. Works like the Chloromancer from RIFT. While in ventari stance the revenant gains half of this healing even if the tablet is not in range of him. He gains the full bonus if it is in range.

-Tablet Utility 1: Now allows allies inside the field to resurrect downed players 10% faster.

-Tablet Utility 2: Grants aegis immediately on command then the delayed heal hits after. Allows the rev to save people being bursted.

-Tablet Utility 3: Now grants resistance after removing conditions to allies in range.

-Tablet Elite: Energy fragments now grant protection as well as healing.

No. Lots of no.

I honestly never thought and after a few tests never will think that the Staff is ment to be used with Ventari.

Also, Revenants do have movement skills, maybe not all on their weapons but for example you can jump to a location with Mallyx.

The Tablet from what i’ve seen is fine, maybe a bit of tweaking but honestly nothing as big as what is suggested here.
Staff is okay as well, don’t see why it needs to hit five with the auto-attack, or why it should get quickness.
By the way, the random shards are fine as well, you can collect them via a dodge roll and if there are multiple allies around your enemy they often enough get them on shard-spawn.

And why am i not surprised that the proposed changes stop at the Multi-Knockback attack.

PS: If anything i’d move the Staff Trait from the Salvation Spec to something else, that’s about it.

LouWolfskin.3492:

And why am i not surprised that the proposed changes stop at the Multi-Knockback attack.

I want that attack removed. It’s a major annoyance already dealing with GS mesmers and Longbow rangers in dungeons knocking stuff out of stacks and damage fields because they just spam their abilities without thinking.

The only times this type of knockback is actually useful is in extremely fringe cases in pve and WvW zerg battles. And from the way the staff works currently it is not really viable in WvW for Revs anyway.

DeathPanel.8362:

LouWolfskin.3492:

And why am i not surprised that the proposed changes stop at the Multi-Knockback attack.

I want that attack removed. It’s a major annoyance already dealing with GS mesmers and Longbow rangers in dungeons knocking stuff out of stacks and damage fields because they just spam their abilities without thinking.

The only times this type of knockback is actually useful is in extremely fringe cases in pve and WvW zerg battles. And from the way the staff works currently it is not really viable in WvW for Revs anyway.

Well, there’s the thing, Knockback can be useful, even in Dungeons when the players “think”, that there are a lot not doing that is an entirely different story.
That you wouldn’t use Staff in WvW, again, different Story, in PvP it could be quite nice.

Your proposed change of the Tablet being an Aura by the way… from what i can tell it’s supposed to be used with the Hammer where it actually is quite nice to be able to pull the tablet where the heal is needed most as it doesn’t interfer with your normal skills that much.

DeathPanel.8362:

The biggest thing Staff needs is for the #1 autoattack to cleave 5 targets instead of 3 and increase the range to the same as Guardian or Warrior GS autoattack.

Secondary Tablet needs to be always centered on the player and automatically follow the player like an aura. It’s just unfun tedium to have to continuously spam that move tablet button.

It feels like the mechanics were done for the sake of theme over actual fun gameplay or quality of life. That’s the exact wrong approach.

Spamming the tablet movement is super important to taking advantage of trait synergies, never mind the positioning of the thing. Moving it will proc Blinding Truths, Invigorating Flow, Natural Abundance, and also Charged Mists if you’re below 50%, which you should be if you’re using it to heal a lot, because you should generally be activating Natural Harmony when you’re moving it.

Staff 4 needs to be a blast finisher. Haven’t played with staff much yet but yeah.

Tablet is fine being manually moved, but it needs to be sped up a little. Not drastically but it needs a bump. I want my tablet to be there waiting for me when I move it on the run, not barely catching up on my heels while I run.

Eolirin.1830:

DeathPanel.8362:

The biggest thing Staff needs is for the #1 autoattack to cleave 5 targets instead of 3 and increase the range to the same as Guardian or Warrior GS autoattack.

Secondary Tablet needs to be always centered on the player and automatically follow the player like an aura. It’s just unfun tedium to have to continuously spam that move tablet button.

It feels like the mechanics were done for the sake of theme over actual fun gameplay or quality of life. That’s the exact wrong approach.

Spamming the tablet movement is super important to taking advantage of trait synergies, never mind the positioning of the thing. Moving it will proc Blinding Truths, Invigorating Flow, Natural Abundance, and also Charged Mists if you’re below 50%, which you should be if you’re using it to heal a lot, because you should generally be activating Natural Harmony when you’re moving it.

The point is spamming it is tedious and is a quality of life issue. There’s no reason for it not to be revamped into an aura and have traits and it’s abilities tweaked to work better with it in a different way.

@DeathPanel

It being an Aura would remove a lot of the ways it could support though. I honestly like moving it around, i like standing somewhere else and giving my allies a projectile counter.
I like being at one end of a battlefield and healing on the other as is needed.

An Aura would remove the Legend from the ranged fight where it actually belongs,
that’s why i said that the Staff-Trait should be moved.
Not that the Staff can’t be supportive, but as it is it would fit more with Invokation than Salvation.

Does the Tablet need some tweaks? Sure it does. But the groundwork, in my opinion at least, is solid.

Staff 1 needs to be able to hit 5 targets
Staff 2 needs to be changed completely (LOL conditional weakness)
Staff 3 could use a trait that turns it into a projectile reflect
Staff 4 needs to be a blast finisher
Staff 5 is fine as is

OtakuDFifty.2965:

Staff 1 needs to be able to hit 5 targets
Staff 2 needs to be changed completely (LOL conditional weakness)
Staff 3 could use a trait that turns it into a projectile reflect
Staff 4 needs to be a blast finisher
Staff 5 is fine as is

I mostly agree with this. 1 hitting 5 enemies
2) at the VERY minimum removing the condition for the second swing, but really the second swing is also very slow in addition to being conditional.
3) I would tend to agree that if it’s not built into the skill itself a trait that adds reflection to it could be acceptable.
4) is just BEGGING to be a blast finisher, or possibly a stun break? I do feel that it could stand to have a reduced cast time.
5) 5 is perfect, though it MIGHT be nice to see it become a ground targetted skill more like Greatsword’s Whirlwind Attack on Warrior.

For Ventari’s Tablet, asking that the movement mechanics be removed is just whining. You can actually make some great use of its positional healing if you remember that it gives a MUCH LARGER burst of healing when you send it through allies and yourself. That makes it one of the few very spammable skills that can heal allies for as much as it is the player. The mechanic also allows you to MOVE Protective Solace based on where the action is. I would make a change to protective solace to make it reflect rather than destroy projectiles, or perhaps add an additional benefit to standing beneath it, perhaps a short duration renewing protection boon?

I find that so far Staff actually synergizes best with Jalis, Vengeful Hammers and Inspiring Reinforcement combining with the fast PBAoE of staff to do a lot of mob damage very quickly.

Currently the downscaling of Revenant seems to be very poor. I don’t feel like my damage is too low in Orr, but in Queensdale if feels like it takes WAY too long to kill anything.

I’ll have to admit, that’s one of the things I find a little strange about the weapons and legends myself. Hammer is the weapon that is associated with Jalis – however, all of Jalis’ utilities are oriented more towards close combat, and historically Jalis was a melee fighter. Ventari, on the other hand, is the legend most suited to a ‘standoff’ role, but the staff is probably the most melee-oriented revenant weapon (mace can at least drop a fissure every three seconds).

Now, Ventari doesn’t suffer if the player is getting into melee alongside the tablet, while there are benefits to running Jalis with the hammer (largely summed up as ‘if you’re being mobbed and can’t get to your optimum distance, you can let Vengeful Hammers clear the surrounding area) but it generally does seem as if staff/Jalis and hammer/Ventari have much more synergy.

Tablet need to auto follow our character. After 2h in wvw I got enough of spamming move button. Also it needs to move faster, very often action move to other place before tablet reach destination.

I can think of scenarios where you’d definitely want to be able to control it rather than have it auto-follow.

What might be a good way of doing it, though, is have it follow if you’re out of combat. Alternatively, it could have a trait that alters its behaviour, so players can choose how much they want to direct it themselves. But I can certainly see big advantages to being able to control it rather than have it auto-follow in dungeons, extended world events, and structured PvP. It’s just times when you want to cover a lot of ground quickly (which mostly occurs in WvW) where it’s a major issue.

That said, some might say that the correct approach is to switch to another legend, then resummon the tablet when you need it again.

Have the Tablet “tethered” at it’s 1500 range instead of disappear when you move out of that range so that we don’t have to spam the movement while on the move. Would be nice to if it went into a inactive state when you swap legends instead of disappearing, a bit of a large penalty for utilizing the class mechanic. Example, I have my Tablet out to provide healing for my allies, get stunned by a melee jumpin on me and have to swap legend to break that stun and actually heal myself for a large amount at once or clear conditions and then if I swap back into Ventari, recast the tablet to use any utility skills.
Also, the active movement sincerely needs a 1200 or 1500 range and movement speed increased.

I agree with many of the proposed changes to staff also

Fiddle Irk.9710:

Have the Tablet “tethered” at it’s 1500 range instead of disappear when you move out of that range so that we don’t have to spam the movement while on the move. Would be nice to if it went into a inactive state when you swap legends instead of disappearing, a bit of a large penalty for utilizing the class mechanic. Example, I have my Tablet out to provide healing for my allies, get stunned by a melee jumpin on me and have to swap legend to break that stun and actually heal myself for a large amount at once or clear conditions and then if I swap back into Ventari, recast the tablet to use any utility skills.
Also, the active movement sincerely needs a 1200 or 1500 range and movement speed increased.

I agree with many of the proposed changes to staff also

They could just remove the already short cast time on summoning the tablet. Swapping legends to respawn the tablet is a pretty effective solution to needing to keep the tablet near you when traveling longer distances too.

I’d also be okay with a move speed increase on the tablet, as long as it wasn’t a huge one. Nothing else is really warranted though.

As far as staff goes, I think it really just needs some shaves on the longer cast times, outside of staff 2, which needs just a little love, maybe a cripple on the first hit to help stick enemies to the Rev. Staff 4 is a fairly strong outgoing heal, especially if you’re traited for bonus outgoing and has a relatively short cooldown for an AoE Condi cleanse, a blast finisher would make it too strong.

LouWolfskin.3492:

@DeathPanel

It being an Aura would remove a lot of the ways it could support though. I honestly like moving it around, i like standing somewhere else and giving my allies a projectile counter.
I like being at one end of a battlefield and healing on the other as is needed.

An Aura would remove the Legend from the ranged fight where it actually belongs,
that’s why i said that the Staff-Trait should be moved.
Not that the Staff can’t be supportive, but as it is it would fit more with Invokation than Salvation.

Does the Tablet need some tweaks? Sure it does. But the groundwork, in my opinion at least, is solid.

The way it supports is irrelevant. This game isn’t a trinity so the healing doesn’t really help. Aegis, protection, and blinds are far more useful.

Also, the way it works now with having to constantly manually move the tablet makes it not viable for WVW when you are constantly on the move.

The only place you can viably use it is in pve and in pve most encounters are melee so ranged support is again pointless.

The most important ability for the tablet is basically the shield which would be far more effective if it was always centered around the player so you can move while blocking.

DeathPanel.8362:

LouWolfskin.3492:

@DeathPanel

It being an Aura would remove a lot of the ways it could support though. I honestly like moving it around, i like standing somewhere else and giving my allies a projectile counter.
I like being at one end of a battlefield and healing on the other as is needed.

An Aura would remove the Legend from the ranged fight where it actually belongs,
that’s why i said that the Staff-Trait should be moved.
Not that the Staff can’t be supportive, but as it is it would fit more with Invokation than Salvation.

Does the Tablet need some tweaks? Sure it does. But the groundwork, in my opinion at least, is solid.

The way it supports is irrelevant. This game isn’t a trinity so the healing doesn’t really help. Aegis, protection, and blinds are far more useful.

Also, the way it works now with having to constantly manually move the tablet makes it not viable for WVW when you are constantly on the move.

The only place you can viably use it is in pve and in pve most encounters are melee so ranged support is again pointless.

The most important ability for the tablet is basically the shield which would be far more effective if it was always centered around the player so you can move while blocking.

Dude, the tablet provides some of the highest blind uptimes in the entire game if you’re running staff in melee, as well as seriously insane personal sustain; you lose the ability to do all that much damage, but it creates a powerful melee support role. The healing most definitely does help, it’s just not necessary/ideal in most pve content right now. But there are some pretty solid fractal team comps that rely on guardian aoe heals, and this is like that but way stronger, if you’re running Clerics you can do about 5k aoe healing every 2 seconds, with that eventually slowing down when you’re out of energy by a second or two, and that’s not counting potential regen uptime (you can get incredibly high uptime with aoe application with Dwayna runes), or the outgoing heal effectiveness traits currently being bugged for the tablet. HoT content, if it’s harder with better AI, could easily benefit from healing support specs in team comps.

Edit: for a point of comparison, if the outgoing healing traits were working with tablet properly, the maximum theoretical outgoing healing that could be output every 3-4 seconds is on the order of a guardian activating Signet of Resolve. And it’s AoE.

So, anyone else feel like the tablet should be an elite skill? Cuz as it stands, you can’t really do much healing/support unless it’s activated. Just my thoughts.

Staff 2 and Staff 4 need defensive and support orientation.

Remove the current conditional chain from Staff 2 and replace it. Allow the second chain to provide protection and self healing.

Staff 4 need to be allowed movement when used. Need to provide Aegis and heal for more. Basically provide an additional heal regen on use. Something, to provide so,e self defense to counter its weak healing and damage.

I like the idea of having the tablet auto follow akin to how a mini does, but then be directable in combat as it is now. That way you keep it with you when running, you can move it around a bit just by roaming in the combat yourself, and you can micromanage it for full effect at need.

I think Staff 2’s “on-time” bonus attack should be an AoE knockdown with the current weakness application to further promote the pacifist feel to the weapon. It’s a great initiator weapon for commanders in WvW, but outside of just knocking people about in WvW while using Jalis and relying on your team to do the actual damage, there isn’t much going for it.

Another suggestion: Tablet needs to summon as soon as you enter Ventari. None of this Switch > wait > press 6 > wait > now I can use my skills. If you are switching to Ventari you ONLY want your tablet and you want it NOW. There is no reason to hide it behind a second skill. The heal on activation is so small that it won’t even be missed.

cocowoushi.7150:

Another suggestion: Tablet needs to summon as soon as you enter Ventari. None of this Switch > wait > press 6 > wait > now I can use my skills. If you are switching to Ventari you ONLY want your tablet and you want it NOW. There is no reason to hide it behind a second skill. The heal on activation is so small that it won’t even be missed.

I would say that it takes too long to really “get going” after all of your legend swaps, but Ventari is especially bad.

Problem with Ventari is the Tablet, not the staff. The staff is fine. Not very high dps, but heals a lot (it actually heals MORE then the Tablet).

Not only the Tablet is useless (except for Lupicus gimmicks lol), but it forces you to actively use it without time to even attack, and making it very hard to dodge or move.
Skills are not instant, you are locked into ana nimation, and heals are low. Only decent heal is not instant because you should prevent damage (how? spamming it? goodbye energy and damage).

Also energy cost is not appropriate.

Another Tablet change request:
While Tablet is out, it should offer regen in an AoE around in. Right now passing the tablet through you and others is not only time consuming, but weak. While I do like the idea of positional management, these heals are too weak to justify the effort needed.

As it is, Revs have no instant heal in Ventari, the HEALING legend. This is ridiculous. The skill 6 needs a lot more work, because this is YOUR personal heal skill, but it’s terrible if you’re not in range of it. If not granting AoE regen on others then it should have a constant regen effect on yourself regardless of range. (Like Warrior healing signet).