Guild Wars 2

Here is my review of Revenant weapon skills from BWE2. I primarily played PvP, and this review will only cover weapon skills.

Staff
I really enjoyed the staff. It provides good sustain and CC as an alternative to the aggressive direct damage of Sword. It has more trouble with gap closing on mobile targets than Sword, but I think that is an intentional limitation of the weapon. Pairing Staff with Shiro can overcome this.
AA – seems solid, no complaints here
skill 2 – I like the effect and it fits with the defensive nature of the staff, but this skill is a little slow. It’s pretty hard to hit enemy players, especially since Rev has so few cripples/chills/immobilizes. I basically use it and hope I’ll get lucky that the opponent is still in melee range when it goes off. I think both skills could be reduced by about 1/4 second (to 1/2 sec. for the first skill and 3/4 sec for the flip-over skill).
skill 3 – Great defensive addition, no complaint here
skill 4 – As others have mentioned, self-root really hurts this. I don’t mind that it’s unusable while moving, but I think the cast time could be reduced to 3/4 sec. to compensate. The energy cost, I think, is also a bit high.
skill 5 – Great. The cooldown is a little high IMO, especially compared to other phase traversal weapon skills. E.g. Sword #3 provides about 2 seconds of evasion on a 10 second cooldown, while the staff, which is supposed to be the defensive weapon, only provides 1 second of evasion on a 20 second cooldown. I think a 15 second cooldown would be more appropriate.

Sword
I think sword is mostly in a good place. It provides good mobility, evasion, and damage.
AA – No problems with this
skill 2 – The increased chill duration and damage really helped this out. Could perhaps be increased to 600 range, but I don’t think it’s absolutely necessary
skill 3 – Probably too powerful now, IMO. It does good damage (against a single target) and provides a long duration evade on a short cooldown. Compiling a list of potential changes I have heard from others and come up with myself to resolve this: (1) increase cooldown to 15 seconds; this makes the Rev think a little more about when to use Sword#3, rather than just getting great damage and evasion every 10 seconds; (2) increase energy cost to 20, with the same rationale as option 1; (3) back load the damage by reducing the first 6 hits and increasing the damage to the primary target on the last hit. This gives opponents more opportunity to mitigate damage by focusing on avoiding the last hit (adds counterplay), and increases the Rev’s damage to the primary target when there are lots of targets around. I don’t think all of these should be implemented, but one or two of them would put Sword #3 in a good place, IMO.
skill 4 – great, no complaints here.
skill 5 – still bugged at times. Maybe a short leap (e.g. 300 range) to help connect Rev with their target for the first hit would help.

Hammer
Hammer is really strong. I found it fairly passive and boring to use, and there are a few difficulties with some skills. But I think effectiveness is just fine.
AA – No problems here. It’s intentionally slow and hard hitting
skill 2 – I have a problem with this skill. Back in BWE1, Hammer#2 did less damage than AA except at maximum range. Now it does more damage than AA at all ranges. On a 5 energy cost with 2 second cooldown. This means your damage will be best if you use Hammer#2 on cooldown, which is not particularly thoughtful. I think the damage needs to be adjusted so that it’s only better than AA at max range, as it previously was. Or, alternatively, make it cost more energy (e.g. 10 energy). The cooldown can be increased a little, but I do like the short cooldowns on Rev, so I don’t think this would be the best method.
skill 3 – The evade frames really helped this out and gave Hammer some defensive capabilities. There are some instances (e.g. elevation changes, or gaps between Rev and target area) such that you can select a target area (green targeting circle appears) and execute the skill, but the Rev will not actually travel to the destination and do damage.
skill 4 – Works great
skill 5 – Works mostly fine. I think the cast time could be reduced a little bit. It should have a long cast, but 1 3/4 sec is probably a bit much – perhaps 1 1/4 sec is better.

Mace
I found condition damage (atleast in PvP) to be a bit over the top. I can’t determine yet whether this is a result of the Mace directly or the Mace when paired with Mallyx and Corruption traitline. I would also like to see some hybrid options for Rev, but Mace is the only weapon with condition damage, and it has very poor power scaling.
AA – Seems fine
skill 2 – I think the energy cost could be increased a bit (e.g. to 10) so it’s not so mindless to simply maintain a permanent fire field.
skill 3 – No problems here

Axe
This is a solid OH weapon.
skill 4 – Solid mobility, helps save energy when using Shiro (don’t need to use Phase Traversal as much) and provides a gap closer when not using Shiro.
skill 5 – Ineffective when there is non-uniform elevation. Can this skill be changed to travel along the ground rather than staying at the caster’s elevation? Alternatively, the vertical range of the pull could be increased.

Imo hammer skill 1 can be faster. It really feels too slow vs a D/D ele or D/P thief. Theyre even fighting faster than a revenant.

I forgot to add my thoughts on Shield, but there is already a lot of discussion about Shield#5 being a suicide move. I think Shield #5 either needs to allow movement while channeling, or remove the break bar and give complete full invulnerability. I don’t like the break bar as-is, it seems impossible to balance: either it will be nearly unbreakable 1v1 or it will be trivially easy to break when focused (e.g. in WvW).

King xiuras.3615:

Imo hammer skill 1 can be faster. It really feels too slow vs a D/D ele or D/P thief. Theyre even fighting faster than a revenant.

I don’t think Hammer is meant to be used in close range against mobile opponents. Before ANet added weapon swap I would have agreed, but now we can just swap weapons when forced into close range against these opponents.

Regarding mace, it’s strong as a condition weapon, but it’s slightly vulnerable to being kited. The weake power value son the autos track are the main reason that a celestial build isn’t ideal right now.

If you rose energy costs on the fire field, you’d have to reduce energy costs with Mallyx, since skills like pain absorption are necessary to survive a condi Burt and leave you with hardly any energy to fight back after.

fluidmonolith.3584:

skill 3 – Probably too powerful now, IMO. It does good damage (against a single target) and provides a long duration evade on a short cooldown. Compiling a list of potential changes I have heard from others and come up with myself to resolve this: (1) increase cooldown to 15 seconds; this makes the Rev think a little more about when to use Sword#3, rather than just getting great damage and evasion every 10 seconds; (2) increase energy cost to 20, with the same rationale as option 1; (3) back load the damage by reducing the first 6 hits and increasing the damage to the primary target on the last hit. This gives opponents more opportunity to mitigate damage by focusing on avoiding the last hit (adds counterplay), and increases the Rev’s damage to the primary target when there are lots of targets around. I don’t think all of these should be implemented, but one or two of them would put Sword #3 in a good place, IMO.

Any of these suggestions are bad and would pretty much cause the skill to be useless.

It doesn’t need a CD increase. It’s already hampered by a cd, which is currently in a good place atm, AND has an energy cost to it. If the CD is going to be increased, then it just needs to lose the energy cost altogether to balance it.

Having an increase in energy cost is no good because you also have to take into account all the other energy burn you are already putting out from other skills. In most fights, I usually was only able to pull off 1 UA. There wasn’t much time for more than that. If there’s going to be a 20 energy cost to it, then the CD needs to go to balance it.

Backloading the brunt of the damage to the 7th hit isn’t any good either because then people will simply wait until the 7th hit. 100 Blades already suffers from this problem, UA doesn’t need this issue too. Everyone knows that the last hit on 100 Blade will almost never hit.

IF anything needed changing on this skill, it may be the damage coefficient, but in all honesty, Sword 3 is supposed to be the burst skill. It’s already fairly easy to mitigate. It’s just a learn to play issue really. People said the same thing about Rapid Fire too, and it’s even ranged!

I agree that the damage should not be reduced. Another recommendation I have heard from others is to reduce the total cast time of the skill. This would make it more bursty, but would also decrease the Rev’s evasion time and (importantly in 1v1), increase the fraction of the damage avoided by using a single dodge. This would encourage the Rev to bait out dodges before using UA and would reward opponents for saving endurance to dodge UA.

fluidmonolith.3584:

I agree that the damage should not be reduced. Another recommendation I have heard from others is to reduce the total cast time of the skill. This would make it more bursty, but would also decrease the Rev’s evasion time and (importantly in 1v1), increase the fraction of the damage avoided by using a single dodge. This would encourage the Rev to bait out dodges before using UA and would reward opponents for saving endurance to dodge UA.

appreciate the thoughtful input. This seems like an interesting option.

Misguided.5139:

fluidmonolith.3584:

I agree that the damage should not be reduced. Another recommendation I have heard from others is to reduce the total cast time of the skill. This would make it more bursty, but would also decrease the Rev’s evasion time and (importantly in 1v1), increase the fraction of the damage avoided by using a single dodge. This would encourage the Rev to bait out dodges before using UA and would reward opponents for saving endurance to dodge UA.

appreciate the thoughtful input. This seems like an interesting option.

My only concern is that if UA were sped up by default, then using it with quickness (e.g with Impossible Odds is toggled on) would probably be nuts. But it would also cost a lot of energy (Impossible Odds has a 10 energy activation cost) and would almost completely eliminate the evasion time of UA.