Guild Wars 2

Please Anet, other changes are more or less ok, but this, this is really bad change. I thougt Revenant should be all about energy, if you really want to nerf this skill (which is bad because it was fine before), increase energy cost. Just no cd pls! It hurts our mobility a lot and the fun factor is gone. Try some chill or interrupt mesmer on it and you’ll see how bad is it. We already have our weak spots (mainly condis), we don’t need another ones.

I agree with the change they’ve made.

I agree but not this degree. 3s cd would have been fine and still keep the skill combat efficient but 5s is a bit too long.

you people that say the change is fine forget, this skill cannot be used willy nilly…..

1 this skill requires a target !
2 it has a high energy cost !
3 and now it has a [kitten] CD to boot !

that is just NO ! NO !

If you wanna add a CD reduced the energy cost. [DRASTICALLY]
if you want high energy cost remove the CD.

This is classic anet at work !

Hmm leather price is to low, oh I know, let’s make it so an ascended insignias require 1 elonian leather that will solve the issue

Forgetting to at least lower the damask requirement in the process.

And let’s not even talk about the whole silk requirement fiasco !

Yea initially i thought 5 secs on Phase Traversal was too long. I thought 3 would have been more appropriate. Also thought that the energy cost should be reduced to 15 if they were going with a CD. Personally i think it would have been smarter to start with these but well this is Anet when it comes to nerfs they go all out. The skill is still useful. A pain i can’t chase thieves as much across the map with ease but that would be selfish i suppose.

5sec is a bit too long, plus the energy cost should be enough to balance its use.

Hmm, yes this is a weird decision, perhaps now, lower the energy cost, or increase the energy cost and remove the cd. Thief with sword can teleport forward indeffinately if you press 3 and jump straight away (it removes the teleport back when you press 3 again) this hasnt been removed since the changed to shadow stepping and that hasnt changed.

If you didn’t like the nerf on this skill, don’t suggest even bigger nerfs to replace the added cd.

You balance by adjusting energy cost or actually tweaking the values of the ability … you do not add a second mechanic on top of the first.

Also, experience is already diminishing the effectiveness of the Glint heal in sPvP and of the shield abilities. Is ANET going to be willing to revert the changes when it becomes obvious that this was a l2p issue?

Taldren.7523:

Is ANET going to be willing to revert the changes when it becomes obvious that this was a l2p issue?

No. And it jsut a start. Im sure they will nerf UA leaving us with nothing but aa cus impossible odds will get cd as well..so riposting shadows and so on. Matter of time.

i love maining warrior and seeing the stuff other classes cry about, lordy lordy

Taldren.7523:

You balance by adjusting energy cost or actually tweaking the values of the ability … you do not add a second mechanic on top of the first.

An increased energy cost would nerf this skill in all scenarios. Likewise, toned down effects would nerf this skill in all scenarios. The CD reduction, however, only nerfs this skill in some specific situations (when you would want to use it two times or more in a row) while keeping it as strong as it always has been in any other situation.

This is EXACTLY why you add a second mechanic to balance a skill. The more tools anet has to balance each skill, the easier it is for them to target and nerf some problematic scenarios without having to affect their usefulness in other, non-problematic situations. With more variables to balance around, it’s easier to target and fix problems without destroying the whole thing.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Taldren.7523:

You balance by adjusting energy cost or actually tweaking the values of the ability … you do not add a second mechanic on top of the first.

An increased energy cost would nerf this skill in all scenarios.

C&P from other thread

If I expect to chase player X I may oscillate around 80-90 energy mark to be able to use PT 3 times if they upped its cost to 30. I cannot do this if it has 5s CD even if I have 100 energy. Same with other skills. It’s my CHOICE to use that energy on skills I want and be limited by this and not energy. If I use then 3 PTs i won;t have enough energy for elite/RShadows and other skills but that’s my decision to make. Cooldowns take away a lot from decision making.
That’s called energy management. Being prepared for something and having enough energy for possible counterplay. There’s none of it if they slap CDs on us.
Rev was not meant to be CD & Energy management class. That basically makes energy useless as a mechanic and not needed to begin with if they resort to giving CDs.

PS

skill also sufferes heavily from any form of obstacles, pathing and so on. So often you use it and nothing happens but you just lost 20 energy and now need to wait 5s.

Ultimately, big picture, we have an identity crisis for Revenant. Is Revenant supposed to be constricted by energy or is it supposed to be constricted by cooldowns.

If it is constricted by cooldowns, that implies that the energy regeneration rate is too high. If it constricted by energy, that implies the abilities should be powerful but tradeoffs need to happen. That’s why we have to schools of thought on this all. And this same discussion will happen for every single energy/cooldown change going forward.

Note, this isn’t black/white as each legendary stance can operate significantly differently on either end of the spectrum.

What we need is a Rob, why did you do this answer for Phase Traversal? But more importantly, what are we solving for and it is unclear how to give feedback on the mechanic balance.

I think you got it spot on Artaz Nothing to add.

PS

Roy, not Rob

Artaz.3819:

Ultimately, big picture, we have an identity crisis for Revenant. Is Revenant supposed to be constricted by energy or is it supposed to be constricted by cooldowns.

On a general basis, weapon skills generally have high cd/ low energy while utility skills generally have low/no cd/ high energy, exceptions aside.

Weapon skills are meant to be used with less energy constraints, while the right half bar provides plent of energy sinks.

So far, this seems to be so coherent with the profession as a whole, so I can’t detect any identity crisis here. It works pretty well in practice, because the low energy cost of weapon skills means you’re not stuck AAing all the time, while the low or the lack of cds on the right half bar means you’re free to sink a lot of energy at any time for big plays. Again, it feels pretty solid to me, which makes me wonder if there is an identity crisis here at all. It all feels very intentional, very well thought-out by anet developers.

Feel free to disagree.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Artaz.3819:

Ultimately, big picture, we have an identity crisis for Revenant. Is Revenant supposed to be constricted by energy or is it supposed to be constricted by cooldowns.

On a general basis, weapon skills generally have high cd/ low energy while utility skills generally have low/no cd/ high energy, exceptions aside.

Weapon skills are meant to be used with less energy constraints, while the right half bar provides plent of energy sinks.

So far, this seems to be so coherent with the profession as a whole, so I can’t detect any identity crisis here. It works pretty well in practice, because the low energy cost of weapon skills means you’re not stuck AAing all the time, while the low or the lack of cds on the right half bar means you’re free to sink a lot of energy at any time for big plays. Again, it feels pretty solid to me, which makes me wonder if there is an identity crisis here at all. It all feels very intentional, very well thought-out by anet developers.

Feel free to disagree.

I agree. I’ve stated this before, but I don’t mind short cooldowns on utility skills in principle, because they are generally just implemented to prevent spamming of otherwise powerful skills in short succession. In other words, a 5 second cooldown on an ability that costs 20+ energy still feels primarily energy-limited, to me, while a 20 second cooldown would feel more limited by the cooldown. That’s just my opinon, of course.

However, we should realize that we have two separate issues that really should be kept separate:

1) is it thematically appropriate for Revenant utility skills to have cooldowns at all? If so, how long can those cooldowns be before they break the theme of the Revenant? E.g. is a 1 second cooldown okay? 3 seconds? 5? 10?
Again, personally I think a few seconds (probably around 5 at most) is acceptable without breaking the theme of the Revenant.

2) Is Phase Traversal balanced as-is with a 5 second cooldown?
This is up for debate. Personally I think a 2-3 second cooldown would be fine, but 5 may be a bit too long. Of course, there are other potential solutions as well, that many others have suggested.

So here is the thing,

Short bow 5 on thieves has been a thing for kitten years….
they never added a CD to it, and that skill doesn’t require a target at all !

Here is revenant, and days into it they added a kitten CD to one of the only gap closers revenants have, even though the skill requires a kitten target to actually be used.

This is why I don’t understand a.net !!!

Shortbow 5 has been abused for years as a disengage by kitten thieves….
and they never prevented it’s continuous use, by adding a CD.

But God forbid revenants can keep up with a thief, hell no that is an outrage !
let’s nerf that kitten !

I really don’t understand why people keep comparing thief shortbow #5 to revenant’s phase traversal. Skills are not balanced in a vacuum against one another. If this were the case all classes would be identical to one another.

Skills are tuned with a greater perspective in mind. If thief was too powerful we could look at why. If the why is mobility we could then look at things like their shortbow #5.

Complaining about thieves ability to zip around the map is not going to have any effect at all on ANet’s opinion of phase traversal. Please, seek real arguments if you believe the change was unjust.

A 3 second cooldown might be ok, but this skill really needed a CD of some kind unfortunately. It was absurdly good for chasing. I loved it the one night I had with it, but it seemed a foregone conclusion it needed a CD.

Darkhydrox.8560:

I really don’t understand why people keep comparing thief shortbow #5 to revenant’s phase traversal. Skills are not balanced in a vacuum against one another. If this were the case all classes would be identical to one another.

Skills are tuned with a greater perspective in mind. If thief was too powerful we could look at why. If the why is mobility we could then look at things like their shortbow #5.

Complaining about thieves ability to zip around the map is not going to have any effect at all on ANet’s opinion of phase traversal. Please, seek real arguments if you believe the change was unjust.

Maybe bc PT is the olny one source of mobility we have while thief has many?…
Maybe bc we were supposed to be balanced around energy, not cd’s?

several of our legends have mobility spells, and so do some of our weapons. Saying that PT is our one source of mobility is not accurate.

RiiSEN.9072:

several of our legends have mobility spells, and so do some of our weapons. Saying that PT is our one source of mobility is not accurate.

Oh? Which ones? Can you point me out these “several of our legend” skills?

Facet of Elements in Glint, Unyielding Anguish in Mallyx, and PT in Shiro. Then you have Axe 4 and staff 5. At a slightly shorter range you have Unrelenting Assault.

But totally, we have no mobility options.

RiiSEN.9072:

Facet of Elements in Glint, Unyielding Anguish in Mallyx, and PT in Shiro. Then you have Axe 4 and staff 5. At a slightly shorter range you have Unrelenting Assault.

But totally, we have no mobility options.

Dindt know Facet of Elements is a gap closer. Thats new to me.
Unyielding anguish is questionable as it cover quite small distance when we take a look at it casttime.
Axe 4 has 12 cd and is dodgeable, but lets count that as one way to get mobility (meanwhile thief can jsut spam shadowshot..)
Staff 5 is not really a gap closer.

I got a idea. Try to run without Shiro and give a try to catch my gs ranger k?

The real question is not if I can catch your ranger, but if I SHOULD be able to catch your ranger.

And yes, I find swiftness/charge a gap closer. Its not a teleport, but it IS a way to close the gap if you are using them intelligently. Besides, why are we talking purely about gap closers? You asked me to list mobility options.

Burtnik.5218:

Maybe bc PT is the olny one source of mobility we have while thief has many?…
Maybe bc we were supposed to be balanced around energy, not cd’s?

You want the Revenant to be designed like a Thief and balanced like a Thief. Well, you shouldn’t expect that because they’re different professions.

Thieves are meant to have top-tier mobility and to be balanced around energy costs.

Revenants are meant to have good in-combat mobility (which they do, whether they’re as good as thieves or not) and to be balanced around both energy and cooldowns.

Different professions, different goals.

I would like to see this cooldown lowered to 3 seconds or even better, make this ability a 0 second cast time. With a cast time of 0 seconds, the biggest issue with this change imo (being interupted by a mesmer with power block or thief with distracting daggers and getting a 15 second cooldown).

More than anything, I hope a diablog with the devs happens to determine the cause of the nerf. I was about to make myself a revenant, but this nerf is pretty disappointing. Not the end of the world, but I can’t imagine enough testing has been done to conclude this ability was too strong for the legend.

RiiSEN.9072:

The real question is not if I can catch your ranger, but if I SHOULD be able to catch your ranger.

And yes, I find swiftness/charge a gap closer. Its not a teleport, but it IS a way to close the gap if you are using them intelligently. Besides, why are we talking purely about gap closers? You asked me to list mobility options.

Except outside of axe the stuff you listened inst really a gap closers.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Burtnik.5218:

Maybe bc PT is the olny one source of mobility we have while thief has many?…
Maybe bc we were supposed to be balanced around energy, not cd’s?

You want the Revenant to be designed like a Thief and balanced like a Thief. Well, you shouldn’t expect that because they’re different professions.

Thieves are meant to have top-tier mobility and to be balanced around energy costs.

Revenants are meant to have good in-combat mobility (which they do, whether they’re as good as thieves or not) and to be balanced around both energy and cooldowns.

Different professions, different goals.

Im sorry, but revenant was supposed to be balanced around energy for utility skills, short cds+energy cost for weapon skills. Thats why we originally started with no 0 abilities except Jalis road as it had strong stability effect (nerfed into ground). Where people getting that energy+cd from? So far i have seen olny 2 people on forum promoting that but without any real backup to prove it was always meant to be cd+energy for utility skills. Also revenant was supposed to have as high mobility in combat as thief outside of it.

Whats next? Cd on banish (after all you can stack 18 stacks of confusion with it)? Cd on anguish? Cd on riposting shadows or rite of the dwarf? Thats where everything leads. A non cd utility skill class starts to get cd’s everywhere questioning the energy management system.

Also if cd+energy is such a good system, why all games moved out of mana system+cd system and now goes either with short cd’s or no cd’s at all and replaces it with mechanics like stamina? Bc it worse? I rebember the days where we had mana+cd’s in games. Nowdays i cant recall a single game with that feature as that feature is.. dead. It olny proves how “good” that thing is.

Also as i i would like to mention number 1001 time, cd’s are affected by chill/interrupts. Energy doesnt suffer from this. By adding cd to PT i can now log on power lock mesmer and lock any shiro rev out of PT for 15 seconds turning their legend useless for it mobility job #nice balance

“Salt, salt, moar salt. So salty like fries from McDonald!”

Burtnik.5218:

Im sorry, but revenant was supposed to be balanced around energy for utility skills, short cds+energy cost for weapon skills. Thats why we originally started with no 0 abilities except Jalis road as it had strong stability effect (nerfed into ground). Where people getting that energy+cd from? So far i have seen olny 2 people on forum promoting that but without any real backup to prove it was always meant to be cd+energy for utility skills.

1. Revenant’s flavor and mechanics are a nod to GW1’s, and GW1 had energy + CDs.
2. As you have mentioned, Jalis already had one utility skill with a cooldown since the beginning
3. If I’m not wrong, Ventari’s skills with cooldowns were there since their first initial reveal.
So they were always there, even if scarcely. That we’re getting more of them shows that anet finds them to be necessary.

Also revenant was supposed to have as high mobility in combat as thief outside of it.

Isn’t a 1200 ranged teleport that can bypass walls and be used every five seconds good? You can even use Axe 4 inbetween, and when you switch to Mallyx or to Glint, you’re still left with another (albeit not as good, but, at its current state, spammable) leap and perma swiftness.

Revenant is not exactly “slow”.

It also seems that our movement advantage doesn’t comes only from higher speed, but also decent access to chill. Mallyx and axe’s leap apply chill, sword 2 applies chill, and we have one chill trait. Phase Traversal also cleanses us out of movement-impairing conditions.

As you can see, it’s not a short cooldown that is going to change Revenant’s stickiness.

Also if cd+energy is such a good system, why all games moved out of mana system+cd system and now goes either with short cd’s or no cd’s at all and replaces it with mechanics like stamina? Bc it worse? I rebember the days where we had mana+cd’s in games. Nowdays i cant recall a single game with that feature as that feature is.. dead. It olny proves how “good” that thing is.

I don’t know what games you play, but most have a dual resource system. Keep in mind that not all resources are exactly like energy or exactly like individual cooldowns, but there’s a lot of A+B variants that serve a similar purpose.

To give some examples:
FFXIV: global CD system + energy system + TP system (which is basically a second energy bar);
League of Legends: CD + energy/ fury/ another variant or something else entirely different, like minions. Very few champions use CD as the only form of resource management. Also, LoL is one of the most popular games in the world, and energy + CD is dominant there.

Even if we look at GW2:
Mesmer: CDs + illusions. It is, however, broken in PvE and WvW, because while “energy” is an abstract UI stat, clones have a real presence and are more easily dispatched in some modes than others. This is proof that CD+energy > CD+illusions;
Warrior: CDs + adrenaline (which is pretty much a reverse energy bar). It works fine, and it would be even better if warriors had more adrenaline skills, IMO.
Necromancer: CDs + life force. Life force is pretty much an energy system, except its restricted to a very specific skillset and playstyle only.

If you think about it, all of them are either flawed or very restrictive. Isn’t Revenant’s energy + CD better than those? You’re not screwed in PvE/ WvW like poor mesmers, and not restricted to a single skill/ skillset like warriors and necros.

Also as i i would like to mention number 1001 time, cd’s are affected by chill/interrupts. Energy doesnt suffer from this. By adding cd to PT i can now log on power lock mesmer and lock any shiro rev out of PT for 15 seconds turning their legend useless for it mobility job #nice balance

I can understand that concern, but counterplay is healthy for the game. if anything, that can be a good reason to keep skills strong.

Bump bump bump i will not let this thread disappear. The Legendary Assassin has nothing Legendary with the CD on this skill.

latinkuro.7304:

So here is the thing,

Short bow 5 on thieves has been a thing for kitten years….
they never added a CD to it, and that skill doesn’t require a target at all !

Here is revenant, and days into it they added a kitten CD to one of the only gap closers revenants have, even though the skill requires a kitten target to actually be used.

This is why I don’t understand a.net !!!

Shortbow 5 has been abused for years as a disengage by kitten thieves….
and they never prevented it’s continuous use, by adding a CD.

But God forbid revenants can keep up with a thief, hell no that is an outrage !
let’s nerf that kitten !

This is actually a complaint of some Thieves as well. Most of our classes inability to 1v1, particularly while staying on a node, is based upon keeping us from being overpowered with our current mobility. If you speak with Thief players, you may still find a few who would rather function more like a zerker warrior with stealth than play the short bow metas. However, I suspect if they’re still playing, most would have switched to Revenant… even with the incredibly short CD added to Phase Traversal…

+1 to 3 seconds cd.

also i don’t know if its a good suggestion for mechanic.

maybe, 3 seconds internal cd on the same target. and 0 cd if its a new target.

traversing to new targets 1 by 1, takes a bit of skill but the reward is there. plus seems to bring back the fun to it. and prolly a better 2nd effect side from unblockable, maybe 1.5-2 secs resistance. to just a small window to negate condi’s on a class without a lot of condi removal options.

Bump bump bump…

DiogoSilva.7089:

Taldren.7523:

You balance by adjusting energy cost or actually tweaking the values of the ability … you do not add a second mechanic on top of the first.

An increased energy cost would nerf this skill in all scenarios. Likewise, toned down effects would nerf this skill in all scenarios. The CD reduction, however, only nerfs this skill in some specific situations (when you would want to use it two times or more in a row) while keeping it as strong as it always has been in any other situation.

This is EXACTLY why you add a second mechanic to balance a skill. The more tools anet has to balance each skill, the easier it is for them to target and nerf some problematic scenarios without having to affect their usefulness in other, non-problematic situations. With more variables to balance around, it’s easier to target and fix problems without destroying the whole thing.

It’s nerfed in the only situation that counts, PvP/WvW combat where you can’t reach the person you are attacking and are being kited because they shed our one chill like water off a ducks back.

The ability IS DESTROYED for us (PvP/WvW players) AS IS with this stupid second mechanic.

Burtnik.5218:

RiiSEN.9072:

Facet of Elements in Glint, Unyielding Anguish in Mallyx, and PT in Shiro. Then you have Axe 4 and staff 5. At a slightly shorter range you have Unrelenting Assault.

But totally, we have no mobility options.

Dindt know Facet of Elements is a gap closer. Thats new to me.
Unyielding anguish is questionable as it cover quite small distance when we take a look at it casttime.
Axe 4 has 12 cd and is dodgeable, but lets count that as one way to get mobility (meanwhile thief can jsut spam shadowshot..)
Staff 5 is not really a gap closer.

I got a idea. Try to run without Shiro and give a try to catch my gs ranger k?

You said “mobility”, not “gap closer”. Words mean things, you know.

I’ve got a second idea. You catch my Glint/Mallyx Rev with a Guard without using JI, then I’ll try to catch your GS ranger.

Forget about it, once a skill is nerfed it will stand nerfed for ever and ever, you only need to look at the thieves notes (10000 nerfs) and still didnt change those skills back.