Guild Wars 2

Goodness, those damage boosts! I’m looking forward to seeing all that new damage in future beta tests.

and we have left is to test it out next beta… all looks good on paper lets just see how it plays out.

Can we get a similar thread for the other announced changes/elite specializations as well? People seem incredibly unsatisified with the Necromancer changes both for the elite specialization and the class in general.

And now back to your regularly scheduled Revnant programming.

Woot! More staff damage! FEAR THE REVENANTS! WE HAVE EXTRA STRONG POINTY STICKS! Mwuahahahahaha.

Also, no Battle Scars as the heal for Shiro? But Shiro looks Shweeeeeeeeet.

I was still hoping forced engagement would have a lower energy cost or something better than that casting time. It is so easily dodged and 2 seconds of taunt doesn’t feel like much for 50 energy as well. It needs some sorta of boost. Also rite of the great dwarf needs a better explanation and maybe 1 stack of stability while casting? its so easily interrupted for the long cast time.

One thing I still think needs a look at is the Jalis elite. It has too long of a cast time for the effect. Just feels off.

I can’t be the only one asking this.. but… Can Hammer 3 allow you to hit someone at a lower level than you now?

Although, it shadow steps to location and back, it only hits in a straight line, single plane. Wall campers cannot use Hammer 3 (Phase Smash) to hit enemies trying to PVD on the ground… I do see this as a bug.

Overall it looks pretty good, lotsa (needed) numerical buffs, Shiro, Weapon Swap, etc. Should be interesting to see the next live Rev test, I feel they’ll be much more competitive now!

Anything about weaponskills energy cost?
In the stream the Revenant was able to use them at 0 energy. Was that a dev thing?

entropythreee.8152:

One thing I still think needs a look at is the Jalis elite. It has too long of a cast time for the effect. Just feels off.

If they do not speed up its cast time, I would see Jalis elite as a “initial defense” for pushing to an enemy.. for example.. Jalis/Shiro… Start in Jalis, use elite, swap to Shiro and close gap and bang away until they drop. Seems like you can hit like a truck and tank like a boss for an initial few seconds of engagement. (Jalis elite = 50 energy, so you are empty, so you must legend swap (instant 50%) to gap close…)

We love you roy, thank you!!!

Gomssi.7246:

entropythreee.8152:

One thing I still think needs a look at is the Jalis elite. It has too long of a cast time for the effect. Just feels off.

If they do not speed up its cast time, I would see Jalis elite as a “initial defense” for pushing to an enemy.. for example.. Jalis/Shiro… Start in Jalis, use elite, swap to Shiro and close gap and bang away until they drop. Seems like you can hit like a truck and tank like a boss for an initial few seconds of engagement. (Jalis elite = 50 energy, so you are empty, so you must legend swap (instant 50%) to gap close…)

I think an initial 1 stab stack on cast would help alot with it.

The energy cost on weapon skills needs to be removed. The utility skills already cost a lot of energy which killed a lot of potential combos with weapon skills. Now with weapon swap it’s just going to get worse. It’s just a restriction that should not be there.

Khenzy.9348:

The energy cost on weapon skills needs to be removed. The utility skills already cost a lot of energy which killed a lot of potential combos with weapon skills. Now with weapon swap it’s just going to get worse. It’s just a restriction that should not be there.

But it also might be necessary to balance things like Shiro’s Impossible Odds, which gives constant quickness and superspeed so long as you can maintain it with your Energy. That skill is already really powerful—you’d be increasing its duration and making it even easier to use if you also made it so the Revenant could easily spam all of their weapon skills while using Impossible Odds.

Did the infinite projectile absorption bug of the tablet get addressed as well?

Edit: By the way, those changes sound amazing.

Feedback on these changes:

Staff: 4 – The animtion fits a blast finisher perfectly…make it happen!

Hammer: 3+5 – Suprised there hasn’t been a casting time reduction. You want them to feel slow and powerful and that’s ok, but these are still just too slow to realistically be praticale when used to attack something other than a stationary target.

Boons – Maybe this is perhaps the elite specs ‘thing’ but the core legends and spec lines provide pratically no aegis, no vigor, no protection.

Jalis – Rite of the Great Dwarf seems to be a pre-emptive defense, the problem is the class doens’t have any real way of counterattacking massive burst pressure on anything other than Shiro who has the built in evade and sword OHf or the block.

I fear if you aren’t a Shiro user not a OH sword user you are just horribly prone to focus fire. I feel as if the Jalis elite should act similar to shelter when you are channeling it, with this addition feel free to nerf the damage reduction after effect or what ever you feel is right.

Swirly hammers – Maybe add a low duration cripple to each hit of the spinning hammers.

Mallyx – I still feel it needs longer duration resistance on it, for a legend that is about manipulation and control of conditions the resistance you have access to you feels a little too low personally.

Retribution: Has traits to do with retaliation, when the class doesn’t really have a great deal of retal generation. (Unless I’m kitten ing and forgetting something)

Corruption: A trait that increases poison duration, when literally the only poison the class has access to is on the 3rd hit portion of the mace auto attack. Feels really random and a bit useless.

Just some general feedback.

Agent Noun.7350:

cut

just make that skill consume energy faster.
Other toggle skills are not that great. being unable to attack for those is bad.

Two 7% damage boosts is not enough to compete with other professions that can stack above 20% base damage boost.

Lets see how all play out in the next beta, with the weapon swap and the number changes everything might work fine now

Roy, is there any chance you could attend to Necro balance a little? We’re feeling more than a little un-loved as I’m sure you’re aware..

Being wanted in PvE sure would be nice!

It’s already in a good direction. Only things I personally don’t like are the Ventari Tablet micro-managing (commands should work like shouts/virtues, no animation on character) and energy cost on weaponskills (that could be an issue with weaponswap)

Dristig.9678:

Two 7% damage boosts is not enough to compete with other professions that can stack above 20% base damage boost.

We have 7%, another 7%, a lot of might, a lot of vulnerability and a 20% (on a target under 50% hp), plus a 2% for each condi on us.

Agent Noun.7350:

Khenzy.9348:

The energy cost on weapon skills needs to be removed. The utility skills already cost a lot of energy which killed a lot of potential combos with weapon skills. Now with weapon swap it’s just going to get worse. It’s just a restriction that should not be there.

But it also might be necessary to balance things like Shiro’s Impossible Odds, which gives constant quickness and superspeed so long as you can maintain it with your Energy. That skill is already really powerful—you’d be increasing its duration and making it even easier to use if you also made it so the Revenant could easily spam all of their weapon skills while using Impossible Odds.

What’s the problem? Not only the weapon skills have CDs to prevent them from being spammed, also said skill consumes energy at an incredibly fast rate. If you maintain it for too long, you are potentially preventing yourself from using other utility skills, or most importantly, your healing skill. That’s risky enough. The energy resource should not interfere with the weapon skills. That’s just my opinion.

Dristig.9678:

Two 7% damage boosts is not enough to compete with other professions that can stack above 20% base damage boost.

There is only one 7% boost and that was to ferocity… even with a control find I could see that. Look again please.

On Unyielding Anguish, any thoughts on changing how the displacement effect works? On top of annoying the hell out of everybody, it was breaking content whenever it moved enemies that were meant to be unmovable. Any chance of making it a CC effect, or at least not effecting mobs with Defiance/breakbar/never ever meant to be moved by the player?

Also, random teleporting to any edge of the field is not fun for either the Rev or their target, would love to see where targets ends up to become more predictable. That could also go for the Rev’s downed 2 skill as well.

jalis just… doesn’t feel very defensive atm…

I want to say first I love all the changes, they are pretty great.

As a WvW player however I’m still largely concerned about the over all lack of Stun Breaks however. The biggest problem I found using Ventari was not the amount of support it provided but the fact that it had no answer when the enemy front line crashed through ours into the back line. Without a stun break you are pretty much dead meat no matter what your setup is. Even the stacking duration Stability on the Jalis Utility (the infamous “road”) is very limited duration and amount.

Really see a Shiro/Malyx, Jalis and Invocation style setup kinda being mandatory for WvW to really make it work which is unfortunate because as mentioned Ventari is probably the closest to full support this game has come to yet.

Yay for weapon swap!

Ah thank you so much for adding some damage modifiers to the Invocation line. And thanks SO much for listening to all our feedback about how low the damage felt on Revenant. I look forward to Shiro and trying out a condi spec again next beta.

One thing though, I REALLY think the ventari tablet needs to be auto summoned when you switch to Ventari. That would make it feel less clunky.

Riranor.6315:

Dristig.9678:

Two 7% damage boosts is not enough to compete with other professions that can stack above 20% base damage boost.

There is only one 7% boost and that was to ferocity… even with a control find I could see that. Look again please.

There is also a 7% on a target with vulnerability on, and you deal it attacking (1 stack every 4 attack, with swords attack speed it feels like a solid perma vulnerability).

Mech.6579:

jalis just… doesn’t feel very defensive atm…

I agree. It needs protection or a more usable elite. Lower activation time and energy cost.

Some spot-on changes there. The new minor traits in invocation that deal with fury are especially delicious and – finally – we get a more appealing use for the fury grandmaster trait.

If you want further feedback, I still think there are some trait issues:

1. Players enjoy weapon-enhancing traits, but only sword and staff seem to have those?
2. Retribution’s master trait has two “on being disabled” traits. Shouldn’t they be fused and get a new trait there? A good opportunity for a hammer trait!
3. Ventari’s spec still has many “heal more” traits competing with each other. Those that offer condition cleansing, blind, etc, are in a fine place because they are unique, buy having to choose between “heal this way” or “heal that way” in the same tier seems to be asking for “please, pick the one that is mathematically the strongest of the two”. it makes the spec feel kind of “same-y”.

Also, I’m all for auto-summoned tablet on F1.

I’m just so happy about weapon swap in particular, and all the other changes. I have so much love for Anet right now!!! Thanks for listening to us and applying all the feedback. Revenant is going to be so much fun to play <3

The one and only thing I hoped would have been addressed though was Axe #5 skill and hoping it would become ground targeted (or have a trait for it) so that I can pull enemies off of towers in EOTM.

I think Temporal Rift has SO much potential. Also, being as Mace/Axe combo is intended to be a condition set, I think it would be awesome to have a torment-stacking effect – because torment in general, is an AMAZING concept, it’s just it lacks decent damage unless you can apply many stacks of it, and currently there’s no real way to apply tons of stacks.

I think if there was some sort of grandmaster trait for Mallyx which has a condition-stacking effect the longer you’re in combat or something would be awesome, and once it reaches X stacks of said condition/s, it resets (similar to the trait that periodically increases precision, until you crit).

Other than that, LOVE the changes!

Riranor.6315:

Dristig.9678:

Two 7% damage boosts is not enough to compete with other professions that can stack above 20% base damage boost.

There is only one 7% boost and that was to ferocity… even with a control find I could see that. Look again please.

In the livestream, Shiro’s traitline (Destruction) also has a 7% increase against vulnerable targets.

…and Dristig is forgetting that one of the GM traits is basically the Revenants own version of Necromancer’s Close to Death, so with it and Invocation Revenants will have a 34% increase while under the effects of fury against vuln targets under 50% health.

I see some of my stuff made it in. Howered thats not enough. Im also personally against weapon swap but lets ignore that one.

The main stuff im corcerned about;

• Energy

Weapon skills still have a energy cost? So in short we still have to make a choice..build up energy by autoattack or use wep skills and be left without energy to do something else.

• Hammer

Phase smash and Drop the Hammer. How i am supposed to land these skills with 240 radius? They are too slow to hit mobile target. Theres no need to even dodge that stuff by any means. Damage buff in this case is completely useless. Hammer on it own still doesnt have any abilities to kite. It will remain as useless weapon.

• Legendary demon stance

Embrace the Darkness: Reduced the pulsing interval from 3 seconds to 1 second. Decreased the self-torment duration from 3 seconds to 1 second per pulse.

Will it copy all stacks on revenant or just 1 as in last beta? If it continue to copy just 1 stack then you might as well delete it.

Pain Absorption: Reduced the casting time from 1 second to 0.5 seconds. The self-applied blindness no longer uses your condition duration, and its duration has been reduced from 8 seconds to 6 seconds.

That skill is still useless in solo settings. Why you didnt added stunbreak here? Stunbreak on Shiro is cool and all but..we need more

• Legendary centaur stance

Still clunky to use. We still have to cast it upon legend invoking.. See ya mr Ventari in trashbin. Well i never liked you either way.

• Legendary dwarf stance

If thats the olny buff you could add then rip.

Nobody in their mind will cast rite of the dwarf.

Nobody will use vengeance hammers as the damage is too low without any extra effect, hammers probably will continue to disappear on obstracles.

Brick road wont pulse stability right away – well sorry, but i am not going to stand in the field and eat a stun so i can get a stability i wont need anymore. Bye Jalis, you looked so fun to use but youre completely useless. Shiro is twice as tanky. I wont miss you <puts Jalis to trashbin> Bye bye.

• Invocation

Still useless. Still doesnt enhance revenant mechanic by any means. Theres in fact little connection

My rate; 3/10.

Revenant will continue to suffer from the lack of sustain. Poor healing, next to 0 condition removal if you dont run clunky Ventari, lack of stunbreaks on Mallyx, Ventari, Jalis. Shiro looks so overpowered to them that its not even funny. I could go on but i think i waste my time.

Ps. If you had marauder amulet in the stream then the damage on swords..is really, really low.

Unless I’m missing something but isn’t the point of Mallyx tanking conditions and copying those conditions to your enemies? Why make it more difficult to maintain conditions on yourself for the extra effects of his utilities? Wouldn’t it have made more sense to proliferate (or extend) the resistance boon options instead?

I like the sound of the other changes though! Will have to test to know for sure.

Oh, and what about a ranged condi weapon option?

Roy, can you elaborate how the switching works, please? Do you switch Legend & weapon together with one button, or can you switch them independently?

Kidel.2057:

Riranor.6315:

Dristig.9678:

Two 7% damage boosts is not enough to compete with other professions that can stack above 20% base damage boost.

There is only one 7% boost and that was to ferocity… even with a control find I could see that. Look again please.

There is also a 7% on a target with vulnerability on, and you deal it attacking (1 stack every 4 attack, with swords attack speed it feels like a solid perma vulnerability).

Is that on this thread anywhere? I can’t find it here. I dont remember it from the livestream but I joined late :p if the OP I quoted from meant from the stream shouldn’t that be posted ina different topic then, as this is about other changes?

Kidel.2057:

Mech.6579:

jalis just… doesn’t feel very defensive atm…

I agree. It needs protection or a more usable elite. Lower activation time and energy cost.

the hammer upkeep skill doesn’t feel like any sort of defense as well.

skowcia.8257:

• Energy

Weapon skills still have a energy cost? So in short we still have to make a choice..build up energy by autoattack or use wep skills and be left without energy to do something else.

• Hammer

Phase smash and Drop the Hammer. How i am supposed to land these skills with 240 radius? They are too slow to hit mobile target. Theres no need to even dodge that stuff by any means. Damage buff in this case is completely useless. Hammer on it own still doesnt have any abilities to kite. It will remain as useless weapon.

• Legendary demon stance

Embrace the Darkness: Reduced the pulsing interval from 3 seconds to 1 second. Decreased the self-torment duration from 3 seconds to 1 second per pulse.

Will it copy all stacks on revenant or just 1 as in last beta? If it continue to copy just 1 stack then you might as well delete it.

Pain Absorption: Reduced the casting time from 1 second to 0.5 seconds. The self-applied blindness no longer uses your condition duration, and its duration has been reduced from 8 seconds to 6 seconds.

That skill is still useless in solo settings. Why you didnt added stunbreak here? Stunbreak on Shiro is cool and all but..we need more

• Legendary centaur stance

Still clunky to use. We still have to cast it upon legend invoking.. See ya mr Ventari in trashbin. Well i never liked you either way.

• Legendary dwarf stance

If thats the olny buff you could add then rip.

Nobody in their mind will cast rite of the dwarf.

Nobody will use vengeance hammers as the damage is too low without any extra effect, hammers probably will continue to disappear on obstracles.

Brick road wont pulse stability right away – well sorry, but i am not going to stand in the field and eat a stun so i can get a stability i wont need anymore. Bye Jalis, you looked so fun to use but youre completely useless. Shiro is twice as tanky. I wont miss you <puts Jalis to trashbin> Bye bye.

• Invocation

Still useless. Still doesnt enhance revenant mechanic by any means. Theres in fact little connection

My rate; 3/10.

Revenant will continue to suffer from the lack of sustain. Poor healing, next to 0 condition removal if you dont run clunky Ventari, lack of stunbreaks on Mallyx, Ventari, Jalis. Shiro looks so overpowered to them that its not even funny. I could go on but i think i waste my time.

Ps. If you had marauder amulet in the stream then the damage on swords..is really, really low.

I agree with all you said except the harsh rating. Revenant got a huge buff right now. Still far from perfection, but Roy did a great job in 1 week.

Your first 2 points are the most important to me, but I agree with all of them.

I would like to see the invocation line focus a little more on energy management. Traits like “Gain X energy on (condition requirement)”.

example:
-on weapon swap
-when affected by stun
-on legend swap (instead of starting at 50% at something like 75%)
-on successful dodge
-when you go under X%, gain X energy (with an internal cooldown)
-on crit, gain a buff that reduce the energy cost of the next skill by X%
-etc..

tons of awesome feedback from the test weekend

Good stuff!

You had the exact same feedback from the previous beta with the farmable beta key portal stones though!

Falchoin.6152:

Unless I’m missing something but isn’t the point of Mallyx tanking conditions and copying those conditions to your enemies? Why make it more difficult to maintain conditions on yourself for the extra effects of his utilities? Wouldn’t it have made more sense to proliferate (or extend) the resistance boon options instead?

I like the sound of the other changes though! Will have to test to know for sure.

Oh, and what about a ranged condi weapon option?

Taking and copying is more of a necro thing, on the other hand mallyx seems more like a take and increase damage output from taking them.

Riranor.6315:

Kidel.2057:

Riranor.6315:

Dristig.9678:

Two 7% damage boosts is not enough to compete with other professions that can stack above 20% base damage boost.

There is only one 7% boost and that was to ferocity… even with a control find I could see that. Look again please.

There is also a 7% on a target with vulnerability on, and you deal it attacking (1 stack every 4 attack, with swords attack speed it feels like a solid perma vulnerability).

Is that on this thread anywhere? I can’t find it here. I dont remember it from the livestream but I joined late :p if the OP I quoted from meant from the stream shouldn’t that be posted ina different topic then, as this is about other changes?

It’s in Shiro trait line, the second minor trait (the first one is 25% chance to add vulnerability to attacks, the second one gives a 7% damage boost on targets with vulnerability)

Mech.6579:

Kidel.2057:

Mech.6579:

jalis just… doesn’t feel very defensive atm…

I agree. It needs protection or a more usable elite. Lower activation time and energy cost.

the hammer upkeep skill doesn’t feel like any sort of defense as well.

Agreed. The hammer upkeep skill should apply protection, or destroy projectiles, or both… or whatever, anything. It’s just a weak glorified PBAoE passive temporary damage buff. It’s that bad.
Also, the revenant needs more condi clears outside of ventari, Jalis would be a good place.

Since they haven’t gotten around to banning me yet…

The changes look good overall. Adding weapon swap to the Revenant was one of the things it most desperately needed; you can’t have a set of incredibly situational weapons and no way of switching between them. This way players can utilize whichever weapon fits whatever legend they’re on, and can also bring the Hammer and not hate themselves whenever things get within the third-tier range of Coalescence.

Suggestion: the Hammer is a slow-paced controlling weapon without much, if any, actual control. It’s not really possible to keep enemies at its preferred engagement range. I agree that the slow, heavy nature of the weapon suits it and don’t want faster cast/swing times or any of that jazz (with the exception of DtH, which is just impossible at the moment), but a Cripple on Coalescence might be an idea. Perhaps scale it by the distance traveled – first-tier melee-range is a 1s cripple, while hitting at max range inflicts a 3s cripple. Enough to hinder enemies attempting to close with the hammer Rev, and perhaps enable it to deal a bit more of its higher max-range damage. Or something. Right now it’s mostly a damage stick with weird preconditions on its damage, which doesn’t fly, though now that Revs have weapon swap it is significantly less of a concern.

The dual swords, Shiro’s legend abilities, and the Devastation traitline all seem excellent. The Devastation line in particular finally looks to bring some cross-line synergy to the Rev – Devastation and Invocation work well together, one boosting Fury and the other boosting Ferocity. the changes to Retribution are particularly welcome as well. Cross-line synergy is still weak for the Revenant, it’s difficult to create builds the way I tend to think of them, but unlike the weekend it looks like cross-line synergy is at least there, now.

Ventari is going to be difficult to work with so long as the Tablet is a thing. I didn’t spend much time on Ventari whatsoever on the weekend because the Tablet mechanics felt clumsy and made it extremely punishing to switch between legends. None of the proposed changes makes me feel like that opinion is going to change. Staff being less tremendously suck is good, though.

I’m honestly not sure about the demon stance skills. Given that most of them thrive on being just completely addlepated with conditions, having those condition durations cut short seems to short-circuit the entire thing. Demon stance is almost entirely reliant on enemy condition application to empower its abilities now, and one thing I’ve always stood by is that relying on your enemies to do something you want them to do is generally a recipe for failure. Having them not draw on your own +duration is probably a good idea, but cutting the base duration of demon stance self-conditions seems to be making life more difficult for Mallyx revs, not less. Who knows. Maybe I’m just stupid.

Anyways. Hope that helps somewhere somehow. Likely the last post I’ll make before the support team tosses my behindus out. Blegh.

Khenzy.9348:

Mech.6579:

Kidel.2057:

Mech.6579:

jalis just… doesn’t feel very defensive atm…

I agree. It needs protection or a more usable elite. Lower activation time and energy cost.

the hammer upkeep skill doesn’t feel like any sort of defense as well.

Agreed. The hammer upkeep skill should apply protection, or destroy proyectiles, or both… or whatever, anything. It’s just a weak glorified PBAoE passive temporary damage buff. It’s that bad.

or cripple or “chill” on hit. Cause i guess chill is suppose to be more of a rev thing than cripple?

Yeah, Jalis should have a way to clear condis, or we are forced to run Mallyx on every build. Ventari tablet is too slow (switch, summon, use skill).

Roy Cronacher.1576:

We also lacked damage multipliers on the profession, so we’re taking this chance to remake the first two minor traits to help add more damage output options.

• Swirling Mists: This trait has been removed and replaced with Invoker’s Rage.
  • Invoker’s Rage: Gain 5 seconds of fury when you invoke a legend.
• Revitalizing Breath: This trait has been removed and replaced with Ferocious Aggression.
  • Ferocious Aggression: Gain 7% increased damage while under the effects of fury.

Nuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!

Why are you doing this? Swirling Mists mechanic was absolutely awesome and unique, just needed little ICD reduction and more visible orbs!

Those were actually my favourite Revenant’s traits and they had good flow and theme with Invocation line ;(

kitten damage modifiers, they ruin literally every fun mechanic in this game…

Why, just why?!
You could’ve just improved two of Major traits in this line giving fury, since they were both meh at best.

Please, Roy, give me back my Swirling Winds!
I even mentioned Invocation Adepts on my streams multiple times as an shining example on how Minors should actually look like.

I’ll adress most of my feedback in some more civilized and clear way than a forum post later, but this is just thing I had to mention immediately.