Guild Wars 2

This is just a post to go over the state of Revenant trait lines thematically and has been made for the purpose of providing feedback as to how to make individual specs feel better and be more satisfying over all. Fellow Revenant player feedback would be much appreciated and I’m sure you all have some feelings about the traits.

Devastation is in a pretty good place I think. Just a few tweaks from spot on!

This tree definitely achieves what it was designed for: damage and busting through defenses. Ultimately the only things I see that are in need of some changing are Assassin’s Presence and Ferocious Strikes. Firstly, they seem swapped around. Shouldn’t Assassin’s Presence be a master trait? I mean it’s stronger than Ferocious Strikes in nearly every way, and that’s the second reason these traits need some work. Well, Assassin’s presence is actually fine, but the issue is the similarity between them. They both grant the same amount of ferocity, but one grants it as an AURA and CONSTANTLY while the other only grants it to you and only while dual wielding. Ferocious strikes could still increase crit damage, but in some unique way that isn’t completely overshadowed by Assassin’s Presence.

Salvation is also a pretty solid line that just suffers from a few weak traits and possibly too much of a good thing.

Weak/underwhelming traits include namely Nourishing Roots, Tranquil Benediction, and Selfless Amplification. There might be a slight problem with benevolence spam, but I like that you have the option to opt for full healing. Regeneration in itself is meh. Having it pulsing to allies near an object that might not even be out a lot of the time just isn’t very wow. Maybe adding vigor to it would help? I don’t actually think Tranquil Benediction is a bad trait, it’s just kinda… dull. I don’t really think it needs a change, but making it seem a tad cooler would be nice. It does help with the lack of the Revenant’s use for boon duration though. If I’ve done the math right, in pvp with a fully stacked life sigil, healing power runes, and a cleric’s amulet you can achieve up to 1625 healing power (or so the build calculator tells me) which means about a 25% increase to outgoing healing for going full healing power. That’s good – don’t get me wrong – but there’s a trait in Invocation that gives us that for just being above 50% energy. From what was said on the stream about going overboard on benevolence I think that they’re contemplating some changes. I suggest something that really ties in with “Salvation”; something like increasing the effectiveness of your heals based on your allies’ missing HP possibly. Much stronger heals when they really need them. I also fee like some traits that grant self heals should be taken out of other lines and put here as it is the healing line. If I recall the purpose of Benevolence was to allow for characters to fulfil the role of a healer without becoming overly tanky while still being able to dish out enormous heals. If that’s true then traits like “Hardened Foundation” may be out of place. I think the Invocation adept trait “Invigorating Flow” could have a home here. You could still be survivable like they wanted from this minor, but in a more healy way that doesn’t start to creep into Retribution’s Territory! Lastly, Natural Abundance is cool. I like Natural Abundance.

continuing below

Imo, Devastation is dull as hell.

There’s really nothing interesting as a concept in the whole traitline besides last 2 GMs: Life Siphon when flanking and Stability remover.

Rym.1469:

Imo, Devastation is dull as hell.

There’s really nothing interesting as a concept in the whole traitline besides last 2 GMs: Life Siphon when flanking and Stability remover.

I actually like Devastation a lot. It’s pretty straightforward vulnerability+damage multipliers for PvE, while having block bypass and stability removal for PvP. Even tank and healer builds may like it for the syphons.

It’s a trait line that is good for probably every Revenant build, like Invocation.

Corruption suffers from having traits that just aren’t useful or strong enough.

This line has to provide ways to negate conditions on yourself and empower your own conditions to tie with Mallyx and fill its role as the condi line. It also seems to try to dally in the crit region and boon removal. I think it needs a bit of work finding what it really needs and eliminating what it doesn’t. “Replenishing Despair” is a pretty strong trait when you’re being constantly bombarded with condis, but healing is more of a Salvation thing. This trait also competes with another skill that’s meant to fill its role of ‘dealing with condis’ and I think that if “Demonic Defiance” sees a buff to duration it’ll never be picked by those going for Mallyx. I think it should be scrapped and replaced with some trait that would see more appreciation in this tier. Venom enhancement might not see too much use as currently poison is only available on mace and potentially one underwater weapon if the datamines don’t lie. I’d suggest adding some mace trait in here instead of either of these adepts that increases crit chance or condi duration while wielding it. Even though “Bolstered Anguish” is a flat damage modifier, it fits with the theme of the line and – as a damage modifier – is readily accepted. Chill is strong and “Frigid Precision” seems to be an ok trait, but Revenants already have quite a bit of Chill available. Maybe this is where a condi duration trait would be more appropriate to buff existing chill while providing a bit extra. Longer chills would be nice. Maybe something like a 20% increase?Spontaneous Destruction is perfect here. I think every grandmaster deserves a buff. “Diabolic Inferno” should apply at least 2 stacks of burning, “Pulsating Pestilence” should have its trigger chance upped to 25%, and Maniacal Persistence could also increase the chance for “Opportune Extraction” to steal a boon every few seconds until it procs.

continuing below

Retribution isn’t actually all that bad! It fits it’s theme fairly well; It just needs a bit of cleaning up and buffs.

It needs a hammer trait that could make hammer 1 pierce and grant you retaliation when you block an attack with a short ICD (so with staff 3, sword 4, and hammer 4…I think). This could go in the master tier as a replacement for “Retaliatory Evasion.” It’s a shame that I can’t combo “Redeeming Protection” with “Eye for an Eye” and “Improved Aggression”, so get ready for a massive swap. “Redeeming Protection” moves to adept, “Improved Aggression” moves to Grandmaster and gets slightly buffed, “Reflexive Summon” moves to Master. There. Now you can have that combo. “Steadfast Rejuvenation” is ANOTHER FREAKING SELF HEAL SKILL THAT BELONGS IN THE SLUMS OF SALVATION! 3:< Kick it out and replace it with a trait that either reduces the cast time of Legenary Dwarf skills or causes them to grant you aegis upon cast with a moderate ICD. Then it would combo well with the hypothetical Hammer trait or “Reflexive Summon.” Then just buff “Empowering Vengeance” so that it also makes Retaliation do more damage which would also go well with the hammer trait. There you go! Sound good? I’m quite proud of that. Number’s and values would have to be tuned, but I feel like that would have some really fun synergy.

continuing below almost there!

I might take a short break to eat XD

Invocation is a mishmash of a lot of different things that somehow works in a few ways. Like how “Cruel Repercussion” works well with “Malicious Reprisal” and how “Shrouding Mists” can work with both Ventari/Salvation and Jalis/Retribution. It kinda ties everything together and even though it seems kinda messy, it’s functional. Of course I do have some alterations to make, though.

“Cleansing Channel” should either cure a condi for allies as well to help with group support or cleanse 2 for just you. “Fierce Infusion” instead of granting you fury makes your heal skill a stun breaker with a 30 second ICD. Revenants blatantly need some stun breakers. This would at least help to solve that problem, right? “Incensed Response” no longer grants fury upon stun break, but instead grants you a small chunk of energy back and heals you a little bit (I’m allowing it here, this is the ‘everything’ line where I don’t worry about self heals belittling my beloved Salvation line <3). “Equilibrium” now grants you bonus energy regeneration while below 50% energy and boon duration while above 50%. I’ve added a few ways here to regain energy faster which is something Revenants don’t have, but definitely could use. “Invigorating Flow” could be renamed and become a skill that grants you fury when you gain debilitating or movement impending conditions with a reasonably small ICD. Just some love for Mallyx builds, and fury’s always good. I would tentatively suggest a new grandmaster that would reduce the energy cost of elites by 5-10 energy, but that would probably end… amazingly. That could replace “Charged Mists.” As for the other two grandmasters, I have no clue. Keep em, maybe?

Well, there’s my big Revenant trait rework! We’ve had a great time, haven’t we? I would love to read some feedback or your ideas on how to improve the Revenant. Feel free to drop a comment telling me how broken my a Retribution line is!

Firstly, they seem swapped around. Shouldn’t Assassin’s Presence be a master trait? I mean it’s stronger than Ferocious Strikes in nearly every way

We need to get the idea of master and adept traits out of our head as it isn’t nearly as relevant in the new system as it was in the old system. Pretty good read though!

Kidel.2057:

Rym.1469:

Imo, Devastation is dull as hell.

There’s really nothing interesting as a concept in the whole traitline besides last 2 GMs: Life Siphon when flanking and Stability remover.

I actually like Devastation a lot. It’s pretty straightforward vulnerability+damage multipliers for PvE, while having block bypass and stability removal for PvP. Even tank and healer builds may like it for the syphons.

It’s a trait line that is good for probably every Revenant build, like Invocation.

I know it’s simple to basics and viable, but it always hurts me that in such wonderful combat system they can’t just get rid of most stupid and boring damage modifiers in the game and use some creativity with traits.

Rym.1469:

Kidel.2057:

Rym.1469:

Imo, Devastation is dull as hell.

There’s really nothing interesting as a concept in the whole traitline besides last 2 GMs: Life Siphon when flanking and Stability remover.

I actually like Devastation a lot. It’s pretty straightforward vulnerability+damage multipliers for PvE, while having block bypass and stability removal for PvP. Even tank and healer builds may like it for the syphons.

It’s a trait line that is good for probably every Revenant build, like Invocation.

I know it’s simple to basics and viable, but it always hurts me that in such wonderful combat system they can’t just get rid of most stupid and boring damage modifiers in the game and use some creativity with traits.

People don’t get used to the active combat system that much and they barely use it, actually a lot of people complain that it’s too hard to learn the animations/have the coordination to dodge attacks/learn the skill animations to actually be more skilled, if you made traits more focused in certain combat situations people would plainly go jackhammer crazy about it. Also making dynamic traits makes it harder to balance because the devs don’t want to spread effects of traits in between game modes; simply put you’ll want higher damage modifiers for PvE content like 10-20% bonus based on your total damage (think about bosses ranging between 500-800k HP and actual challenging content) but if you apply the same modifiers to PvP it would just make pure damage builds faceroll defensive builds even more so than it’s done now.

As of now there are a lot of synergies between traits, weapons and legends, the problem is the flow of skills feels slow because of utility effects, energy costs and legend cooldown times (high risk not so much of a reward instead of high risk high reward), that’s what makes Mallyx so bad at managing energy and condition pressure and what rends the healing overkill on Ventari almost useless in PvP and WvW.

Every build will be Devastation + Invocation + Who cares. Just look where all the damage % modifiers are. Look where the Fury traits are. Look where the stunbreaks are. Etc, etc.

The only exception is for those rare situations where you want to tank or something…

Xenon.4537:

Every build will be Devastation + Invocation + Who cares. Just look where all the damage % modifiers are. Look where the Fury traits are. Look where the stunbreaks are. Etc, etc.

The only exception is for those rare situations where you want to tank or something…

Agreed, well for PvE at least. Corruption looks to be the contender for DPS (ironically works better in a Power build than condi build). Retribution would be used for tanking-esque, and Salvation offers recovery support.

savacli.8172:

Xenon.4537:

Every build will be Devastation + Invocation + Who cares. Just look where all the damage % modifiers are. Look where the Fury traits are. Look where the stunbreaks are. Etc, etc.

The only exception is for those rare situations where you want to tank or something…

Agreed, well for PvE at least. Corruption looks to be the contender for DPS (ironically works better in a Power build than condi build). Retribution would be used for tanking-esque, and Salvation offers recovery support.

PvE: Shiro + Invocation + Choice of [Mallyx/Glint] – spam 1-0 until energy gone, then wait for energy, repeat.

PvP: Jalis + Ventari + Invocation – stand on point, heal self all day, laugh at people.

savacli.8172:

Xenon.4537:

Every build will be Devastation + Invocation + Who cares. Just look where all the damage % modifiers are. Look where the Fury traits are. Look where the stunbreaks are. Etc, etc.

The only exception is for those rare situations where you want to tank or something…

Agreed, well for PvE at least. Corruption looks to be the contender for DPS (ironically works better in a Power build than condi build). Retribution would be used for tanking-esque, and Salvation offers recovery support.

How is Corruption better than Devastation for power builds? Last time I checked there was just the sure fire crit trait there.

Treetoptrickster.4205:

savacli.8172:

Xenon.4537:

Every build will be Devastation + Invocation + Who cares. Just look where all the damage % modifiers are. Look where the Fury traits are. Look where the stunbreaks are. Etc, etc.

The only exception is for those rare situations where you want to tank or something…

Agreed, well for PvE at least. Corruption looks to be the contender for DPS (ironically works better in a Power build than condi build). Retribution would be used for tanking-esque, and Salvation offers recovery support.

How is Corruption better than Devastation for power builds? Last time I checked there was just the sure fire crit trait there.

I consider Devastation and Invocation to be mandatory in a Power build. Corruption would be the third Spec of the remaining three.

savacli.8172:

Treetoptrickster.4205:

savacli.8172:

Xenon.4537:

Every build will be Devastation + Invocation + Who cares. Just look where all the damage % modifiers are. Look where the Fury traits are. Look where the stunbreaks are. Etc, etc.

The only exception is for those rare situations where you want to tank or something…

Agreed, well for PvE at least. Corruption looks to be the contender for DPS (ironically works better in a Power build than condi build). Retribution would be used for tanking-esque, and Salvation offers recovery support.

How is Corruption better than Devastation for power builds? Last time I checked there was just the sure fire crit trait there.

I consider Devastation and Invocation to be mandatory in a Power build. Corruption would be the third Spec of the remaining three.

And as I learned today, Mallyx gives you (supposedly) 30% more damage due to stat increase while using Embrace the Darkness. You could probably just run the Mallyx legend with a different traitline in that case.

Xenon.4537:

savacli.8172:

Treetoptrickster.4205:

savacli.8172:

Xenon.4537:

Every build will be Devastation + Invocation + Who cares. Just look where all the damage % modifiers are. Look where the Fury traits are. Look where the stunbreaks are. Etc, etc.

The only exception is for those rare situations where you want to tank or something…

Agreed, well for PvE at least. Corruption looks to be the contender for DPS (ironically works better in a Power build than condi build). Retribution would be used for tanking-esque, and Salvation offers recovery support.

How is Corruption better than Devastation for power builds? Last time I checked there was just the sure fire crit trait there.

I consider Devastation and Invocation to be mandatory in a Power build. Corruption would be the third Spec of the remaining three.

And as I learned today, Mallyx gives you (supposedly) 30% more damage due to stat increase while using Embrace the Darkness. You could probably just run the Mallyx legend with a different traitline in that case.

Ah, right.

It’s 10% power + 10% precision + 10% ferocity (or crit rate, don’t know which one is buffed).
So if you have around 200% crit damage, it’s 10% + (10% of 203%) = around 30%
If you also have around 90% crit rate, then your actual bonus is more similar to 33%.
Any rate betwoon 0% and 90% gives you a bonus between 30% and 33%

If it’s a boost to crit damage instead of ferocity then it’s around 31% at 0% starting crit rate, and 40% with 90% starting crit rate.

Of course it’s just +25% if you have 0 ferocity (like on Sinister builds).

So depending on your stats and what is actually increased by the skill, the bonus may range from 25% to 40% on overall dps (not talking about single attacks here).

Plus conditions.

Having a tough time thinking about my WvW (zerg) build. Some pretty tough choices between the two final trait lines.

I’m also struggling with my WvW build!
PvE and PvP are easier with Rev.

Guess I’ll take all the condi cleanse I can however, so I’m probably going with Devastation+Invocation+Salvation. Still unsure about gear.

Embrace the Darkness gives you 10% to your stats before buffs. It is a buff, but not a massive one. It also has a cast time so that assuming you want to get back to shiro stance for more Impossible Odds, you’ll lose more DPS by stopping to cast it than you will gain from the stat increase You should use it, but don’t wait for your energy to run out before swapping back to Shiro as quickly as possible.

After doing more thorough math, that last part isn’t true. It is about a 6-8% buff while in Mallyx stance to use the elite.

Impossible Odds is stronger of course, since it’s a flat 50%. Embrace is good to alternate with IO to increase overall damage. Legendswap is better then simply wait.

Scratch my previous comment, that was some lazy math fail on my part.

+10% to all stats is not a 10% damage buff, it can be higher then 30%. If you also have an external source of Quickness then the damage is actually higher then IO, since it doesn’t stack in intensity. Not factoring conditions copied.
1s cast time is not an issue, since you can use it in dead moments. We’re not talking about test golems, aren’t we?

Of course IO is the main dps source (mainly for the cast time), but I won’t call out Embrace either. It’s better then simply waiting for energy to build up again.

Losing 1s over a 30% buff is better then simply attacking 10 seconds unbuffed and unable to do anything except AA (that may be the best dps, but not the skill you want to do all the time).

Lol, even swapping to Jalis may be a better idea then simply waiting.

Where you got that 30% from? I dont even know what to say..what makes you think that 10% to power, fero and precision is equal to 30+% dps?

Straight damage buff >>> stat buff by a miles..

Literally 7 posts above
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/revenant/Revenant-Specs/first#post5353519

How can 10% power, 10% precision and 10% ferocity only be 10% damage?
Even implying 150% crit damage (0 ferocity) it’s a 25% overall damage boost.

Power is an offensive attribute that increases any direct damage linearly. +10% power alone is a 10% damage boost, so Embrace is more then 25% only with 10% power and precision.

Stop being so overconfident and at least try to listen to the others with an open mind. You may actually learn something in the process.

10% power IS a straight buff in this game. Power is a direct multiplier in the damage formula (10% more power = 10% damage boost). Also 10% precision IS a straight damage buff, since you do 10% more frequently your crit damage, that goes from 150% to over 200% of your power damage (so 10% more crit rate = from 15% to over 20% damage boost). While the ferocity increase only translates in around 3% damage boost, the other 2 stats give more then 35% alone.

The only problem with Embrace is the casting time, but being less expensive in energy compared to IO, and with an external quickness source, that’s a 80% damage buff against a 50%.
In a solo situation IO is better, in group play it depends on the group.
I know you don’t care since you’re a pvp player, but we’re not talking explicitly about pvp here. Quickness is not too hard to get.

Kidel.2057:

I’m also struggling with my WvW build!
PvE and PvP are easier with Rev.

Guess I’ll take all the condi cleanse I can however, so I’m probably going with Devastation+Invocation+Salvation. Still unsure about gear.

Retribution I see as kinda non-negotiable as the defenses on a class with very low mobility and few stun breaks/stability is kinda needed. The protection on disable, the -dmg taken, heal on damage taken, all adds up to some beefy defense.

Salvation and Ventari I found completely worthless in WvW. If any kind of CC gets on you then you’re disabled and screwed and second you leave Ventari you lose all benefits from it. Oh sure on a ranged stand off it was okay, but even then healing 5 people was pretty much pointless when the standard Water Field + Blast is going to continue to be the staple refresh mechanism. The micromanagement part actually not bad, kinda challenging, but ultimately what got me to stop using it was every time I’d be in Ventari I’d always end up back in Jalis just to swap back.

Malyx with Corruption actually has a ton going for it and was really surprised. My performance in WvW went up massively once I switched to using Malyx/Jalis combination because with Corruption it made Malyx skills all grant a ton of resistance with Demonic Resistance. I loved seeing Cow Trebs because it meant I’d be stealing everyone’s conditions and building up massive amounts of resistance (at one point I was up to 30s without the bug). With Hoelbrak and Lemongrass Soup on the conditions fell off super fast as well (much shorter than resistance). Banish Enchantment and Spontaneous Destruction (especially) were great in most fights because the later can proc even up to 1200m away with Hammer skills. Maniacal Persistance was actually pretty strong as well and should pair up nicely with Devastation. Unyielding Anguish is a miracle skill for defending backline rushers (forces who teleport in on your backline) cause it sends them everywhere ignoring Stability even. Stat boost on the Ultimate wasn’t bad either.

The real crux of this test for me is Devastation vs Invocation. Devastation offers a lot of damage add with 10% crit damage (for all), and the standard “execute” style GM trait alongside tons of synergy with Vulnerability. However Invocation offers some damage add in terms of Fury and increased Fury performance (albeit personally I prefer the Might generation which if you spam skills a lot under 50 energy was stacking 8-10 stacks of Might for me) but also a very important stun break on legend swap.

Also as good as Jalis is, only 3 of the 5 skills are useful for WvW (heal, road and ultimate) with the taunt and hammer spin largely being useless. If it weren’t the only few sources of stun break, stability and condi clear it may even be worth skipping for Shiro and do a Shiro/Malyx combo. I plan to try a few combos out of course and see what I feel handles best (giving each 6ish odd hours in WvW in Tier 1) but we’ll have to see.

For PvE of course all of this is academic because Devastation/Invocation are the obvious choices combined with Malyx most likely due to just being more DPS add.

So after doing actual math, for a full zerker rev using the 2 150 ferocity traits, EtD is worth 20% damage if you have fury@30% and 0 might.

If you go up to 25 might, that drops to a 17.6% damage increase.

Factoring in the cast time, you get 8% and 5.8% respectively.

Knox.8962:

So after doing actual math, for a full zerker rev using the 2 150 ferocity traits, EtD is worth 20% damage if you have fury@30% and 0 might.

If you go up to 25 might, that drops to a 17.6% damage increase.

Factoring in the cast time, you get 8% and 5.8% respectively.

EDIT: Yeah, it’s around 20%. In my previous calculations I considered the 150% crit damage as an addition, not a multiplier. d*150%=1.5d is what happens, not d+(d*150%)=2.5d

Still +20% is better then just waiting 10 seconds unable to do anything except AA. And it’s way more then the 10% that was mentioned before (and way better then IO if you’re getting external quickness from Mesmer/Guardian).

@Kodiak
I kinda agree with you, however I wasn’t talking about Salvation+Ventari, but only Salvation trait line.
Also yeah, thinking more carefully Retribution is kind of a must in WvW for the damage reduction against ranged foes, plus mitigations and Retaliation. Guess we’ll probably have to rely on Invocation for condi cleanse.

10% precision is not equal to 10% damage by any means..Ask yourself..for once..how much damage you can get going from 90% crit chance to 100 when you basically crit the whole time at 90%?

skowcia.8257:

10% precision is not equal to 10% damage by any means..Ask yourself..for once..how much damage you can get going from 90% crit chance to 100 when you basically crit the whole time at 90%?

If I do 10% more often 50% more damage, I’m doing an average of 5% more damage.

What I was getting wrong is the actual base crit damage bonus being just +50% compared to base damage (base damage * 1.5 is not 150% more, but just 50% more), but what you’re saying, skowcia, is pretty stupid.
You don’t crit “the whole time” at 90%, you crit exactly 90% of the time. You do not crit sometimes, losing all your critical damage in those occasions.

Are you implying that 90% = 100%? Seriously?
Tell me it was a joke.

For a full ascended Zerker w/ Scholar setup, you’ll end up with the following stats without consumables:

Power – 2587
Precision – 1960
Ferocity – 1060

If you include 30% crit rate (630 precision) from fury w/ the trait and 300 Ferocity from the Devastation Traits, you end up with
Power – 2587
Precision – 2590
Ferocity – 1360
for an effective power of 5524 Calculated as (Power* (1 + (Precision-895)/2100 * (Ferocity+750)/1500)

If you cast EtD, you add 259, 196 and 106 to Power, Precision and Ferocity respectively.
Your final stats would be
Power – 2846
Precision – 2786
Ferocity – 1466
for an effective power of 6631

6631/5524 is 1.2 thus a 20% damage increase while EtD is active. if you multiply that by the 90% uptime you get when factoring in the cast, you end up with 1.08 which is an 8% damage increase over just auto-attacking.

The exercise is the same with might stacks, just add 750 power to the above numbers. You’ll end up with 17.6% and 5.8% when factoring in the cast time for EtD

Kidel.2057:

skowcia.8257:

10% precision is not equal to 10% damage by any means..Ask yourself..for once..how much damage you can get going from 90% crit chance to 100 when you basically crit the whole time at 90%?

If I do 10% more often 50% more damage, I’m doing an average of 5% more damage.

What I was getting wrong is the actual base crit damage bonus being just +50% compared to base damage (base damage * 1.5 is not 150% more, but just 50% more), but what you’re saying, skowcia, is pretty stupid.
You don’t crit “the whole time” at 90%, you crit exactly 90% of the time. You do not crit sometimes, losing all your critical damage in those occasions.

Are you implying that 90% = 100%? Seriously?
Tell me it was a joke.

He is correct. Going from 90% crit to 100% with 200% crit damage would be 1.9x base damage with no crits. Bringing that crit chance up by 10% would move you up to 2x base damage with no crits. The net increase in damage would be 2/1.9 = 1.053 or a 5.3% damage gain from a 10% crit chance increase.

200%-190%=10%
Those are already “%”. You basically did 200%/190% that is not the gain, but the proportion.

If you are doing 1900 DPS, and you get a buff and start doing 2000 DPS, your damage has increased by 100 DPS. This is a 100/1900 = 5.26% increase in damage.

I’m not going to reply 2 times to the same thing. I’ll simply agree on your calculations with zerk gear for the sake of this place.

However EtD has a 5 energy cost and a 5-8=-3 upkeep cost, meaning it can last 31 seconds starting from 100 energy, so 1s is not 10% of the time, but 3.2% of the time.

So you gain a 20% boost over 97% uptime, still almost +20%. How is this worse then waiting without being able to do any skill except AA? Again, not factoring conditions copied (that is at least the self-torment) and external quickness.

Of course Impossible Odds is better then EtD, not arguing on that, but EtD is better then nothing (well, it’s probably better then IO when there are a couple of Guardians in the team).

Kidel.2057:

@Kodiak
I kinda agree with you, however I wasn’t talking about Salvation+Ventari, but only Salvation trait line.
Also yeah, thinking more carefully Retribution is kind of a must in WvW for the damage reduction against ranged foes, plus mitigations and Retaliation. Guess we’ll probably have to rely on Invocation for condi cleanse.

Salvation line is designed entirely around healing others. The only trait in there I even remotely saw as interesting was the condi cleanse on dodge roll which, while nice, doesn’t justify an entire line when there’s tons of other classes in the game cleansing Condis far easier in a zerg.

To be honest man if you go Invocation the Fury on heal is way better especially since you’ll most likely be Jalis and get that powerful 3 Condi clear and Resistance in Malyx makes conditions non-existent. That and cleanse one condi every 10 seconds or so on Legend Swap just isn’t effective. With the large amount of hard CC (only real counter in Jalis / Shiro) and the large amount of soft CC (being condi based only real clear is Jalis and Malyx) pretty much leaves Jalis/Malyx or Shiro/Malyx as the only choices.

Of course when we see Glint that’ll likely screw all that up haha.

Kodiak.3281:

Of course when we see Glint that’ll likely screw all that up haha.

I really hope so. I don’t really want to rely on Jalis for condi cleanse, at least not until its other skills become meaningful.

Kidel.2057:

I’m not going to reply 2 times to the same thing. I’ll simply agree on your calculations with zerk gear for the sake of this place.

However EtD has a 5 energy cost and a 5-8=-3 upkeep cost, meaning it can last 31 seconds starting from 100 energy, so 1s is not 10% of the time, but 3.2% of the time.

So you gain a 20% boost over 97% uptime, still almost +20%. How is this worse then waiting without being able to do any skill except AA? Again, not factoring conditions copied (that is at least the self-torment) and external quickness.

Of course Impossible Odds is better then EtD, not arguing on that, but EtD is better then nothing (well, it’s probably better then IO when there are a couple of Guardians in the team).

If we can agree that Impossible Odds is better than EtD then your rotation would look like this:

• Enter combat at 50 Energy and activate Impossible Odds.
• 9s later, you’ll run out of energy, at which point you would swap to Mallyx.
• You are now stuck in Mallyx for 10s and start at 50 Energy. If you activate EtD, you’ll be at 45 Energy with -3 pips.
• After 9s, your Legend Swap cooldown will be up again. At this point you will have 18 Energy.
• Swap to Shiro and repeat this

Since Impossible Odds is better than EtD, you would want to use IO as soon as it is available again and that excess energy would be abandoned. Thus you would use 1s to cast EtD and 9s of maintaining it before you were able to go back to using Shiro for IO.

I have no idea how you think you’ll end up at 100 energy to get the full 31s of uptime on EtD, but even if you were at 100 to start with, you’d still be better off flipping back to Shiro for IO once the Legend Swap CD was up.

I was counting from 100. Even starting at 50 energy and supposing no reaction time wasted, EtD is still a 15seconds upkeep.

This means I can use EtD for 9 seconds and still have 18 energy to use before swapping back (factoring the 1s cast time), meaning you can even use 1 skill (maybe not for dps, but may be useful, let’s say, for healing?).
If I don’t use EtD then I simply have to wait 10 seconds without using skills to get to 50 energy again with no swap.

So you’re basically trading 20% damage with 1 second of AA, that is just the first 2 hits. Over 10 seconds you can use a full AA combo almost 6 times (18 attacks). If we average the 3 hits to 1 damage each, this means that you’re trading 18d*120% (and 18 energy) for just 20d unbuffed.
18d*120% is 21d.

And Even if those values were both 20d, there is still the 18 energy (that could be used for healing or might), the torment and a possible external quickness (even stacking in duration on top of your previous IO) making EtD a better option until you run out of it.

Not to mention you also get a 10% boost to vitality, toughness, condition damage and healing power.

Being said that, I think even swapping to Jalis may be a better option then simply waiting for energy. Of course not for dps, but you can at least spam your utility skills and be useful, or simply heal back any damage.

Kidel.2057:

Kodiak.3281:

Of course when we see Glint that’ll likely screw all that up haha.

I really hope so. I don’t really want to rely on Jalis for condi cleanse, at least not until its other skills become meaningful.

Well the Jalis thing is more for the Stability Road and Stun Break. Many cases when I was caught I had to swap to Jalis (stun break) then usually stun break again (Rite of the Great Dwarf) just to get out of bad situations. Prepping up Road is okay but never stacks enough stability to be meaningful due to it’s ultra short duration requiring it to basically be spammed forever to keep stab (not really effective to do so). The 3 condi cleanse on the heal is kinda just a bonus and usually works well in conjunction with Malyx where when resistance can’t be maintained (can’t draw conditions) and you gotta clear condi to keep going.

That’s really where Glint is going to screw things up. Glint, given what we’re missing, likely will be a solid ranged DPS line (not sure how that’ll work with shield…but utilities are likely ranged) if you want that ranged DPS you’ll have to leave yourself vulnerable to conditions.

Really this is kinda the whole problem with the Revenant design currently, everything is so packaged together so tightly (no swappable utilities) you’re kinda forced into X or Y if you want the related abilities rather than simply being able to swap in relevant utilities as needed you’re forced to take a whole set of utilities for a single one.

Kodiak.3281:

you’re forced to take a whole set of utilities for a single one.

But that’s why you can get 10 of them. They simply need to fix some of the current ones that feel useless. Again Jalis is a great example.
I mean that the idea is not wrong, it just needs polishing.

After doing actual math I’m fully in favor of using EtD, but only for the 9s that you have to use it. It is about a 6-8% damage boost over just plain AA-ing for the duration that you’re in Mallyx. I’m hopeful that Glint has something better to offer, but we’ll have to see.

Glad we’ve come to an agreement. However, depending on the situation, 50 energy can be better even with 0 damage, so swapping will always be a good practice opposed to simply waiting.

Regarding Glint, I’m pretty sure that Shiro will always have the highest damage.

I’d be shocked if they made Glint more damage-y than Shiro, but I’m hopeful that Glint will provide more damage output than Mallyx. The only thing about the energy that I’m not sure about is what the damage on Equilibrium is compared to the 8% or so damage boost you gain from the elite.

What about Jalis and his spinning hammers?

Like really..no love for Jalis..no love for dwarfs. Also why nobody consider axe for pve?

As for equil w/e to spell it damage is slighty stronger than smite condition (with cured condition) on guardian.

Probably gonna start my weekend with Dev, Ret, and Inv. Most likely teamed with Shiro and Jalis legends. I’ll try S-S/H first just to see changes. Then diverge from there into some different builds and setups to see what I’m comfortable with in WvW.

Kinda interested in a Mallyx/Shiro build as well, but we’ll see how far I get before I dive into other things.

The problem with Mallyx is that if you use it as intended you just die from conditions atm. It’s only good to keep the damage up when IO is on cd.

Kidel.2057:

The problem with Mallyx is that if you use it as intended you just die from conditions atm. It’s only good to keep the damage up when IO is on cd.

Actually this is entirely inaccurate. With Demonic Resistance equipped you pretty much ignore conditions. With Pain Absorption in a group of people affected you pretty much stack way more resistance than condi duration and if you pop Empowered Misery right after and you have 5-6 condis on you it’s really impressive healing.

and once your resistance is over or you’re out of energy for Embrace, you simply die from the accumulated stacks you can’t heal (unless you give up Shiro for Jalis)