Revenant WvW Build
I can only speak from a T1 perspective where blobs can run pretty fat at around 20-40 people and the tactics can be exceptionally brutal on players (large coordinated damage bombs and the like).
For front line play you pretty much want around 3000 armor buffed (such as with Strength In Numbers) so on that front you are massively under valued. Your other stats are fine for front line. Over all your stats lean more towards Havoc play and back line Blob play.
I would consider removing Jalis from your build. After the recent changes Jalis is worthless in WvW outside of the heal. Inspiring Reinforcements is worthless because a 1s duration stability every 1s means you have to stay it in the entire time which isn’t feasible in WvW. A 2s Taunt for 50 energy is incredibly wasteful and while the -20% damage on Hammers might seem useful they cancel anytime you get close to a wall and most restacks occur near an object that will cancel them. Running through gateways causes it to cancel, running up stairs causes it to cancel, etc so it’s really non-functional for objective fights. Rite is good and a decent buff but without a source of Stability it’s also risky (albeit less risky with the cast time reduction) because you can use it to break out of a Static Field only to run into an instant cast wall right in front of you or you get caught by a front line CC and it’ll get interrupted right after. This pretty much only leaves the heal with any real merit so the only reason to keep Jalis is the large heal with condi removal.
Sword/Axe for front line duty is also pretty sub par. Staff offers you a 600m travel skill (same as Warriors/Guardians) that’s now also an evade. That’s on top of an AOE heal, condi removal and now blast finisher for blasting water with the melee stack. We also get a 2-3s block which is also going to go a long way as well. For havoc Sword/Axe is far superior though.
In Retribution I’d take Redeeming Protection for the additional Protection time. Without Stability (and even then it triggers the Protection when Stability fires if I’m not mistaken) you are going to get CC’d a lot in WvW. After the Stability changes everyone tries to spam as much CC as possible to strip Stability stacks and catch the poor classes that have limited sources of stability (IE: Necros, Revenants, etc) so they’re separated out and easy downs to rally off of. I’d also use Steadfast Rejuvenation as it procs quite a bit and is a great source of damage reduction.
Most of your game play is going to be in Shiro using Riposting Shadows and Impossible Odds. Personally I use a similar back line build only as Malyx/Shiro with Corruption/Invocation/Retribution instead for WvW.
Kodiak X – Blackgate
Got some points how I would play rev in frontline of a zerg:
- I’m not sure of Shiro in a zerg build, I guess I would pick Jalis & Glint. Glint provides much support for your zerg with the buffs, also I guess the heal skill could really save your kitten sometimes
(- Swap devastation line for Herald if you go want to go for Glint)
- Pick Redeeming Protection, 3 sec prot with 5 cd. And if it works like on the engineer it will even proc when a cc is blocked by stability. So pretty strong in zerg fights specially for survial
- 2,2k armor for a Zerg Build? Guess you should more aim for 2,5-3k
- Sword within zerg fights isn’t great. Autoattack chain is singletarget, also unrelenting assault is really weak against multiple enemies. Guess I would pick up Staff, it hits more foes, provides additional healing, condi remove and a blast finisher for your zerg. As well as projectil block and surge of the mists could be also funny in a zerg.
Maybe Mace and Shield could be an option well. You wont profit from Mace, but it provides your zerk another firefield as well as blast finishers. And of course the shield provides you survival in zerg fights.
I was planning to use Jalis in WvW, but with last changes I don’t really know. Guess I’ll try it at least.
Are you going to use Glint and Herald traits?
Shiro is actually amazing in a zerg build because it’s the most survivable stance we have now.
Riposting Shadows is probably the most OP broken thing ever. It removes slowing Conditions. It breaks Stun. It Evades for the duration. AND it restores 50 Energy allowing you to dodge roll right after. For 30 energy. The only down side is it’s backwards so if you’re on the front line that can be bad because you usually want to keep going forward not back. However on the back line it’s tantamount to invincibility in most cases because no one and nothing can catch you mobility wise other than a physical wall.
Flipping on Impossible Odds is like watching one of those movies where you got a super speed person walking around. Super Speed is basically the same as 33% movement speed out of combat only, in combat so you have total battle field mobility with it. It’s pretty amazing and you can flip it on and off as needed.
After two Revenant weekends with the Revenant I’m pretty sure they haven’t even looked at balancing Revenant for WvW at all. I can sit there with Pain Absorption in Malyx and just feed off Cow Trebs and Fire Mortars. At one point I had something like 30 stacks of Burning with 10 seconds of Resistance up. Unyielding Anguish…well I’ll just let you watch the video what you can do with Unyielding Anguish. Meanwhile they make changes like Inspiring Reinforcements which is just awful for WvW now. Do you see a single point in that video where I really stop moving to stand in Inspiring Reinforcement? People have this idea in their heads that a lot of CC can be avoided but you can see in the first 10 seconds there most cases CC that gets you are dropped instantly and right in front of your face lol.
Kodiak X – Blackgate
Don’t underestimate the value of resistance in large group combat. You can stack up quite a bit of it with the Mallyx traits and skills.
I was planning to use Jalis in WvW, but with last changes I don’t really know. Guess I’ll try it at least.
Are you going to use Glint and Herald traits?
Glint/Herald is rough because all the active utilities, beyond the auras, are all short range (360-600) abilities. However as we established, without being in a Guardian team for a source of good Stability, we’re basically not viable for the front line because we don’t have a good source (for WvW) of stability anymore.
If you can make it into a front line Guardian party you’d have to use a Staff for one because it’s the best front line weapon we got currently. Mace/Shield would be the offhand, but other than the multi-blast finisher on Mace that’s about best you’re going to get for useful one hand options to go with that shield. If they fix Crystal Hibernation to be mobile, like they did when they realized how bad it was on Engie to not be mobile, then Shield might make a more prominent role.
The real issue is how you would use the class. During the pre-stack Empower you’d be running Facet of Nature (to increase Empower boon duration). Doing this will prevent you from using 50 energy skills like Rite of the Great Dwarf before hand as Jalis and Road is garbage now so probably just start in Shiro/Malyx. Soon as you move out you’d likely pop Shiro Heal if Shiro or Pain Absorption/Unyielding Anguish if malyx, switch to Glint (you’ll be low Energy in Shiro/Malyx from Facet up out of combat so Glint will return you to 50 energy) activate Facet of Light and Chaos giving you -8 Energy temporarily as you engage. If you leap in, you’ll use Staff 5 to leap in and activate Chaotic Release. This will alleviate Energy concerns, knock opponents back, and also give your team Super Speed for 5 seconds. Facet of Light should try to be saved if possible but used if you get caught hard in a bomb. If you rally then you’d use Staff 4 for blast finisher on Water fields for Area Heal plus the heal plus the condi removal.
Shiro has a lot of good survivability to with on demand Super Speed for positioning. Malyx could be another great option. It already has good viability on the front line with Unyielding Anguish and it’s large sources of Resistance especially with +65% duration. Jalis was the natural choice until the recent Road nerf which is just a shame.
Glint as backline support…pretty iffy. I mean it’s better than nothing, but all the actives are useless for back line due to range and pairing up a pretty weak heal like that with Shiro gives you two very weak heals. You’ll still spend most of your time in Shiro for stability against back line rushers or sitting there running Facet of Nature/Strength. Swift Gale (minor Glint) would be hilarious with Riposting Shadows adding Super Speed to the mix. Shared Empowerment is great of course. Soothing Bastion would be nice, but honestly rooting myself at 25% is counter productive to me living so I’d probably go with Enhanced Bulwark in the end. If they fix Hibernation to be mobile, that’d be the no brainer talent and would really shake things up because you’d want to use a shield a lot with Shield 4.
Biggest issue with Facets in general is the upkeeps continue out of combat. You get out of Combat a lot in this game and it makes energy regen wonky. You can go from 80 energy in combat with only 1 energy generating down to 50 with -4 energy drain in the blink of an eye soon as you exit combat. I’ve actually had plenty of fights where I actually fall out of combat so it will be interesting to see how it actually goes.
Kodiak X – Blackgate
Shiro is actually amazing in a zerg build because it’s the most survivable stance we have now.
Riposting Shadows is probably the most OP broken thing ever. It removes slowing Conditions. It breaks Stun. It Evades for the duration. AND it restores 50 Energy allowing you to dodge roll right after. For 30 energy. The only down side is it’s backwards so if you’re on the front line that can be bad because you usually want to keep going forward not back. However on the back line it’s tantamount to invincibility in most cases because no one and nothing can catch you mobility wise other than a physical wall.
Flipping on Impossible Odds is like watching one of those movies where you got a super speed person walking around. Super Speed is basically the same as 33% movement speed out of combat only, in combat so you have total battle field mobility with it. It’s pretty amazing and you can flip it on and off as needed.
After two Revenant weekends with the Revenant I’m pretty sure they haven’t even looked at balancing Revenant for WvW at all. I can sit there with Pain Absorption in Malyx and just feed off Cow Trebs and Fire Mortars. At one point I had something like 30 stacks of Burning with 10 seconds of Resistance up. Unyielding Anguish…well I’ll just let you watch the video what you can do with Unyielding Anguish. Meanwhile they make changes like Inspiring Reinforcements which is just awful for WvW now. Do you see a single point in that video where I really stop moving to stand in Inspiring Reinforcement? People have this idea in their heads that a lot of CC can be avoided but you can see in the first 10 seconds there most cases CC that gets you are dropped instantly and right in front of your face lol.
Well, to be fair on the Inspiring reinforcements note, you are playing back-line in those videos. It does still have potential on the front-line. Shiro, on the other hand, is relatively useless in a front-line comp where you actually have to bring some group support competitive with a guardian or warrior. Which at this point is going to leave you somewhere between Jalis, Mallyx, and Glint.
That said, it would be nice to have the Herald trait Enhanced Bulwark add an additional stack of stability when you apply stability, as opposed to when it is applied to you, so that it affects allies too. Although I’m not sure we’ll see that happen, that’d make the revenant a strong compliment to warrior and guardian.
(edited by Recursivision.2367)
Wait, 600 radius around you is not short at all. Guardian symbols have180 radius.
Glint upkeeps have the same radius of Warrior banners, and I think it’s huge.
Recursivision:
Inspiring Reinforcement has no place on the front line because you are forever moving in WvW. Basically the new IR is a field that so long as you stay in that field you get Stability which cause you’re always moving you’ll never be able to sit in that field. There’s another skill that currently works like this, Well of Power, and you can try it out in WvW on the front and you’ll see that it doesn’t work at all either.
Jalis basically doesn’t have a place in WvW anymore after the nerf. The only group support we can bring is through Herald and Malyx now and Malyx requires Corruption leaving you with a Corruption/Retribution/Herald build which removes the very powerful stun removal on legend swap. I still wouldn’t count out Shiro though. Super Speed on demand is pretty crazy as a legend swap to get back in position then back to Glint.
Kidel:
600 Radius for boons is fine, but the actives are all short range radius abilities. Most are 360 radius around you. Elemental Blast is a 360 AOE at 600 range. The point being is if you are back line you’re not going to be able to hit the enemy with Gaze of Darkness, Burst of Strength, etc.
Kodiak X – Blackgate
Thanks for the feedback. What about this build instead?
@Kodiak – I am on BlackGate and looking to get more into the WvW scene. Are blob fights more common than havoc groups? It seems that way to me.
Recursivision:
Inspiring Reinforcement has no place on the front line because you are forever moving in WvW. Basically the new IR is a field that so long as you stay in that field you get Stability which cause you’re always moving you’ll never be able to sit in that field. There’s another skill that currently works like this, Well of Power, and you can try it out in WvW on the front and you’ll see that it doesn’t work at all either.
First off, Well of Power is nothing alike. It does one stack of stability, one time, for you alone. Second, if your front-line is just plowing straight ahead full speed 24/7 you clearly don’t need any stability.
Jalis basically doesn’t have a place in WvW anymore after the nerf. The only group support we can bring is through Herald and Malyx now and Malyx requires Corruption leaving you with a Corruption/Retribution/Herald build which removes the very powerful stun removal on legend swap. I still wouldn’t count out Shiro though. Super Speed on demand is pretty crazy as a legend swap to get back in position then back to Glint.
Mallyx also doesn’t require corruption at all. The only reason you’d take it is to absolutely maximize resistance (selfishly), but Pain absorption is going to be your most used skill anyway, giving you about 7 seconds of resistance either way. The only other trait in the line that would be useful to you would be the damage modifier.
I’m skeptical about the Glint legend being particularly useful. The only boon not already in abundance in a typical front-line comp would be protection with a small amount of downtime, and none of the actives look particularly useful—You’d pretty much be taking it for the heal skill. However, if you could do without, I think you’d be bringing more to the party with Mallyx/Jalis and putting your points into Invocation/Retribution/Herald.
Would recommend something like this.
Taking herald as your third, with:
Hardening Persitence/Radiant Revival
Harmonize Continuity
Enhanced Bulwark
(edited by Recursivision.2367)
First off, Well of Power is nothing alike. It does one stack of stability, one time, for you alone. Second, if your front-line is just plowing straight ahead full speed 24/7 you clearly don’t need any stability.
Only one stack you say? That’s exactly how much you get on the run with Inspiring Reinforcement.
They can plow ahead 24/7 because of Stability. Post nerf most front line teams consist of 2-3 Guardians with a mix of 2-3 Warriors and Necros. The Necros get the initial Stability (so they can deliver the bomb) while Warriors bring their own Stability in addition the large amount brought by Guardian (Stand your Ground, Indomitable Courage + Virtue of Courage). This is why Guardians currently have a strangle hold on the front line in WvW currently, because they’re the only source of group Stability that is functionally useful. Devs can throw around the word “Front Line” all they want, but unless you bringing AOE Stab for your group then you’re just as equal to a Necro in the party leeching off the Guardian’s stability. With 2 Empowers you’re already at 24 stacks of Might. With a Warrior you already have For Great Justice for Fury. Best we got is offering extra boon duration at the moment.
Mallyx also doesn’t require corruption at all. The only reason you’d take it is to absolutely maximize resistance (selfishly), but Pain absorption is going to be your most used skill anyway, giving you about 7 seconds of resistance either way. The only other trait in the line that would be useful to you would be the damage modifier.
I’m skeptical about the Glint legend being particularly useful. The only boon not already in abundance in a typical front-line comp would be protection with a small amount of downtime, and none of the actives look particularly useful—You’d pretty much be taking it for the heal skill. However, if you could do without, I think you’d be bringing more to the party with Mallyx/Jalis and putting your points into Invocation/Retribution/Herald.
Actually Unyielding Anguish disrupting people is the most used skill. With the large amount of Condition removal already available Pain Absorbption wouldn’t be useful to allies except generating Resistance which is only 1s of Resistance for 35 energy. Even then it only gives it to your team if they have condis on them or no one has condis on them and instead gives it to whomever you clear condis from. Without Demonic Corruption you also only get around 2s of Resistance (self) with Pain Absorption but you get up to 4s with it.
When you use other useful skills like Unyielding Anguish resistance plays a big part in preventing you from taking the negative effects such as Cripple. Playing Malyx with and without is night and day with the Resistance boost. The other traits, specifically boon strip, is great as well because if you lead with an AOE you’ll often strip Stability off their front line as you hit with Spontaneous Destruction as well as MP now at 10% per second in combat that’s a lot of crit.
I am also very skeptical about Glint and really only see the useful aura being the one that increases Boon duration (to increase your allies more useful boons) as well as Protection as you mention. Chaos active looks really useful, less for the CC (most people will have stab except the back line) but more for the 5s of Super Speed you can give to your front line party so you can be super mobile. Heal of course also looks good, and I’m curious if you can use it while stunned (it has no cast time).
If they fix Jalis, specifically Inspiring Reinforcements with my suggestion to give 3 stacks of Stability with less pulses then I’d agree with you but otherwise Jalis is pretty much garbage to a group that’s constantly on the go. Even the Hammers won’t work in a tower like situation where they cancel soon as you go up stairs or through a gate cancelling the 20% damage reduction. The only good thing about Jalis now is the heal.
Kodiak X – Blackgate
600 Radius for boons is fine, but the actives are all short range radius abilities. Most are 360 radius around you. Elemental Blast is a 360 AOE at 600 range. The point being is if you are back line you’re not going to be able to hit the enemy with Gaze of Darkness, Burst of Strength, etc.
Yeah, of course. But you’re not forced to do the actives however, and you actually get a small benefit from not using them (no cd on upkeep).
Sorry, I forgot to mention it. I was mainly think to Glint as something useful in the backline build that was posted a week ago (so mainly support and ranged dps).
Actually you only have 5 energy regen in combat, so really there’s a lot of negative aspects for keeping them up because they ultimately limit what else you can do. For example if you’re only at 1 Energy regen because you’re running Facet of Nature and Facet of Strength, using base weapon abilities can become strained fairly fast. That makes even basic things like Coalesence of Ruin now have kitten cool down due to waiting for Energy. Is the amount of Might you’re adding (9 stacks) worth halving your damage potential for?
Someone at some point will have to calculate a DPS per Energy number. This will let you compare it to the Aura and see how much damage add you’re giving per second with the Aura cost compared to the Aura benefit. Eyeballing the math however I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work out very well for the Auras.
Kodiak X – Blackgate
Glint upkeep are about boons and support (at least if you are activating 3 that’s what you’re trying to do). If you want to use them actively to fight just pop might passive, nature active and spam weaponskills.
If you plan to be a backline supporter activate more at once and just AA from range.
We have 10 skills compared to the usual 5, we can actually choose playstyle according to the situations.
Kodiak:
I’m not convinced you did more good than bad spamming UA in those fights between teleporting people out of bombs, porting them further away while chasing, and at the end almost getting your group wiped by teleporting the enemy group behind yours in the choke. It also put you in some really bad situations. Not saying it doesn’t have situational uses.
Pain absorption should give you around 6-7 seconds of resistance in a group, assuming there are conditions going around.
MP is also useless when you can easily have >70% crit chance with fury.
I’d also have to see some evidence that spontaneous destruction is going to affect more than one person, before I’d ever even consider corruption.
Even retribution is providing more group synergy with the ferocity aura.
(edited by Recursivision.2367)
Actually that group is a bunch of Medi Guardians who are already teleporting into the back (at one point I go down and tab through them to show that @9:03). What I’m doing is disrupting them by moving them out of position further. @8:56 they leap in and I move them back. @8:58 they Intervention onto me (<3 Resistance). @9:00 I move them further away from the entrance so now they’re completely separated and unable to secure the downs they get (me and a few others).
We run into them a few times about halfway through the video, and by the end of it they’re annoyed at me enough they started focusing me. There’s a few other fights I didn’t include where they specifically targeted me out of the pack and got me 3-4 times. After that started, I was proactively doing Unyielding Anguish and it was working much better as they’d be so seperated out our group would just turn on them and demolish them.
Also UA naturally teleports away from the Revenant best I can figure. So when I leap forward, most of the time people go backwards if I am still running so they go behind me and get caught. You can see that at the Tower at the end when I jump on them they “disappear” (go behind me off screen). They also appear to all go to the same spot when they are affected which means they’re clumped up and primed for AOE.
PA only gives 6-7 if you absorb 5. However due to large amounts of Condi removal in groups it’s pretty rare you will get that outside of Cow Trebs and Fire Mortars.
MP being useless assumes you have Invocation to crank Fury that high.
Corruption isn’t about group Synergy it’s about empowering the Demon line further (Resistance and Boon Strip) for more self survivability on the front line. If you were going to go pure Group synergy I’d probably go something along the lines of Malyx/Glint with Devastation/Retribution/Herald.
Kodiak X – Blackgate
(edited by Kodiak.3281)
Mallyx also doesn’t require corruption at all. The only reason you’d take it is to absolutely maximize resistance (selfishly)
Yes, it does. It’s so much stronger that way. It may be selfish but the longer you live the longer you can support your allies.
Mallyx also doesn’t require corruption at all. The only reason you’d take it is to absolutely maximize resistance (selfishly)
Yes, it does. It’s so much stronger that way. It may be selfish but the longer you live the longer you can support your allies.
If you absolutely can’t live without it, and you’re going to die without it, then take it.
However, if you really need that much resistance up-time to survive as long as everyone else in your front-line party, something else is probably the problem.
Roaming, I wouldn’t hesitate to take it.
Mallyx also doesn’t require corruption at all. The only reason you’d take it is to absolutely maximize resistance (selfishly)
Yes, it does. It’s so much stronger that way. It may be selfish but the longer you live the longer you can support your allies.
If you absolutely can’t live without it, and you’re going to die without it, then take it.
However, if you really need that much resistance up-time to survive as long as everyone else in your front-line party, something else is probably the problem.
Roaming, I wouldn’t hesitate to take it.
Didn’t say it was for frontlie, I actually played a glassy hammer build in the backline, sniping people with hammer 2 while helping my allies taking all their condis as often as I possibly could
Mallyx also doesn’t require corruption at all. The only reason you’d take it is to absolutely maximize resistance (selfishly)
Yes, it does. It’s so much stronger that way. It may be selfish but the longer you live the longer you can support your allies.
If you absolutely can’t live without it, and you’re going to die without it, then take it.
However, if you really need that much resistance up-time to survive as long as everyone else in your front-line party, something else is probably the problem.
Roaming, I wouldn’t hesitate to take it.
Didn’t say it was for frontlie, I actually played a glassy hammer build in the backline, sniping people with hammer 2 while helping my allies taking all their condis as often as I possibly could
Well, in that case it would be more useful. OP did ask about being on the frontline though.
It would be interesting to see a backling build with Mallyx/Glint or Mallyx/Jalis+Nature