Guild Wars 2

Hey everyone,

Some of you may remember me from my Revenant WvW roaming video I posted a bit after the first testing weekend, and I have returned with a new roaming video.
If you’re ready to read a very detailed breakdown of the revenant, scroll down, if you just wanna watch the video, be my guest!
Here it is: https://youtu.be/1fz3gbvsWow
I have also added a little extra, quite long fight. with 2 of my guildies,Elemelentalist (who you might know from his D/D ele roaming videos) and Inna (A superstar).
If you’ve got some time to spare and want to see more footage.
This video can be found here. https://youtu.be/n66-jcJbvW0 .

I have spent about 18 hours on the revenant during this past BWE1 (80% WvW and 20% PvP) and I will try to give feedback on everything that I have noticed during these hours.
I’ll start by systematically going through each legend, traits included, followed by the weapons.

Let’s start by talking about Mallyx, I feel like Mallyx is in a great position at the moment, it feels like the high risk, high reward playstyle they were aiming for, especially the heal skill feels well designed, it can heal up to 10 000 if you time it right.
Almost every trait here has it’s own use, except for 2 traits that don’t make sense: venom enhancement (50% poison duration increase, only your third autoattack hit from mace applies poison) and maniacal persistance (slowly gain crit rate between crits, which is just too weak).
This legend might be the most indispensable because it is the only legend that can handle conditions well. And because of unyielding anguish (the displacements skill) that can’t really be countered in any way except for blocks.
Mace and axe certainly feel strong enough at the moment and I don’t believe these weapons need much improvement at all.

Next up is Jalis, a legend mainly used for swiftness and a bit of added dps with the vengeful hammers, which feels a bit off considering this is supposed to be the sturdy and tanky legend this is the legend which actually makes you feel the most squishy.
The trait line was done well however, as it might be the strongest one in WvW if you’re not playing zerker. It adds lots of damage mitigation, stability and healing, combined with taunt. This is 70% of the sustain a revenant can get through traits and this trait line makes revenant viable in PvP and WvW scenarios.
On to hammer: The hammer also has this anti-tank like feeling to it, focusing on pure damage while abandoning almost all defense, not really fitting the Jalis theme.
The damage however is among the best i’ve seen in a long time, as can be seen in the first clip in my video.

Let’s discuss ventari now. I believe this is the weakest of all legends available to revenant for roaming in WvW or just straight up PvPing, whereas every legend has access to a seperate, solid heal ventari doesn’t, your heal skill just summons that tablet, not healing you that much at all, and if you want a semi-decent heal, you’ll be spend way too much energy on just healing yourself and moving that tablet around. Revenant just gets carried by having two decent heal skills, and that is a feature you give up on once you pick the ventari legend, and all you get in return is a clunky, slow tablet t you can’t stay near because you’d be giving up the very mobile combat that makes Guild Wars 2 a fun game. It might be good in the new challenging group content, zergs or world bosses, but I wouldn’t even think about taking it when i’m going to do PvP or roaming.
The trait line that accompanies Ventari is way too group oriented and focused on outgoing healing to take along in PvP and roaming, as people will be running around way too fast to try to survive while you’re struggling to get that tablet even remotely near them.
Let’s move on to staff. Staff feels like an okay weapon, it’s got a bit of everything (except for conditions) coming with only one gap closer on a long cooldown. The fifth skill (the charge) is really strong, but that strength get compensate by the fourth skill (the healing burst) in the period you are standing still (about 1.5s) you’re guaranteed to take more damage than you have just healed. I’d suggest making this skill faster or making you able to cast it while moving. TBC —>

Continued:
Now, let’s go on to the newly added legend and it’s assorted weapons.
Shiro is a great addition to the revenant’s legends as it offers most of the things revenant needed most and it feels very well designed, let me explain my reasoning.
Revenant desperately needed a stunbreak, or some way to escape forms of focus and they added phase traversal, which is an amazing skills (curing movement impeding conditions, evading backwards, breaking stun and regaining endurance in one skill) this one skill is good enough to almost be obliged to take it, but the other skills aren’t that bad either, you have a low cost shadowstep similar to steal, and you have acces to superspeed and quickness all this makes makes you feel as fast as a dolyak when you swap to any other legend. because the moment you swap you don’t have any mobility left. But wait, there’s more! The elite is an aoe 600 radius 3S stun, which is insanely powerful if you have the energy to cast it (If you fix the might stacking but with the ultimate, please don’t make it use the energy at the start of the skill, it gets interrupted quite often, and when you’re lying there knocked downs, it would suck to be out of energy and not being able to stunbreak because the cost alreay kicked in). Now, about that healing skill. I’ve read a lot of complaints about the healing skill being too weak, and I have to say i thoroughly disagree, the initial healing may be quite low, but the total healing is still about 6500. It just needs to be used in a different way than other heal skills. This all may seem low, but keep in mind that this healing skill actually deals over 5300 damage to your enemy!! A feat no other healing skill in the game has. Removing it’s internal cooldown would add 5300 damage to the revenant’s dps in about one second, making it way too strong.
There is only one issue with Shiro’s utility skills at the moment in my opinion, impossible odds currently costs 10 energy to activate it, making it very punishing to even use that skill if you’re trying to get away, and leaving no energy to use your other utility skills in the blink of an eye.
Trait line is interesting, you have a very nice combination of minor traits, with some traits across the board.
I feel like most has been said about the revenant’s swords already, I feel like most it needs is some kind of evade on unrelenting assault, a block that actually works and a slight buff to the precision strike.
There is one thing i would like to note about swords, energy costs are way higher than mace main hand. Mace skills costing 0, 5 and 5 energy, while sword skills cost 0, 5 and 15 energy which is significantly higher, and could be justified by making unrelenting assault and evade. But if you would compare sword offhand to axe offhand, there is and even bigger discrepancy. Axe skills both costing 10 energy, whereas sword skills cost 10+10 (Two parts of the block) and 15 energy that’s 20 energy cost total versus 35 energy cost total. I therefore believe sword offhand energy costs need to be toned down.
Last but not least, let’s look at invocation. This is supposed to be your general line you can always spec into, but it feels a bit off in my experience, this is supposed te be your general trait line, but i’m not seeing anything that really benefits a condition revenant, there might be some traits that could help celestial, but mosts of the traits are about fury and bonus damage, flat damage that is. I feel like there could be a very interesting trait in the grandmaster tier(replacing charged mists maybe?) of this specialisation line, something to slightly affect energy game to make it a bit more interactive.
[u]Here’s my idea: Gain energy based on the legend you’re currently in. let me give you an example, numbers can be tuned:
1) When you are hit in Jalis stance you gain 1 energy for each nearby enemy (Maximum 5) 5 seconds internal cooldown.
2) Every time you critically hit an enemy while in Shiro you gain one energy (once every 5 seconds, 5 energy, or once every 1 second, 1 energy with the former being stronger)
3) When you are hit in ventari, gain 1 energy for each nearby ally (max 5) 5 seconds icd
4) Every time you receive a condition in Mallyx you gain 1 energy, (max 5/5 seconds)[u]

This can be equivalent to 1 additional pip of regen, but it has some interesting mechanics tied to it.
To be continued —>

Continued:
There are some general issues i encountered when playing revenant. Every legend is so focused on one aspect of the game you often encounter some issues. When you’re being chased and you’ve run out of energy on Shiro with people still chasing you, you’re done for, you have no means of running away except for Shiro. A more general issue is the fact that once you leave the Shiro legend, you are out of stunbreaks for 10s, which is a huge issue. Also, when fighting a condition class you can’t ever leave mallyx, because the moment you do, conditions will eat you alive with the lack of condition clear on other legends.

I would therefore suggest, as many others before me, to add some general skills, that can be slotted in the jalis utility slots for example to at least have some acces to condi clear or stunbreaks even in the legends that are not specialised in clearing conditions or breaking stuns.

Bugs I encountered:-Riposting shadow’s often doesn’t shadowstep to people not in line of sight
-Mace 2 not hitting on slopes and terrain that is not flat.

– Axe 4 not doing the passing through strike when immobilized, but working great in other situations.
– Sword 4: Second part of the skill not hitting people at all, even if aimed directly at them.

All in all I really enjoyed the beta weekend, keep up the good work Roy!
I’m seeing a lot of potential!
Feel free to tell me what you think of the Revenant and my feedback, thanks!
P.S. : Don’t forget to check out the videos.
Edit: Added yet another roaming video with some harder matchups included, be sure to check it out: https://youtu.be/9eyr8druOB4
Edit: Also added another small scale fights with 2 of my guildies, enjoy!
https://youtu.be/kHhIF83jzd4

Awesome analysis. I want to try that build next time. Also, I’m very impressed by how well you did with only 18 hours of experience!

I get energy is an issue, but I don’t think there is any need to add more mechanics to it, or remove any.
Changing numbers will be enough. Weaponskills should not cost more then 10 energy, 15 is way too much, and healing should be free (has already cd anyway) to serve as a panic button. This alone should fix the main issue and increase the skill throughput a lot without creating strange situations where you can spam 3 jade winds in a row..
Then some more tweaks like energy cost on Jalis taunt skill, 50 energy is too much on that. I get you don’t want it to be spammed but there must be another way.

One more issue I’d like to mention is the fact that revenant literally only has one main hand weapon and one offhand weapon that apply any damaging conditions at all, this feels a little bit weird on a class with a weapons swap. It doesn’t really have to be that much, but adding a little bleed, or any damaging condition somewhere would also be highly appreciated!

Nice video and build! As a power focused Revenant I might have to give that ol’ Condi build a try looks pretty decent 1v1. I mostly stuck to Sword/Axe and Staff when I did a small bit of roaming but those new mace animations are pretty great.

I do somewhat disagree with you on Maniacal Persistence. As a Power based Malyx player, it’s pretty darned crucial. You can see in my own video it’s pretty rare that I don’t crit and a large part of that is due to MP. Really there’s no other Malyx trait I’d rather have in my scenario and it works out pretty great.

Kodiak.3281:

I do somewhat disagree with you on Maniacal Persistence. As a Power based Malyx player, it’s pretty darned crucial. You can see in my own video it’s pretty rare that I don’t crit and a large part of that is due to MP. Really there’s no other Malyx trait I’d rather have in my scenario and it works out pretty great.

I’m just going to put this here…
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/revenant/Let-s-talk-about-Maniacal-Persistence/first#post5313714

Dstroya.6705:

I’m just going to put this here…
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/revenant/Let-s-talk-about-Maniacal-Persistence/first#post5313714

Way I see it is the same reason why people still try to stack Fury on top of 40-50% base crit and the reason why Necros swap into Shroud after dropping their Well Bomb: More crit is always better.

Again, for what I’m doing, it’s the best out of the three.

Maniacal Persistance is fine as one of the three options other then it is horribly underpowered. The biggest issue is not having a viable trait in that spot for condition builds because the other two are flavorful but terrible.

Please give us at least one general use Corruption grandmaster moderately attractive to a condition build across game modes and/or buff Maniacal Persistance to an appropriate level.

A condi-user would take the first minor trait over these grandmaster traits as they stand if they could.

Kodiak.3281:

Dstroya.6705:

I’m just going to put this here…
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/revenant/Let-s-talk-about-Maniacal-Persistence/first#post5313714

Way I see it is the same reason why people still try to stack Fury on top of 40-50% base crit and the reason why Necros swap into Shroud after dropping their Well Bomb: More crit is always better.

Again, for what I’m doing, it’s the best out of the three.

30-50% is way far from 1%.
You’re wasting your grandmaster slot with Maniacal Persistance as it is now.

I think that out of these three grandmasters two of them are actually quite good for condition builds, diabolic inferno is fine, you’d just have to make a habit out of going into mallyx elite right before swapping legends to have some decent aoe burning output.
Pulsating Pestilence is a nice trait to pick up as it will often (every 15s) spread those damage and movement impairing conditions or even fear to nearby enemies (don’t forget this scales with condition duration!), this is one of these procs you don’t actually feel, but once you play against it, you actually feel the impact of. Like at this point in the video, even though I happen to die here, you can clearly see the way it massively cripples the elementalist and it allows me to kite away a bit before foolishly engaging again.
I’m not that sure how Maniacal persistance would tie into condition builds (the theme of corruptions) but i feel like you have 2 nice options already.

Let’s try to keep this conversation going and dynamic: feel free to counter, discuss, or agree with my opinion on any of the trait lines or weapons, it doesn’t have to be limited to Mallyx only. I’m eager for some nice discussion on possibilities. Give it your best shot!

Wandelaar.3746:

I think that out of these three grandmasters two of them are actually quite good for condition builds, diabolic inferno is fine, you’d just have to make a habit out of going into mallyx elite right before swapping legends to have some decent aoe burning output.
Pulsating Pestilence is a nice trait to pick up as it will often (every 15s) spread those damage and movement impairing conditions or even fear to nearby enemies (don’t forget this scales with condition duration!), this is one of these procs you don’t actually feel, but once you play against it, you actually feel the impact of.
I’m not that sure how Maniacal persistance would tie into condition builds (the theme of corruptions) but i feel like you have 2 nice options already.

Let’s try to keep this conversation going and dynamic: feel free to counter, discuss, or agree with my opinion on any of the trait lines or weapons, it doesn’t have to be limited to Mallyx only. I’m eager for some nice discussion on possibilities. Give it your best shot!

Pulsating Pestilence only copies 3s worth of conditions. It isn’t a terrible trait by any means, but I’d hardly call it GM worthy.

Knox.8962:

Wandelaar.3746:

I think that out of these three grandmasters two of them are actually quite good for condition builds, diabolic inferno is fine, you’d just have to make a habit out of going into mallyx elite right before swapping legends to have some decent aoe burning output.
Pulsating Pestilence is a nice trait to pick up as it will often (every 15s) spread those damage and movement impairing conditions or even fear to nearby enemies (don’t forget this scales with condition duration!), this is one of these procs you don’t actually feel, but once you play against it, you actually feel the impact of.
I’m not that sure how Maniacal persistance would tie into condition builds (the theme of corruptions) but i feel like you have 2 nice options already.

Let’s try to keep this conversation going and dynamic: feel free to counter, discuss, or agree with my opinion on any of the trait lines or weapons, it doesn’t have to be limited to Mallyx only. I’m eager for some nice discussion on possibilities. Give it your best shot!

Pulsating Pestilence only copies 3s worth of conditions. It isn’t a terrible trait by any means, but I’d hardly call it GM worthy.

It might indeed not be as strong as some other grandmaster traits, like Steadfast Rejuvenation, but it is such a well designed trait that fits the mechanic of Mallyx like no other trait in this traitline, getting as much condis on you as you can without dying. The internal cooldown of the trait is also quite low and the trait becomes stronger the more trouble you are in. When you’re in real trouble it becomes a mini signet of spite of about 4.1/2s in an aoe radius of 600. The rest of the specialisation line is also very strong, which makes having a slightly below average grandmaster almost mandatory. Especially if it’s such a cool design.

Pulsing Pestilance is pretty bad because there is no gating on it, is completely passive and its only even marginal use is if you are in melee. When you are hit, if you have as few as one condition on you, it has a chance to trigger and its “AoE” radius is only 240. There are plenty of chances for it to trigger and be put on cooldown even if there are no targets to copy to.

It would be useful defensively if it transferred one or more conditions to targets on that cooldown, but as it stands it is really terrible.

Diabolic Inferno is also really conditional and not very good. A 360 degree radius burn is nice but its not at your target but rather a PBAoE so you have to be in melee. Of course in melee in a situation with a number of enemies (the only scenario you’re getting much mileage out of the AoE), spending 50 energy on an Elite is energy you’re probably going to want to stay alive with Riposting Shadows. There is also the matter of pure effectiveness. 4 seconds of burn isn’t gamebreaking its nice but how often can you justify using elites to trigger it? Not nearly often enough to be good.

Great video! Good use of Jade Wind too, it’s nice to see 50 energy well spent.

Remember that not every trait line has a single focus to it. Another aspect to the Corruption line is boon strip which is a huge reason I love the line. Between Opportune Extraction and Spontaneous Destruction both traits are very good even for a power build and I shut down a lot of boon based classes with it plus Banish Enchantment.

Kinda hope when Roy reworks the skill it isn’t yet another condition trait considering there’s already 2 other condition traits there.

I like the idea of mallyx gaining energy when receiving a condition. There could be something like that for each legend. Shiro could gain energy on crits or being crit. Or a chance to. Etc.

Anything to actively gain energy is a plus in my book. It would make energy management a little more exciting and skillful.

You’re using the same build I was – it’s absolutely amazing in 1 on 1 and small skirmishes because Mallyx is so powerful. Conditions is really amazing on revenant.

Here’s the build I use:

If you’re struggling to find a viable revenant build, here’s mine for your next Beta weekend. It’s awesome.

1. Shiro and Mallyx

2. Mace, Axe and Hammer

3. Rabid Amulet and/or items. Celestial also works very well, so does Sinister.

4. Superior Rune of the Necromancer

5. Mace: Superior Sigil of Energy

6. Axe: Superior Sigil of Torment

7. Hammer: Superior Sigil of Energy and Superior Sigil of Strength (Superior Sigil of Geomancy is also a good variable over Strength)

Traits: http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgYFdAF0A_g~

Lewis Burnell.2493:

You’re using the same build I was – it’s absolutely amazing in 1 on 1 and small skirmishes because Mallyx is so powerful. Conditions is really amazing on revenant.

Here’s the build I use:

If you’re struggling to find a viable revenant build, here’s mine for your next Beta weekend. It’s awesome.

1. Shiro and Mallyx

2. Mace, Axe and Hammer

3. Rabid Amulet and/or items. Celestial also works very well, so does Sinister.

4. Superior Rune of the Necromancer

5. Mace: Superior Sigil of Energy

6. Axe: Superior Sigil of Torment

7. Hammer: Superior Sigil of Energy and Superior Sigil of Strength (Superior Sigil of Geomancy is also a good variable over Strength)

Traits: http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgYFdAF0A_g~

That build does not look bad at all, but allow me to explain the weaponswap idea in my build, which adds a good chunk of damage and conditions that can’t be avoided if played out right.
I am indeed running double Mace/axe as my weapon sets, and I usually swap whenever I swap legends. Allow me to explain the reasoning behind this. In it’s current state, both swapping legends and swapping weapons procs on weapon swap sigils, this may not sound as that big of a deal, but it actually is. This means that you are using those weapon swap sigils twice as effective as any other profession (except for warrior, but even warriors have to get a trait for it). The easiest way to manage your on swap sigils would be swapping weapons right after you swap legends. Let me give you an example of how it works. My sigils are Hydromancy/leeching and Geomancy/energy. Once I enter combat I can legend swap right away, proccing my hydromancy and leeching with my legend swap right away, I can then immediately afterwards swap weapons to also get the second set of on swap sigils to proc (the geomancy and the energy sigil). This gives you some nice burst, and allows you to effectively use these on swap sigils on the 9 seconds of cooldown they have, instead of the 18 seconds effective cooldown most classes have to deal with. This is why I take 4 on swap sigils. One thing to note is that you can’t always leave the legend you’re currently in on a set time, you shouldn’t go out of Mallyx when still dealing with lots of condis, or out of Shiro when chasing someone, so that’s when you can just use the weaponswap seperately, but you’ll have to track the cooldown and delay the legend swap until your weaponswap is off cooldown again. Both weaponsets have the same stats.

I also chose to run tormenting runes, because it is a really strong rune set for condition revenant builds.

I would advice to take double mace/axe and put your bets on the weaponswaps if you’re planning on running a condition damage oriented build.
Because literally no other weapon the revenant now has acces to has access to any damaging conditions at all.

Minor note: I am assuming you’re taking demonic defiance in the corruption trait line and you’ve accidentally picked up replenishing despair?

Cool video, I really like the songs. I’m impressed by how you are already pretty used to that class but I noticed something. Lots of your 1v1 kill if not almost all of them didn’t used foods. I know it’s their own fault but think it’s like comparing apple with oranges. Even more so when dealing with condition build.

yanoch.7051:

Cool video, I really like the songs. I’m impressed by how you are already pretty used to that class but I noticed something. Lots of your 1v1 kill if not almost all of them didn’t used foods. I know it’s their own fault but think it’s like comparing apple with oranges. Even more so when dealing with condition build.

Noticing it too now that i’m rewatching my video, I might put some time into putting some of my closer matchups versus some good opponents together in a video.
Either that or I could put together another video of me and 2 guildies fighting in an outnumbered scenario.

I’ll leave the choice up to you guys concerning which project i’ll prioritize.
First comment gets to decide.

I wasn’t complaining and I didn’t wanted to sound harsh. English isn’t my main language.

It’s not your fault if peeps don’t run food.

You play very well for the short amount of time you could invest on the class and the class isn’t done yet so it kinda even out:)

As I promised, I have put some clips together with more focus on dueling some good people in obsidian sanctum. I’ve also put some clips that didn’t make it into the first version in this one.
Enjoy!
https://youtu.be/9eyr8druOB4

I’m also very hyped for elite specialisation that will be revealed to us this week: The herald!
From what I’ve read, it’s very promising and i’m already looking forward to it’s full reveal in the next livestream!

Really well played. I love Mace+Axe the most and am happy to see that set also holds much potential in competitive situations. Cheers!

I’d love to know what you are running so that I may try it next time XD

Just do some spvp. That is a better matchup scenario

Another enjoyable video, thanks for sharing!
Looks like you were pretty good with the energy management most of the time. Maybe other weapons need their energy costs brought in line with Mace/Axe. I mostly played staff and it’s pretty expensive at times.

Both vids are very interesting and fun to watch!

If you have more footage .. :P

Eggshells.1748:

Both vids are very interesting and fun to watch!

If you have more footage .. :P

I already had 3 videos out from last beta weekend:
2 roaming videos.
1 linked in the main post (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fz3gbvsWow)
and 1 further down in the comments (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eyr8druOB4) .
I also had a video out that showed some nice outnumbered action at the enemy spawn (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n66-jcJbvW0), and just five minutes ago, I uploaded another video showcasing a fight at stonemist. This most recent video showcases revenant mobility in combat pretty well. Check it out if you want to!
https://youtu.be/kHhIF83jzd4

Really cool videos

As I usually talk about bugs in my post, it seems like I’ve missed a pretty big one, an example can be found Here.
If you get taunted while you have resistance, it bugs out, and you will not be able to select any enemy until the target that originally taunted you is dead. This is quite a big problem, and it deserves fixing in my opinion.