Guild Wars 2

So I made an observation while playing revenant, not sure if this is an intended feature, bad design or did I just observe it wrong.

TL;
Interrupted or not fully activated utility skills on some legends will lead to not having the desired effect of the skill(which is normal) but will also lead to the definitive loss of the profession specific resource required to activate any weapon and utility skills. -> Huge downtime in being able to do anything, or just autoattack 5 seconds after using any skill (without swapping legend). Get an expensive utility interrupted again after legend swap and you can’t do anything except autoattack for a long period of time.
;DR

So upon interrupt revenant loses the energy required to activate the used utility. Relatively costly utilities energywise that have a cast time, such as Pain Absorbtion on Mallyx and even the leap on Mallyx, are fairly often interrupted. By interrupting these utility skills the revenant is basically unable to use any other weapon skills or utilities without swapping legend, rendering them partially in a state of daze where they can move around and dodge and maybe throw some autoattacks.

This problem occurs fairly often in pvp if there’s an enemy thief, DH, warrior around or the revenant is engaged in a team fight. You will get stunned/dazed in pvp, that’s a fact. You need stun breakers for that. Unlucky though, the stunbreaks are not only costly, the skill effect has a cast time. This makes you waste your energy on defensive effects, which you do not gain apart from the momentary stun break, at the same time negating your offensive capabilities.

This could actually mean that sometimes by resolving a lenghty daze or stun with an energy-expensive stun breaker AND being interrupted again during the channel of the stun break will be counter-productive in the long run, as you will lose the energy consumed for a defensive utility. Same applies for any utility that costs energy and can be easily interrupted, especially after swapping legends when you have no means of acquiring that energy back.

Related to this problem, if you stow some of the utilities, such as Empowering Misery (heal), Rite of the Great Dwarf(elite) and Pain Absorbtion (resistance + stun break) you will not gain the skill effect, which is normal, but you will lose the energy required to fully activate the skill. I understand that without the definitive energy loss utility skills such as Pain Absorbtion could be abused as an infinite stun breaker. Easily fixable though…

Universal energy threshold (eg. 30 or 35) for stun breaking in any legend with any utility skill could solve the problem, making it possible to stunbreak with an offensive utility. It’s not like Pain Absorbtion or Riposting Shadows have an internal cooldown either…

Final rant: If any other class is interrupted should all of their weapon and utility skills (except AA) start loading a daze-like timer before they can be used? This is exactly how it feels like to play revenant at the moment if you are playnig against a daze/stun heavy opponents. As a reminder, while other classes are being interrupted the single skill used will go for a short or full cooldown. Only exception are thieves, but if they run out of initiative, they can just chain 7 dodges and be alright.

Any constructive and conclusive replies/feedback are welcome.

Can you expand on “Universal energy threshold”? I’m not sure if you mean having 30-35 as a cap on energy or not.

I think a simple and elegant solution is a refund. For example, Rite of the Great Dwarf is expensive(50 energy). The stunbreak occurs at the start of the cast. If it gets interrupted, have it refund you 25 energy. It seems like a rip-off when you spend 50 energy to break a stun, only to be instantly CC’d afterwards. What then? You hope you’re specced Invocation and have you legend swap off cooldown. I’m not suggesting this refund is a fixed 25 energy, half would be fine.

The idea of getting what you paid for in terms of energy is something I’ve been thinking about for a while. What if our energy isn’t “spent” but “drained” Say instead of spending 50 energy instantly for RotGD, it would spend it over the 1.25 sec cast time? At any time it gets interrupted, whatever is left over would still be in your pool. This would not only solve the stun-break problem, but other problems such as interruptions of Mallyx leap, Pain Absoption, etc.

Set.7461:

Can you expand on “Universal energy threshold”? I’m not sure if you mean having 30-35 as a cap on energy or not.

I think a simple and elegant solution is a refund. For example, Rite of the Great Dwarf is expensive(50 energy). The stunbreak occurs at the start of the cast. If it gets interrupted, have it refund you 25 energy. It seems like a rip-off when you spend 50 energy to break a stun, only to be instantly CC’d afterwards. What then? You hope you’re specced Invocation and have you legend swap off cooldown. I’m not suggesting this refund is a fixed 25 energy, half would be fine.

The idea of getting what you paid for in terms of energy is something I’ve been thinking about for a while. What if our energy isn’t “spent” but “drained” Say instead of spending 50 energy instantly for RotGD, it would spend it over the 1.25 sec cast time? At any time it gets interrupted, whatever is left over would still be in your pool. This would not only solve the stun-break problem, but other problems such as interruptions of Mallyx leap, Pain Absoption, etc.

Basically, as you mentioned, there are very high energy costs for stunbreaks at the moment, and they are varying from legend to legend. The proposed solution with the “unviersal” energy cost would mean that when you are stunned, you can use any utility skill and it will use at least 30-35 (just an example number), but it doesn’t mean that all skills would have to cost 35, they can have higher costs as well, although i think 50 energy for any skill is too much anyway. In essence, you could break stun with Impossible Odds (costing the universal cost to break stun though, in this example 30) and escape any post-stun cleave with superspeed/quickness. You could also break stun with Jade Winds, but it would cost 50 energy with the current costs. You could even break stun with the universal stun break activation cost with Mallyx elite skill (costing 30 energy) applying instant torment and burn (via trait) pressure. This mechanic would add strategic and tactical aspects on revenant gameplay and improving the current problem with defensive energy usage deteriorating offence. This idea is just one example, there could be multiple ways to solve the problem.

The refund idea is good. I think the revenant designers/devs should re-test either energy costs, energy regeneration or some refunding mechanic. Good players can avoid your burst damage attempts that are severly limited by energy costs and slow skill animation, while pressuring you into using defensive cooldowns, even forcing legend swaps for defence. This will usually mean that you will have to disengage. In this regard revenant is currently an underdog in theory against many builds, mostly because of the nerfs that some revenants took in the past and lack of stability + condition cleanse. The aforementioned things have been probably heard too many times.

I definitely think that revenants lack that little extra energy to be completely viable. The defence just negates too much of your counter pressure. Hopefully something will be done, and no I don’t mean in the next expac, which not many will probably want to acquire if this is the balancing policy.

Forgot to mention, staff 4 skill “Renewing Wave” has 15 energy cost, use the skill and stow weapon, no effect and you will lose the energy. Same goes for sword 3. This is similiar to the aforementioned problem. What if you need to dodge mid-cast of that staff 4? Lose 15 energy for mainly trying to condi cleanse, not even completing it. Sword 3 energy cost and cooldown is just completely wasted, if the opponent dodges a millimeter too, energy is also wasted if you stow it mid cast when you notice someone is too far/ avoiding it.