Guild Wars 2

Raven.9603:

It was already discussed at length earlier in the thread that very long cooldown utility skills are not the primary counters to weapon skills, weaponskills counter weaponskills. In other words, immunities obviously can stop direct damage just like double dodge, but no skill in the game other than UA actually requires an immunity or double dodge to counter it for most classes. If you remove double-dodging and utility skills from your list, you will have the list I just posted.

DeathShroud is mitigation, not a counter. Deathshroud is a healthbar, the necro is not dead (generally) until he runs out of both healthbars.

Of all the comparable skills that you listed, every single one can be 100% countered with either 1 dodge OR 1 interrupt. That is a huge difference. Why does UA get a pass?

The 3/4sec tooltip cast time is not the same as “the period in which UA can be interrupted.” The backflip animation is much faster than that, and activation times (as you can see from looking at most skills on the wiki) are drastically different than listed tooltip times.

As far as constructive feedback, there was a great suggestion in either this thread or the other one that maybe UA could be countered by stopping when the target left the radius of the spell. This would introduce ride-the-lightning and weapon leap or movement skills as a counter. Not sure its the best idea, but it was good and constructive.

Excuse my ignorance, by why must weapon skills be countered only by other weapon skills? When I’m stunned and getting Hundred Blade Worked into the ground, I definitely don’t turn to a weapon skill. I said this before, and I’ll say it again: looking at single abilities in a vacuum can be useful in certain discussions, but if you aren’t getting the whole story it’s pointless.

When you compare Hundred Blades, Rapid Fire, Pistol Whip, Unrelenting Assaut, and Blurred Frenzy in a vacuum, HB falls super short and could be considered practically useless compared to the rest. However, we all know it isn’t and has its place when coupled with other warrior abilities. UA has its own advantages and disadvantages.

You said:

“Of all the comparable skills that you listed, every single one can be 100% countered with either 1 dodge OR 1 interrupt.”

And then you try and wiggle your way out of it by saying the interrupt on UA doesn’t “count.” What kind of BS is that. But more importantly: Rapid Fire is the ONLY one of those skills that can be utilized at 1500 range. Why is that? Perhaps because it is a unique aspect of the skill.

UA has the lowest damage of all 5 of those similar skills. Additionally, it also the only one that is both affected by 7 ticks of confusions (as opposed to 1), and also affected by torment at all. Why is that? Again, BECAUSE SKILLS SHOULD HAVE UNIQUE ASPECTS. I don’t want another carbon copy of Blurred Frenzy.

One such advantagous unique aspect for UA is that it will follow your target for the full duration regardless of position. That’s cool. I like that. It makes the skill unique. As it is right now, it’s the only way to follow a mesmer through a portal. You said everything needed a counter, well right now a mesmer can precast a portal and proceed to exit any fight it wishes just with the press of a utility key. Nothing could stop it except stunning/dazing before it’s cast (which stops everything, UA included).

Meanwhile, UA has some glaring disadvantages. I mentioned the confusion and torment before. Furthermore, and I know people will whine that we are only talking 1v1 but I don’t care, UA is the ONLY one of those abilities that can be mitigated just by being near anything else that’s targettable. Rangers, Mesmers, and Engineers with healing turret (hint: almost all of them) all have reliable ways to exploit this. So it does actually matter in a 1v1. Additionally, stealthing will completely negate the skill. Again, something that affects none of those other skills.

Phew. As a note, I stress again that you can’t look at skills in a vacuum. People have pointed out time and time again that Enchanted Daggers is a real problem for UA, because it almost doubles the damage (which was supposed to be relatively low for UA compared to other skills). I think looking into that is a more appropriate way to fix UA.

Raven.9603:

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Did you just say Deathshroud is just another healthbar? Wow…. You just discredited yourself with that alone.

Also, you’ve got some other misinformation in there too. I’d suggest rethinking some of your claims.

Oh no, not my forum cred! How will I ever grow to be a big respected forum thug if the little thugs don’t think I be keepin’ it real? Look, this is the Revenant forum. Its about to be the new Most Played Class in the Game, and a lot of people want it to be as strong as possible. No one coming here and saying “i think this revenant skill should have more counters in PvP”, no matter how polite they are, is going to expect any kind of nice treatment or respect. I’m not worried about it.

Deathshroud functions much like a healthbar. Necros typically dont die until they have exhausted both life force and health. You don’t stop DPS’ing a necro when he shrouds, because damage taken in DS is still real damage and reduces his life force total.
Deathshroud is not a counter to taking damage, its a mitigation.

I’m happy to discuss other falsehoods you believe i made, or parallels that aren’t clear, but quoting someone and saying “theres misinformation here” without pointing it out isnt constructive. constructive would be discussing ways the skill could be adjusted to be more effectively countered, or debating why those ways arent good, or putting forth a comparison to other skills which function similar and also dont have a counter.

You can literally take a UAing Revenant as your hostage to your team. Thats if you some how failed to interrupt the 3/4 second cast time. Or if you didnt dodge or use a block to negate dmg while being UAed. Your argument about UA being a special snowflake and you not being forced to use your utilities compared to other skills is silly. I really hope you use your utilities when you are hit by the many burst skills, some of which can cleave for full dmg on all targets hit.

UA’s dmg dies if it hits more than one person. You shouldn’t be asking for straight out nerfs if you feel like it should be changed based on 1v1ns. In group play the skill is only good as an evade,might stack, and very minor damage. It’s meant to be used on one person. Like someone who strays from the group to get assassinated or a low hp/no CD target.

There are so many obvious counters to UA that it seems really sad. Most of the people don’t even know what it does but are ready for it to be nerfed. I had so many players in pvp rage but they didn’t spend a single second thinking how obvious it was. The pause from the after cast can be punished so harshly but most of the people don’t notice it since its still a new skill.

People get overwhelmed by something they don’t understand and speak out before giving time to fully see for what it is. The skill is finally in a good place and any nerfs to it would slaughter it completely.

ChainedOne.7369:

Excuse my ignorance, by why must weapon skills be countered only by other weapon skills? When I’m stunned and getting Hundred Blade Worked into the ground, I definitely don’t turn to a weapon skill. I said this before, and I’ll say it again: looking at single abilities in a vacuum can be useful in certain discussions, but if you aren’t getting the whole story it’s pointless.

Why? Because thats how balance works. Utilities add an additional way to counter (as in, oh crap I made a mistake, I wasted my dodge or blind and dont have much initiative, I could use black powder", or are an additional way to boost an attack, but none of them are mandatory because every weapon skill can be countered by other weapon skills.

Most skills can be countered with a single dodge, block, blind or aegis. Some skills are compared to UA “in a vacuum” because UA is atypical in a number of ways (evade, channeled, physical damage) and it can be constructive to compare skills to similar skills when identifying things that dont fit right.

In the example you gave, you are stunned and getting attacked with hundred blades. Those are separate things You could have avoided the stun with a single dodge, block, blind or aegis. You messed up, and now need to use a utility to break the stun. Likewise, HB by itself can be countered by moving out of range. It’s only getting stunned that required the use of a special utility.

UA is an anomaly in balance because very few classes have the ability to counter it with 1 weapon skill: torch mesmers, sword mesmers, mh Dagger eles, sword thieves, and maybe shield warriors/gear shield engies (utility? sort of) if phase traversal isnt also used to negate them.

ChainedOne.7369:

You said:

“Of all the comparable skills that you listed, every single one can be 100% countered with either 1 dodge OR 1 interrupt.”

And then you try and wiggle your way out of it by saying the interrupt on UA doesn’t “count.” What kind of BS is that. But more importantly: Rapid Fire is the ONLY one of those skills that can be utilized at 1500 range. Why is that? Perhaps because it is a unique aspect of the skill.

There is no wiggling: If there was adequate time to intentionally interrupt the skill then interrupts would be satisfactory. I encourage you on your next beta weekend to spend time fighting Revenants and try intentionally to time an interrupt on the opening backflip of UA in a fight. I dont think you will have much more luck than I did, but I could just be bad. Its certainly a possibility.

ChainedOne.7369:

UA has the lowest damage of all 5 of those similar skills. Additionally, it also the only one that is both affected by 7 ticks of confusions (as opposed to 1), and also affected by torment at all. Why is that? Again, BECAUSE SKILLS SHOULD HAVE UNIQUE ASPECTS. I don’t want another carbon copy of Blurred Frenzy.

One such advantagous unique aspect for UA is that it will follow your target for the full duration regardless of position. That’s cool. I like that. It makes the skill unique. As it is right now, it’s the only way to follow a mesmer through a portal. You said everything needed a counter, well right now a mesmer can precast a portal and proceed to exit any fight it wishes just with the press of a utility key. Nothing could stop it except stunning/dazing before it’s cast (which stops everything, UA included).

Meanwhile, UA has some glaring disadvantages. I mentioned the confusion and torment before. Furthermore, and I know people will whine that we are only talking 1v1 but I don’t care, UA is the ONLY one of those abilities that can be mitigated just by being near anything else that’s targettable. Rangers, Mesmers, and Engineers with healing turret (hint: almost all of them) all have reliable ways to exploit this. So it does actually matter in a 1v1. Additionally, stealthing will completely negate the skill. Again, something that affects none of those other skills.

Phew. As a note, I stress again that you can’t look at skills in a vacuum. People have pointed out time and time again that Enchanted Daggers is a real problem for UA, because it almost doubles the damage (which was supposed to be relatively low for UA compared to other skills). I think looking into that is a more appropriate way to fix UA.

I agree with your whole ending bit. It should be different, its own unique thing.

Confusion hitting UA 7x’s, personally, is BS and should not be the way it works (it doesnt work that way on other channeled skills).

I don’t think its intentional that it hooks through blinks, very long leaps and mes portals, which is why i offered that “fixing that” might on its own provide sufficient counters to UA. I dont feel that the hook itself is overpowered at all, its just never been seen before, and the capability to hook through a teleport, leap or mes portal has yet to be declared intentional by any Reds. If it is intentional, hey, cool.

As far as “What counters Mes Portal?”: Thats not a weaponskill, utility skills often provide additional counters to weapon skills but sometimes dont have counters of their own (mist form, blink, berserker stance). Generally though, utilities that fall in the uncounterable category are applying their effect to the spellcaster, not the enemy.

Mosharn.8357:

You can literally take a UAing Revenant as your hostage to your team. Thats if you some how failed to interrupt the 3/4 second cast time. Or if you didnt dodge or use a block to negate dmg while being UAed. Your argument about UA being a special snowflake and you not being forced to use your utilities compared to other skills is silly. I really hope you use your utilities when you are hit by the many burst skills, some of which can cleave for full dmg on all targets hit.

UA’s dmg dies if it hits more than one person. You shouldn’t be asking for straight out nerfs if you feel like it should be changed based on 1v1ns. In group play the skill is only good as an evade,might stack, and very minor damage. It’s meant to be used on one person. Like someone who strays from the group to get assassinated or a low hp/no CD target.

There are so many obvious counters to UA that it seems really sad. Most of the people don’t even know what it does but are ready for it to be nerfed. I had so many players in pvp rage but they didn’t spend a single second thinking how obvious it was. The pause from the after cast can be punished so harshly but most of the people don’t notice it since its still a new skill.

People get overwhelmed by something they don’t understand and speak out before giving time to fully see for what it is. The skill is finally in a good place and any nerfs to it would slaughter it completely.

Hey, I’m not raging, I’m not overwhelmed, and I haven’t spent zero time thinking about it. The goal is to have what is going to be a primary weaponskill on par with other abilities already in-game. In terms of mitagation, its there. In terms of counters, its got a ways to go. Thats my opinion, if you dont agree, hey, cool.

A lot of the suggestions here aren’t “straight out nerfs”. For instance, almost no one is saying “lower the damage zomg it hits so hard”.

The OP’s suggestion was to load more of the damage to the tail end, so a single dodge or block would have a bit more value. I suggested shortening the evade a bit, not removing it, so that an interrupt would be a more realistic counterplay. Another player suggested speeding up the whole skill, so that a single dodge would have more value. Another player suggested limiting the distance the skill can track to a certain AoE radius. Those are not cumulative, they are each singular ideas that might alone introduce much more counterplay.

Try focusing on that. Do any of those suggestions seem totally awful? If so, why?

I don’t think the skill is overpowered, but IF (big if) I have to take a nerf (a poison to me as it’s not needed), then this one is the most reasonable one. It doesn’t nerf pve potential (very important, I know you pvp guys hate pve, but If you fought against some of the teleporting mobs in Verdant brink, you’ll learn to appreciate, how good (and necessary) unrelenting assault is, as it is in pve now. All this ‘nerf teleport, range, this this, nerf that’. geez. It’s a new skill with new possibilities and weaknesses. People should not try to safe their spot in the meta (like stealth thiefs/mesmers). Meta is changing, deal with it.

You could do a an energy cost increase in pvp. 20 instead of 15. Like pistolwhip is atm (6 pvp, 5 pve). Either way. I’d like Anet, to let stuff like this first Sink in the game, before they do huge unnecessary nerfs. After the huge mortar kit nerf day 2 after it’s launch I have not used engineer at all, and I was all set to main it. Yes that one kit, now lacks steady pressure, and makes it useless. Since it took grenades 1500 range place, having no pressure = making the class death for me. I’m not saying it will turn me away from revenant, but It might in the end, nerfing Unrelenting Assault.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Rym.1469:

Hey,

First, I will say that so far I haven’t been able to dedicate time to try any of the other elite specs properly (maybe Reaper a little) besides Herald and Revenant in general. Magnificient work!

Now, the stuff. I think that Revenant is in a very good position with many builds right now, some stuff obviously needs couple changes like Ventari, Sword OH #5 and couple things in traitlines, but I believe Dev team will deal with those.

The only thing I believe that might be a little bit over the top is Unrelenting Assault. Now don’t understand me wrong, this skill is awesome and absolutely needed that evade frame. But I can see many complaints at Rev in the future specifically because of that skill and would like to prevent bad nerfs.

If you think it’s a problem – then I have simple solution.

Unrelenting Assault strikes 7 times, with last blow landing at primary target. Currently, the base damage of each attack is equal, so to it doesn’t matter which part you block or evade.

My suggestion would be: Lower the damage of first 6 strikes by ~10-15%, BUT move the lost damage to last, 7th hit and maybe increase it’s damage further to compensate

This way, we achieve couple things:

1. There is good counterplay for this skill. You will still take a lot of damage from UA Revenant, but if you time your dodge to mitigate 7th attack, you will negate the major spike. So timing your dodge is more rewarding, instead of randomly trying to block everything, you focus at the last hit.

2. It doesn’t hurt overall Revenant’s damage. As I said, last hit even with moved damage could still get some bonus damage boost so if someone is stupid enough to take whole chain, he gets hurt more. And more damage for PvE.

3. The skill would do more damage to your primary target when against many foes. Last hit does most damage, so the “negative” effect of multiple foes is negated a bit.

I know that this skill isn’t supposed to be balanced in 1v1 perspective as it’s only okay in teamfights. But we know that players complain mostly from 1v1 perspective and there will be QQ and crying.

I’ve been discussing this change with Phanta on his stream and couple other good players and friends of mine playing Rev and we think this change would’ve been legit.

Cheers,
Rym

Biggest issue I have with this is that it’ll just become another 100 Blades. It has the same mechanic, big hit on the last hit, and people will know that the 7th hit must absolutely be avoided.

Uh… that’s the point.

Raven.9603:

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Did you just say Deathshroud is just another healthbar? Wow…. You just discredited yourself with that alone.

Also, you’ve got some other misinformation in there too. I’d suggest rethinking some of your claims.

Oh no, not my forum cred! How will I ever grow to be a big respected forum thug if the little thugs don’t think I be keepin’ it real? Look, this is the Revenant forum. Its about to be the new Most Played Class in the Game, and a lot of people want it to be as strong as possible. No one coming here and saying “i think this revenant skill should have more counters in PvP”, no matter how polite they are, is going to expect any kind of nice treatment or respect. I’m not worried about it.

Deathshroud functions much like a healthbar. Necros typically dont die until they have exhausted both life force and health. You don’t stop DPS’ing a necro when he shrouds, because damage taken in DS is still real damage and reduces his life force total.
Deathshroud is not a counter to taking damage, its a mitigation.

I’m happy to discuss other falsehoods you believe i made, or parallels that aren’t clear, but quoting someone and saying “theres misinformation here” without pointing it out isnt constructive. constructive would be discussing ways the skill could be adjusted to be more effectively countered, or debating why those ways arent good, or putting forth a comparison to other skills which function similar and also dont have a counter.

Honestly, if you think Deathshroud is used as just another healthbar, then there’s no point in further discussion with you and pointing out your other mistakes. That’s an indication that you don’t know the other classes well enough to actually comment on PvP balancing.

Raven.9603:

The OP’s suggestion was to load more of the damage to the tail end, so a single dodge or block would have a bit more value. I suggested shortening the evade a bit, not removing it, so that an interrupt would be a more realistic counterplay. Another player suggested speeding up the whole skill, so that a single dodge would have more value. Another player suggested limiting the distance the skill can track to a certain AoE radius. Those are not cumulative, they are each singular ideas that might alone introduce much more counterplay.

Try focusing on that. Do any of those suggestions seem totally awful? If so, why?

Some of these suggestions are still nerfs when it comes down to it, especially OP’s.

Since you keep bringing up being able to interrupt, I’d propose another “nerf.” Leave the skill as is, but increase the windup time to 1 second so that it can be interrupted. I’ll be honest with you though, I never had a problem interrupting a Revenant when I saw what was coming. But I think an increase to 1 second is reasonable, and it would cause the Rev to have to use something ahead of time to get it to work, such as a knockdown, or immobilze.

YuiRS.8129:

Uh… that’s the point.

….Riiiiiight. Have you ever ran a Warrior with GS and PvP?