Guild Wars 2

Greeting Fellow Mist-Walkers… I wanted to make all of my feedback on the Revenant Nerfs in the same post, but you will see that this particular one requires a bit more than a simple “This is why I dislike this and here is my supporting argument”.

I’d like to start off with a quote I found on the forums, Now, I don’t want to make this sound like I’m singling this guy out, I’m not but I think this is a good place to start from.

meepeY.2867:

Inf Arrow is superior at fleeing. PT is superior in chasing, in a way so that Inf Arrow can’t even be used to flee.

A nerf was needed in some way.

I completely disagree, and here is why:

Infiltrator Arrow (IA): Cost 6 Inv, Travels 900/use
Phase Traversal (PA): Cost 20 Energy, Travels 1200/use

“But Sarif, you Rev Fanboi!! That’s not a fair comparison! They use two different resource structures!” … Not really. For anyone who wonders how this comparison works, the mechanical nature of Energy is exactly the same as the mechanical nature of Initiative.

You build up Energy till you pass a “threshold” and then you have access to a skill, these “thresholds” are Pips of Initiative, which roughly equal 5 Energy, you can tell because all of our utility skills are multiplies of 5. I would like to point out that our weapon skills do not follow this trend perfectly.

Using this information as a base, we can can claim that Revenants have a total of 10 Initiative, and can only hold 5 Initiative out-of-combat. Thieves on the other hand, Base have 12 (20% more) and can regen all of them out-of-combat, and can raise this limit to 15 (50% more) plus have the ability to trait to earn back this resource in combat in chucks (2 for using steal and 3 for swapping weapons) addition to gaining 1/sec.

For Thieves, if we converted them to Energy would have 120 Energy, Up to 150 out-of-combat. Using their class Mechanic regens 10 Energy, and Weapon Swap generates 15 Energy.

So.. How does this comparison look like on these skills?
Infiltrator Arrow (IA): Cost 6 Inv (or 30 Energy), Travels 900/use
Phase Traversal (PA): Cost 20 Energy (or 4 Inv), Travels 1200/use

”Well, that looks like the Revenant is beating out the Theif!”… and you’d be right, magikittentle voice in my head the represents the forum-going community. I however, would like to stress two things. One, The Revenant does not have the ability to fine tune their Utility selection, and two, Shiro is supposed to be our “mobility” option.

“Alright, fine, Energy and initiative are roughly the same, but that still doesn’t prove this nerf wasn’t needed!” … True, so let’s move on to an example shall we?

Say you have a Revenant and a Thief racing across Gendarran Fields, and for the sake of argument, let’s say everything along their path is perfectly copied for each, and they don’t interfere with each other at all and that they are traveling only using these two skills (and have the ability to use them to their full range.)

Thief travels at 900/6in (starting at 15), and the Revenant travels at 1200/20 Energy (starting at 50), both at their base regen rates. It looks like this:

0 Sec: Thief: 900 (9Inv), Rev: 1200 (30En)
1 Sec: Thief: 1800(4Inv), Rev: 2400 (15En)
2 Sec: Thief: 1800(5Inv), Rev: 3600 (0En)
3 Sec: Thief: 2100(0Inv), Rev: 3600 (5En)
4 Sec: Thief: 2100(1Inv), Rev: 3600 (10En)
5 Sec: Thief: 2100(2Inv), Rev: 3600 (15En)
6 Sec: Thief: 2100(3Inv), Rev: 4800 (0En)
7 Sec: Thief: 2100(4Inv), Rev: 4800 (5En)
8 Sec: Thief: 2100(5Inv), Rev: 4800 (10En)
9 Sec: Thief: 2800(0Inv), Rev: 4800 (15En)
10 Sec: Thief: 2800. Revenant: 6000(0En)

Now, that seems pretty kitten impressive eh? Almost double what a Thief can do. From this, I can kind of see why this needed to be toned down, however, slapping a 5 second CD on this was not the right answer. Now let’s see that same race, this time, with this nerf in place:

0 Sec: Thief: 900 (9Inv), Rev: 1200 (30En)
1 Sec: Thief: 1800(4Inv), Rev: 1200 (15En, 4sec CD)
2 Sec: Thief: 1800(5Inv), Rev: 1200 (20En, 3sec CD)
3 Sec: Thief: 2100(0Inv), Rev: 1200 (25En, 2sec CD)
4 Sec: Thief: 2100(1Inv), Rev: 1200 (30En, 1sec CD)
5 Sec: Thief: 2100(2Inv), Rev: 2400 (15En, 5sec CD)
6 Sec: Thief: 2100(3Inv), Rev: 2400 (20En, 4sec CD)
7 Sec: Thief: 2100(4Inv), Rev: 2400 (25En, 3sec CD)
8 Sec: Thief: 2100(5Inv), Rev: 2400 (30En, 2sec CD)
9 Sec: Thief: 2800(0Inv), Rev: 2400 (35En, 1sec CD)
10 Sec: Thief: 2800. Revenant: 3600(20En, 5sec CD)

Alright, that seems a little less insane right? I did however, this is only really showing off one aspect of these two skills, Distance. There is another aspect of these skills I’d really like to point out here and that is Uses/Sec.

You see in my first example, the Revenant gets 5 uses of PT, and the Thief gets 4. This means where ever the thief goes, the Revenant can follow. In the second test however, the Revenant barely squeaks out 3 uses to the Thief’s 4. While the total “available” distance is still greater for the Revenant, let’s put this in context of say… a Fight.

The Thief can reposition more than Revenant can, and can choose where to reposition to include locations inaccessible to the Revenant’s PT. More so, 900 is a huge range to cover for anyone in this game, and while all classes have access to range weapons, not all range weapons are created equal, as any Guardian or Engineer can tell you.

This “Extra Use” is a big part why Thieves tend to be able to get away from anyone, anywhere. It was nice that they finally added in a skill capable of punishing Thieves for disengaging and running away. Hell, it was nice being that Class.

“Alright… Fine, you made your point, I still don’t agree with it! I still think you’re a dirty Fanboi!”… Well… You’d be right, I am a dirty Rev fanboi, but I love to see some bloody counter play come in that take these professions from their comfy places of complete dominance and shakes it up a bit.

What I would love is to see this CD removed but I’d deal with something a little saner like a 3sec CD. At a 3sec CD, Both Skills can be used at 4 times in 10 secs and here is my proof:

0 Sec: Thief: 900 (9Inv), Rev: 1200 (30En)
1 Sec: Thief: 1800(4Inv), Rev: 1200 (35En, 4sec CD)
2 Sec: Thief: 1800(5Inv), Rev: 1200 (40En, 3sec CD)
3 Sec: Thief: 2100(0Inv), Rev: 2400 (25En, 2sec CD)
4 Sec: Thief: 2100(1Inv), Rev: 2400 (30En, 1sec CD)
5 Sec: Thief: 2100(2Inv), Rev: 2400 (35En, 5sec CD)
6 Sec: Thief: 2100(3Inv), Rev: 3600 (20En, 4sec CD)
7 Sec: Thief: 2100(4Inv), Rev: 3600 (25En, 3sec CD)
8 Sec: Thief: 2100(5Inv), Rev: 3600 (30En, 2sec CD)
9 Sec: Thief: 2800(0Inv), Rev: 4800 (15En, 1sec CD)
10 Sec: Thief: 2800. Revenant: 4800(20En, 5sec CD)

4 Uses Each! Tada! Balance!

Thanks for taking the time to read all this guys, I know it’s a lot, and Lord knows I worked on it a lot. I really hope we reconsider this ridiculous CD, and get some more positive changes…

Also, whatever happened to giving people time to “L2P” both playing as and against the Rev? These Nerfs seem unfair, more so when skills like Gun Flame haven’t been touched…

I’ll again reiterate my point that when a utility skills cooldown lasts longer than the time required to generate the energy to use it, there’s barely even a point in energy in the first place outside of being able to use it initially.

Even dropping it to 4s will work wonders. A minor buff to shut us up, and a good reinjection to the complexity of Revs CD/Energy system.

As i said in other threads 3s is the sweet spot imho. You just proved that with math :P

The guy you quoted main thiefs.. Obviously for him nerf to our mobility is fine while he can run with no cd at all.

Doesn’t adding a CD to it completely ruin how there mechanics work? They’re supposed to only be limited by energy.

difference is that with short bow you cant deal good damage. phase traversal isnt bound to a weapon right?

and its not fair that all thief survivability get countered. thief already has plenty of counter against stealth. with phase traversal u can just reveal him and then aa him to death

Gaaroth.2567:

As i said in other threads 3s is the sweet spot imho. You just proved that with math :P

If it ain’t science, it’s…

assassin.7895:

difference is that with short bow you cant deal good damage. phase traversal isnt bound to a weapon right?

and its not fair that all thief survivability get countered. thief already has plenty of counter against stealth. with phase traversal u can just reveal him and then aa him to death

Phase traversal doesnt reveal and to get this ability we have to pick up whole 5 slot package with terrible healing skill. If we could mix n match skills that would be different situation, but we dont. If we can get slapped cd on energy mechanic im pretty sure thief can affort cd’s on their wep skills as well. 5cd on inf arrow is not a big deal after all right? You have other means to close the gap.

Sarif.1827:

Greeting Fellow Mist-Walkers… I wanted to make all of my feedback on the Revenant Nerfs in the same post, but you will see that this particular one requires a bit more than a simple “This is why I dislike this and here is my supporting argument”.

I’d like to start off with a quote I found on the forums, Now, I don’t want to make this sound like I’m singling this guy out, I’m not but I think this is a good place to start from.

meepeY.2867:

Inf Arrow is superior at fleeing. PT is superior in chasing, in a way so that Inf Arrow can’t even be used to flee.

A nerf was needed in some way.

I completely disagree, and here is why:

Infiltrator Arrow (IA): Cost 6 Inv, Travels 900/use
Phase Traversal (PA): Cost 20 Energy, Travels 1200/use

“But Sarif, you Rev Fanboi!! That’s not a fair comparison! They use two different resource structures!” … Not really. For anyone who wonders how this comparison works, the mechanical nature of Energy is exactly the same as the mechanical nature of Initiative.

You build up Energy till you pass a “threshold” and then you have access to a skill, these “thresholds” are Pips of Initiative, which roughly equal 5 Energy, you can tell because all of our utility skills are multiplies of 5. I would like to point out that our weapon skills do not follow this trend perfectly.

Using this information as a base, we can can claim that Revenants have a total of 10 Initiative, and can only hold 5 Initiative out-of-combat. Thieves on the other hand, Base have 12 (20% more) and can regen all of them out-of-combat, and can raise this limit to 15 (50% more) plus have the ability to trait to earn back this resource in combat in chucks (2 for using steal and 3 for swapping weapons) addition to gaining 1/sec.

For Thieves, if we converted them to Energy would have 120 Energy, Up to 150 out-of-combat. Using their class Mechanic regens 10 Energy, and Weapon Swap generates 15 Energy.

Stopped reading after this because you seem to be making a mathmatical comparison but your base statements about how Initiative compares to Energy don’t add up.

Specifically “these “thresholds” are Pips of Initiative, which roughly equal 5 Energy, you can tell because all of our utility skills are multiplies of 5.” compared to “we can can claim that Revenants have a total of 10 Initiative, and can only hold 5 Initiative out-of-combat.”

Simple math tells me if the Rev has 100 energy and energy/5 = initiative then Rev initiative = 20 and 10 out of combat. Additionally Thieves 12 init * 5 (conversion) = 60 energy base.

Please redo all your math so we can have a logical discussion.

-A Revenant Main with over 60 hours played on the class who thought 5sec cd should have either be 3sec cd or an increase to 35 energy to all it to be used 3 times back to back in combat before being completely out of energy.

you get heavy armor and the staying ability no thief has, argument invalid. Running is all the devs seems to give thieves. That and stealth nerfs described as buffs..

Liquicity.3621:

you get heavy armor and the staying ability no thief has, argument invalid. Running is all the devs seems to give thieves. That and stealth nerfs described as buffs..

This. I don’t main either but I honestly can never understand why people compare certain aspects of one class to another. Have you ever tried playing a thief for real? They are the absolute squishiest class of all time. Yeah, they can run away but that’s about it. A rev is a HEAVY armor user. Just because a thief can run miles doesn’t mean a rev should be able to as well – they are not assassins. That’s the beauty of each class, is that they have certain uniqueness the other’s classes can’t and shouldn’t obtain.

I’ll agree to this post if you strip rev’s of their armor and HP and even it out with a thief’s.

Thanks for quoting me, albeit a little out of context.

I’m relatively happy with the PT nerf because I’ve never been able to run away from a Rev, even using Shadowstep and sb5 spamming to get distance. They will always catch up. No amount of math can change that.

The math is great – don’t get me wrong – but it doesn’t factor in any practical situations which are usually the cause of using PT to chase.

PT twice for 2400 range and then use Hammer which also has a 1200 range. You have an effective chase range of 3600 and after a couple of seconds, you’ll be able to PT again. If I’m running away it’s most likely because I’m low health. Couple of hammer swings and I’ll die. Hammer 1 crits for like 4.5k on Thieves.

And remember we Thieves only have 12,000 base HP…

Unless I’m using a Stealth build to prevent the use of PT, I’ll easily get caught. Shame I love playing S/D or Staff Daredevil.

No hammer? Well, Unrelenting Assault follows Thieves through Shadowsteps and teleports.

You also cut off the rest of my quote, where I said the 5s cooldown was too much of a nerf and it should’ve gotten an energy increase of 10-15, but you wouldn’t have included that.

Edit: oh yeah, PT also deals 1-2k damage and makes your next 2 attacks unblockable… Kinda makes Bandits Defense useless.

Element.4319:

they are not assassins.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Legendary_Assassin_Stance

You wot m8?

This is a fair comparison until you realize something… Thief also has other teleport to target options (i.e. Shadowstep) beyond just Infiltrator’s Arrow, like from Steal, Shadowstep utility, Infiltrator’s Strike (Sword 2) and that Harpoon Gun ability (Smoke Trail).

Now, the weapon abilities have initiative costs too with other utility so kind-of ignore. But Steal and Shadowstep utility (you know that ability that pretty much every Thief takes in their build because position/can use while stunned/condition removal) has no initiative cost.

If you do the cost/distance traveled math, Thief is actually better off than Revenant right out of the gate and Rev doesn’t catch up (assuming the Thief doesn’t stop in a race to a target). You can counter-argue that Thief requires a loss of a utility slot for this, but so does Rev if they take offhand Axe to close the gap to Thief via a weapon slot.

Here’s the thing, it was very close before the change. The difference is the 900 vs. 1200. EXCEPT Thief also gets insta cast (use during cast time of any other ability) Steal which more than makes up for it.

It was balanced before except for the reduction of 20 energy (which should be 25). Alternatively, you can make Revenant Phase Traversal have the cooldown if it doesn’t connect with the target (i.e. Elementalist Ride the Lightning code).

EDIT: The only possible explanation for this is ANet intends to nerf Infiltrator’s Arrow in the very short term because of it’s abusive need/role it plays in PvP.

Ia doesn’t need a target. It does.

Burtnik.5218:

Element.4319:

they are not assassins.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Legendary_Assassin_Stance

You wot m8?

You got me there – obviously I don’t play neither enough.

But that actually makes matters worse: to have just one PORTION (or stance) of the rev to outclass a whole profession? That’s a bit ridiculous there dontchathinkso?

And then when things get slimy, rev can stance dance on the fly to a gasp healz build or even worse, legendary b00n build. What’s a thief got on that? Nothing because its the worst class in the game lol.

Element.4319:

Burtnik.5218:

Element.4319:

they are not assassins.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Legendary_Assassin_Stance

You wot m8?

You got me there – obviously I don’t play neither enough.

But that actually makes matters worse: to have just one PORTION (or stance) of the rev to outclass a whole profession? That’s a bit ridiculous there dontchathinkso?

And then when things get slimy, rev can stance dance on the fly to a gasp healz build or even worse, legendary b00n build. What’s a thief got on that? Nothing because its the worst class in the game lol.

Good thief can counter rev. We have no burst outside of sword 3 which breaks on stealth. After all all we can do is aa spam. We have gotta manage to hit someone with Shiro heal otheriwse all we will get is..1,6k hp. Duration is short so you can outstealth it easily. Glint? Stop attacking and we wont heal for more than 1,8k. What is left? 4k hp form shield 5 on 25cd which you can poison to reduce by 33% cus no condi cleanse. Immobilize also hits us quite bad when we are not in Shiro. We dont have other sources of mobility either. If we swap out of Shiro we lose mobility for at least 10 seconds and that is really noticeable vs kiting opponents.

Fantastic feedback. I’d still prefer an increase of energy cost to 25 or 30 and removal of the cooldown, however. We don’t need cooldowns; energy is our limiting mechanic.

Amiron.1067:

Fantastic feedback. I’d still prefer an increase of energy cost to 25 or 30 and removal of the cooldown, however. We don’t need cooldowns; energy is our limiting mechanic.

Disagree, we aren’t thieves, we are meant to have abilities equal to other professions but with greatly reduced cooldowns to allow using them more often as energy allows, but not meant to spam them for burst.

can’t compare sb 5 with PT

compare PT with JI, thief signet. now you know that skill is op.
target focused teleportation with 1200 range without CD
the moment they removed the pathing problem, i know it’s bond to get a CD or it will be one of the most op skill..you can literally traval from mid to home in seconds if you have a target in pvp map.

tho i do agree to have an energy decrease for the CD it has now
and please don’t give dumb idea like increase energy cost and remove CD.
please, you don’t want your cap closer to be gated behind high energy cost which is shared with other damaging skill…
you never spam that kitten anyway, unless you just exploiting it with target to traval real fast..or trying to make fun of a running thief..