Guild Wars 2

Alright, recently I swapped around my entire ascended build to a Jalis/Mallyx condition damage build, with retribution for some anti cc and survivability, I’ll admit at first I was very skeptical about how good Mallyx would be, in the beta’s he was insanely fun and interesting but then they completely destroyed his playstyle by removing the self applied conditions, I gave him another chance and…kitten color me pleasently surprised he is absolutely amazing when it comes to pulsing out conditions, I can honestly say he completely blew me away with just how much torment he can give, BUT with all that said I do think that a few of his skills/traits could use a bit of a reworking, so I’ll go through them all here, curious to see what other rev’s think!

(Oh yeah I also play primarily PvE open world and fractals, but I do dabble in PvP a tiny bit)

I’ll start with his utilities and will try to keep it short

Empowering Misery

Imo, this is a very solid heal, it’s base heal isn’t bad and the extra healing from conditions is insane, no problem with this thing! Misery Empower Us!

Pain Absorption

This thing is a very mixed skill, in fractals or dungeons, it’s great, running around in the open world? Well it’s kind of a mess…but that’s not really the skills fault it’s more an issue with how support is useless in open-world content in general, though I will say that for what it does I think it could maybe use a bit of a boost, maybe up the cap of players to 10? IDK maybe that’s going too far

Banish Enchantment

The confusion is pretty pathetic, making it a very below average dps skill, but that’s probably not it’s intent and as a boon strip? It’s great, rivaling even mesmers

Unyielding Anguish

This skill, I really don’t know what to make of it, the chill and torment is very solid, but for it’s cost, compare it to Mallyx’s elite, the amount of torment you can pulse out is just uncomparable, though then again that does prevent energy recharge…grrr I don’t think it’s as bad as alot of people say but I do think it could use a bit of a boost of some type…

Embrace the Darkness

Now witness true ultimate power!

Couldn’t have put it better myself Mallyx

Ok now on to traits!

Rampant Vex

Mmmmmmmm….delicious torment…no issue with this one, it’s amazing

Demonic Defiance

No issue with this one, extra resistance? Love it, no brainer

Replenishing Despair

This one is…odd, I haven’t played with it alot, but I think it was clearly designed around the old beta version of Mallyx where you could self apply condi’s…I think the heal could use a buff to make it more viable

Venom Enhancement

This one sounds great in theory but the 20 second cooldown just kills it…what about 8 or 10 seconds instead? Otherwise Rev’s just don’t have enough poison to really justify taking this one imo, I mean the only skill I can think of is mace auto attack…

Opportune Extraction

Only complaint with this one is it’s rather boring, but mechanically it’s fine

Bolstered Anguish

This one…it again feels like a leftover of beta Mallyx, I think it would be better to nerf the damage to 2% but make it scale of the amount of Condi’s the enemy has on them

Frigid Precision

A tiny bit too short of a duration on the chill imo, but not the biggest deal, not a bad trait

Spontaneous Destruction

PvE it doesn’t see too much use, but PvP this baby is great, no complaints here

Yearning Empowerment

MOAR TORMENT MWAHAHAHAHAHA

Diabolic Inferno

Cycle this with Embrace the Darkness and you can stack up that fire, love it

Maniacal Persistence

Not a pick I personally take, but if you have low precision it might be work nabbing? I’m not sure…very meh for a grandmaster, I think the chance could use a buff

Pulsating Pestilence

This trait is just…useless, if it was an adept then it might be worth it but as a GrandMaster? If Mallyx still had the self conditioning then maybe it could be decent, but since that’s probably never going to happen this should really have its cooldown nerfed to 5 or 8 seconds to be worth it, and even then, diabolic inferno is just so great…

Hoo boy, sorry for the giant walls of text but I am curious as to what others think! And maybe we will see some buffs in the next balance patch (whenever that is) that will make some of the more “meh” traits and skills a bit more viable

I literally just posted something about those three traits being remnants of the pre-release Mallyx earlier this morning. :P All of the skills are totally fine the way they are in-game, with the exception of maybe the heal(the “more healing for each condition you have on you” seems like another remnant of beta-Mallyx).

This is entirely in regards to PvE: The condition application ability of the revenants is lacking. Yes, we can apply enough torment to kill a cow, but other classes have enough condition application to kill a dinosaur. My point being this: Condition revenant isn’t completely weak, but when compared to other classes that fill a similar function, the revenant is sub-par.

Solution? Tweak the Corruption specialization and leave the skills alone. In my mind, all it would really need is more emphasis on the burning and poison ability of the revenant. Maybe even give them more ability to do so in the first place, with the spec tree modifying what conditions are applied by the skills? Make it so UA applies poison in addition to the chill/torment? Make it so a critical hit on a torment tick applies a stack of burning, but give the trait a long cd to balance it? I really don’t know enough about the game as a whole to provide solid suggestions, but something needs to be done about this spec. It just doesn’t seem fully polished after the changes from it’s original design.