Guild Wars 2

So I’ve noticed everyone is providing all this feedback focusing on DPS or Sword Revenant, which makes sense since, you know, we just got access to swords and Shiro. However I felt like the Support Rev and more specifically Ventari and Salvation were the weakest aspects of the Revenant this time around. I played around in sPvP and PvE with Ventari and wanted to consolidate my feedback.

Rev’s support in general is too slow, Guild wars 2 is a fast game.

Guild wars 2 is a game of seconds sometimes. That is why short duration damage absorbers that you pop at the right time are very favoured in PvP. Ventari and a ton of Rev support is painfully slow, which kills it’s viability. You’re already reacting to the enemy, why layer even more delays on top of that?

Let’s take a simple scenario; a few allies around you have 3 conditions on them that are doing a lot of damage to them that they need removed:

-As a Guardian, just pop Virtue of Resolve, done.
-As a D/D Ele, Switch to water, then dodge roll and maybe use cleansing wave. A little longer but shouldn’t take too long too fully execute.
-Rev, Dodge once (Trait), Switch to Ventari, Summon the tablet, if necessary move the kitten tablet to your allies THEN hit the condi-cleanse once you have enough energy after you used some of it to move the tablet.

There are a lot of examples I could pull up but overall same message, really the tablet should Auto-summon when you switch to Ventari and commanding the tablet to move should be an instant action. If necessary nerf the healing or the cooldown or something if you’re worried about Revs moving it all over the place.

Rev’s support requires too much investment to utilize sometimes.

Ok, so you want to create a healing Rev, that’s fine, after all you can model it after a bunker Guardian and those guys are awesome in sPvP right now. However different game-modes need different kinds of support and the Salvation line should be able to provide that small amount of support more hybrid DPS specs. Traits like Eluding Nullification (Cleanse condi on dodge) is alright but Momentary Pacification and Blinding Truths (Daze on elite, blind on heal) are weak.

Maybe consider merging them and even creating a new grandmaster support trait that works outside of Ventari, like… when your channeling a skill pulse protection to nearby allies. Something can fit on a DPS spec for a little bit of support without requiring a lot of investment. Speaking of merging:

The Healing traits should all be able to be taken together

Even with all the effort your putting making Healing Rev a thing, it’ll still probably be a niche spec so all the healing traits should be able to be taken together. The biggest problem is that Natural Abundance (create healing fragment when using legendary centaur skill) and Selfless Amplification (Outgoing healing is better) are two different Grandmasters. So you need to either demote to Master or Merge them together otherwise a Cleric Rev is just going to Min-Max them against each other for total healing and one will be ignored over the other.

Bunker/support Rev needs to able to counter pressure

This has more to do with Jalis then Ventari but the Rev really needs a way to counter heavy pressure. Bunker Guardian is again a good place to look, when a bunker Guardian is being attacked he can use a lot of active defence to counter it (Renewed focus, Shelter, Aegis, etc) while a Ventari/Jalis Rev has next to nothing, Maybe consider making Rite of the Great Dwarf grant Invulnerability while your casting it (so basically function exactly like renewed focus).

Anyway, those are my thoughts so far, despite all my criticism I do think Rev is turning out to be a fun profession to play and I just want every possible play-style to be viable on it.

A defensive play style will not work withing the actual gameplay becouse is very lack luster against offensive.

The unbalancement comes from lack of mechanics or poor mechanics vs strong and active mechanics, this is why some light armor classes have better burst and surviability than others even high armor becouse high armor is useless in some classes since the only thing that matters atm is damage being in high hits or bursts.

It is a lack of mechanics and semi-roles aviability on most classes, while DD(as example) can do a bit of everything, other classes will strugle becouse will loose all the offensive, and being defensive will not work becouse… well game is made for not working where a class like revenant depends on defense.
Reason game feels(is) inba and ravenent is weak outside deamon and shiro roles

Guardian is in a similiar situation if trying to play with defensive setup.

The mechanics of how the tablet works need to improve.
As mentioned by Aeolus that gw2 is a fast pace game, this moving tablet functionality takes up too much time.
I think even by attaching the tablet on the player is better than having to move ard it via clicking ard the environment ~_~

Although the casting times and speed of the tablet are huge issues, the fact that % outgoing healing doesn’t work with it certainly doesn’t help. In fact I’d say it’s the biggest issue, because it doesn’t heal for kitten without % outgoing healing.

Aeolus.3615:

A defensive play style will not work withing the actual gameplay becouse is very lack luster against offensive.
.

Not to mention that offensive specs still have room to be effective using the same gear just exchanging some traits, weaponsets or skills to be more defensive i.e. Warrior can just use base Warhorn for Weakness uptime, Banner of Defense instead of Signet, and Guardian can just camp Hammer if needed be for perma protection uptime, Eles always have waterfields on demand, and Necromancer will have blindness uptime, Revenant has Staff 3, etc. no actual need to go full healing support, when you can mitigate a ton of damage via boons, conditions, traits, evasion and blocks.

Guardian can play defensive roles effectively, but more importantly has a lot of survivability. Revenant is squishy atm.

I personally think the tablet should just be a visual (that is to say, unkillable and uninteractable) thing that follows you like the spirits used to for rangers.

Yes, I fully support the Book following you around, having to move it constantly is very tedious.

I personally prefer it being movable however having a trait to increase movement speed or range would be useful. Auto-summon (when you swap into ventari) should be a given though.

Rygg.6237:

Aeolus.3615:

A defensive play style will not work withing the actual gameplay becouse is very lack luster against offensive.
.

Not to mention that offensive specs still have room to be effective using the same gear just exchanging some traits, weaponsets or skills to be more defensive i.e. Warrior can just use base Warhorn for Weakness uptime, Banner of Defense instead of Signet, and Guardian can just camp Hammer if needed be for perma protection uptime, Eles always have waterfields on demand, and Necromancer will have blindness uptime, Revenant has Staff 3, etc. no actual need to go full healing support, when you can mitigate a ton of damage via boons, conditions, traits, evasion and blocks.

Kidel.2057:

Guardian can play defensive roles effectively, but more importantly has a lot of survivability. Revenant is squishy atm.

Offensive specs will always work under defensive configurations, and that is pretty much limited, players will always choose best weapons for hight damage instead of game mechanics becouse those mechanics are very underwelming.

Defensive rev it looked to squishy for what ive watched in streams and youtube videos, about guardian defensive capacities atm they are a bit awkward i never had problem with them and i find them really weak compared with the possibilities we had, i could bunker 1 d/d ele for a very good time if i didnt kitten ed my skill cooldowns and now i need to play mostly zerker and retreat try again, what i wanted do say is that stats are barelly useless with the actual state of the game(not all classes can use stats effectivly as others), reason revenant looks squishy if tried to play defensivly theres no trade off between game styles, being the output damage the best solutions
So why anet keep adding defensive stats(and gameplay) if game is not supporting that gameplay style? that is the reason some specs on Revenant looked underhwelming.

(edit): So it looks like ventari tablet is usefull as guardian SW on larger combats, and in small group combat 2 aoe can clean it :\

From what I’ve seen, Ventari was practically unchanged apart from some numbers from the first preview when Roy got a ton of identical feedback on it.

That “beta” version, based on what Robert Gee said, was locked down for changes shortly after first preview, so I believe that apart from couple numbers and specs update for Rev, there wasn’t time to implement more in-depth changes.

Which, I believe, Roy already has in the sleeve and will show them in following days.

Pretty much entirely agree with OP.

The slow tablet is largely ineffective. There are, a few cases, where the tablet projectile block is amazing in a particular setup but that’s about it. The healing it puts out is minimal and ineffective in any group setting beyond 5 even if they fixed the trait. To be honest the abilities should work where the amounts are reduced, but they occur at the player and at the tablet.

The biggest issue continues to be a lack of answer to back line pressure. In T1 WvW we often times get many front line teams who Veil then immediate teleport into our backline with Meditation Guardians. We’re talking anywhere from 4 to 10 of these suckers and quite frankly if you don’t have some kind of quick reactionary defense you’re dead.

You can see what I’m talking about in this video @ 4:45 and @ 6:20 and a few times later in the video. These kinds of rapid assaults basically obliterate Ventari which has zero reactionary tools and are pretty common as a back line player. Malyx has a displacement field (seen in video). Shiro has a dodge roll out of danger (seen in video). Jalis and Ventari on the other hand are just so slow they can’t possibly keep up. Trying to cast Rite of the Great Dwarf with that kind of pressure just isn’t going to happen. Moving your tablet back to get help takes too much time and just isn’t going to work.

^indeed it seem finally guardian SW have a competitor , at least ventari does not run out from combat nor decides to go to midle of the aoe hot zone.

This is exactly what i cant understand atm on the game balance.
How is possible this genra of skills to work since everything is “squishy” in a fast action pace, w/o a hybrid “role” system, all players need, is find best and faster way to kill the targets being in large groups or small group no point at taking this skills atm.

@Roy if is reading this; SW never worked that well, easy to kill(can be ignored), bad A.I, slow, and they are worse in larger combat(useless)and this for like ~2+ years, IT is needed to change some game mechanics to get players outside all play copy pasta builds for gimmick tactics. (just using SW as example).
Otherwise we players will end only with the option to play condi or condi hybrid shiro/deamon, as some other classes ended with just one or 2 top notch builds due output damage being only thing that matters.

As for spvp/stronghold it looks far better than bunker guard, it looks interesting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqPQIznGUrE

What if Ventari Will activation time becomes instant? It looked that is what gives the feeling of slowliness.

I said this in first live Rev beta.

The Tablet gameplay is meant for group content, not small scale PvP. It’s meant for being used along side other support burst healers like Tempest and other Support Revenants during Group PvE, or whatever this hard group content is.

I will main Rev along Engie but I cannot ever see myself using ventari the way it is now. At all.

Killyox.3950:

I will main Rev along Engie but I cannot ever see myself using ventari the way it is now. At all.

Makes more sense play shiro/mallyx while side by side with a engie :\, engie has waterblast, cc, condi, aoe, supporter toolkit.