Guild Wars 2

Hi everyone, I’ve played Guild Wars 2 since betas and wanted to share my view of the Revenant sword skills (main and offhand) and point out what I feel is wrong with each skill and the gameplay in general. I know some things have already been said, but I wanted to write something since I didn’t see many threads about it recently. So I think it’s worth a try.

Auto-Attack :

The damage is ok but it should never be our main DPS tool, it’s the same problem with Daredevils and staff. Making an auto-attack doing more damage than active skills is not only boring, it’s in my opinion an obvious design issue with the weapon.

Precision Strike :

Damage is fine, but I wish it could cleave or something, unrelenting assault already has the same problem (if more than one target, it’s pointless to use it), so why add more skills with the same drawback ? This only pushes the player to use auto-attack only.

Unrelenting Assault :

When the Revenant was finally released in Guild Wars 2, I was so happy to use a pure melee class that could dual wield swords and use them in a power build instead of being forced to condition spec with a warrior.
Problem is, this skill itself is a proof that ArenaNet should think about going back to some ideas from Guild Wars 1 in terms of skill design : separate PvE from PvP.

In PvE the skill was fine without being as strong as Hundred Blades. And had the drawback of being useful only against a lone single target (no cleave). Damage was great but a warrior and other classes could do more with decent gear.
Meanwhile in PvP it was very powerful, due to the invulnerability and duration of the attack.
And now, because of some PvP complains, which were totally understandable. Unrelenting Assault got nerfed so much that there is no point in using it. Despite the skill having one of the coolest animation. It just feels so weak and underwhelming now. Auto-attack should never be the only way to play and get the best DPS, it makes the gameplay so boring and even using one weapon skill from time to time (Precision Strike if there’s one target around only) is just sad. The nerfs were to much in my opinion.

Duelist Preparation/Shackling Wave :

In my view, Duelist Prep is good, however I just don’t get the point of Shackling Wave. The damage is weak and the immobility is extremely short, never really saw the use of it.

Grasping Shadow :

I really never understood the point of this skill in a PvE setting. Even in PvP, the distance from where you pull the ennemy is quite short and doesn’t really bring something really useful to the table compared to other weapons such as Axe.
It should just be a simple pull in my opinion, and get rid of the backward Shadowstep. This skill is even less useful now that Unrelenting Assault has some weak damage.
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I hope this doesn’t come off as mindless complain, but I’m just so sad to see the Revenant’s sword skills in this state. I hope ArenaNet will at least make a few changes so that auto-attack won’t be the best way to DPS outside of Shiro/Impossible Odds.

One of the only ways to allow for all Rev weapon skills to allow for better Dps/ being more viable for rotations is to remove the Energy costs from the Weapons since both the Utilities and weapons share a resource pool you have to decide what provides the best in cost effectiveness and having to juggle between each legend to be able to use Utilities as well asWeapon skills.

There have always been skills that perform more for PvE or PvP respectively this is on all classes not just Revenant, your gripes with OH sword sounds like you don’t understand the importance of Cc style skills, and so on being able to combo with the weapons and skills it one of the better designs of Rev, allowing you to utilize them in different ways for more depth to gameplay, some examples are Phase traversal into Grasping shadow into Weapon/Legend swap to Staff 5, or using grasping shadows to pull an opponent into AoE effects and so on, for PvE it is great for break bars and separating certain enemies from packs or using it as a way to disengage if needed. It just sounds like you want the weapon but don’t like the implementation since it doesn’t conform to your views on what a sword should be.

Your unrelenting assault issue seems to ignore the fact that it provides great protection on top of decent damage as well as buffing you all at the same time, it can stick to any opponent once it lands through Mesmer portals/shadowsteps you name it. It is a highly versatile skill. They do need to fix how it interacts with environmental items mainly in wvw and pvp it plus Precision strike seem to prioritize environment items like boxes and supply depots and Sentry posts over players…

Yes they should reevaluate the Skills in PvE but they aren’t broken or underpowered they are there as an option.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

There have always been skills that perform more for PvE or PvP respectively this is on all classes not just Revenant, your gripes with OH sword sounds like you don’t understand the importance of Cc style skills, and so on being able to combo with the weapons and skills it one of the better designs of Rev, allowing you to utilize them in different ways for more depth to gameplay

Oh I know the utility of CC skills, especially in PvE. Been doing that with mace/shield and headbutt on my warrior. It’s not rocket science but Grasping Shadows is just pointless in PvE most of the time, since you either move a mob that is already focused by the team or the pull doesn’t work (mob is immune) and your character still shadowstep backwards : meaning a DPS loss. This has always been an issue when people started to play Revenant in PvE.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Your unrelenting assault issue seems to ignore the fact that it provides great protection on top of decent damage as well as buffing you all at the same time, it can stick to any opponent once it lands through Mesmer portals/shadowsteps you name it. It is a highly versatile skill. They do need to fix how it interacts with environmental items mainly in wvw and pvp it plus Precision strike seem to prioritize environment items like boxes and supply depots and Sentry posts over players…

Yes they should reevaluate the Skills in PvE but they aren’t broken or underpowered they are there as an option.

UA is just not good, by the time you do one, you get some auto-attacks done and more damage easily, it’s even more clear with boons. The might buff has always been decent, but in a PvE setting, if you have a PS warrior with you it’s not useful. I think you see it more as a PvP skill : a game mode that made UA what it is now. Skills shouldn’t be used only for one aspect of the game, it should be used in both PvP and PvE, hence why they need to separate the changes they do, because they will create more unbalance that way.
I don’t know much about GW2 PvP, since I find PvP in MMOs always lacking. But in PvE you do the legends rotation and with the weapon skills it’s just auto-attack and precision strike if the target is solo. Not sure if you had the chance to play Revenant at the beginning, but it used to be so much more dynamic before, even after the first nerfs to Unrelenting Assault. What bothers me is that they nerfed it into oblivion.
When auto-attack is more useful than all the other skills in terms of damage, I believe there’s a problem and it’s the first MMO where I see that an auto-attack is 90% of the time better. It simply doesn’t feel right or rewarding.

Scar.1793:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

There have always been skills that perform more for PvE or PvP respectively this is on all classes not just Revenant, your gripes with OH sword sounds like you don’t understand the importance of Cc style skills, and so on being able to combo with the weapons and skills it one of the better designs of Rev, allowing you to utilize them in different ways for more depth to gameplay

Oh I know the utility of CC skills, especially in PvE. Been doing that with mace/shield and headbutt on my warrior. It’s not rocket science but Grasping Shadows is just pointless in PvE most of the time, since you either move a mob that is already focused by the team or the pull doesn’t work (mob is immune) and your character still shadowstep backwards : meaning a DPS loss. This has always been an issue when people started to play Revenant in PvE.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Your unrelenting assault issue seems to ignore the fact that it provides great protection on top of decent damage as well as buffing you all at the same time, it can stick to any opponent once it lands through Mesmer portals/shadowsteps you name it. It is a highly versatile skill. They do need to fix how it interacts with environmental items mainly in wvw and pvp it plus Precision strike seem to prioritize environment items like boxes and supply depots and Sentry posts over players…

Yes they should reevaluate the Skills in PvE but they aren’t broken or underpowered they are there as an option.

UA is just not good, by the time you do one, you get some auto-attacks done and more damage easily, it’s even more clear with boons. The might buff has always been decent, but in a PvE setting, if you have a PS warrior with you it’s not useful. I think you see it more as a PvP skill : a game mode that made UA what it is now. Skills shouldn’t be used only for one aspect of the game, it should be used in both PvP and PvE, hence why they need to separate the changes they do, because they will create more unbalance that way.
I don’t know much about GW2 PvP, since I find PvP in MMOs always lacking. But in PvE you do the legends rotation and with the weapon skills it’s just auto-attack and precision strike if the target is solo. Not sure if you had the chance to play Revenant at the beginning, but it used to be so much more dynamic before, even after the first nerfs to Unrelenting Assault. What bothers me is that they nerfed it into oblivion.
When auto-attack is more useful than all the other skills in terms of damage, I believe there’s a problem and it’s the first MMO where I see that an auto-attack is 90% of the time better. It simply doesn’t feel right or rewarding.

Let’s look at Rev in a pure PvE stand point it is brought mainly for its Group support/Utility and not its DPS, this is what happens to classes with so much in their kit. It does decent dps but that’s not why it is brought to group content, the boons and boon duration are the reasons DPS takes a back seat, Look at Mesmer same thing it has abysmal sustained dps but is highly sought after for its support role. And again the reason AA is used more is because it does not drain the Revs resource pool as well look at sword AA it applies Vulnerability which is why it provides more dps now combine that with UA and others buffs it gets its Dps boost to the whole kit.

Shackling wave could be a knockdown which would give good CC. I would swap sword #2 with sword #5. This way you could hit an enemy and kite them back to nuke them with #3. Increase the range on grasping shadows, maybe you throw the sword on mid range and pull the enemy back after succesful hit.
On precision strike i would actually put a taunt and weakness so it could be used as a tank weapon.