Guild Wars 2

Roy Cronacher.1576:

Staff

• Renewing Wave: Changed the animation on this skill so it can be used while moving. It retained the same 1 second cast time.

Shield

• Envoy of Exuberance: Decreased the energy cost from 15 to 10. Fixed a bug so that this skill will properly heal at the target location instead of around you.
• Crystal Hibernation: Removed the defiance bar. This skill will now block attacks for the duration while regenerating health. Lowered recharge from 30 seconds to 20 seconds.

Legendary Centaur Stance
Here I made some changes to the cast time. Now all utility skills are instant, only the heal and the elite have a cast time. The elite has also been lowered in cast time as well as decreased energy cost.

• Naturalistic Harmony. Decreased the energy cost from 25 to 20.
• Purifying Essence: This skill is now instant cast. Decreased the energy cost from 35 to 30 and added a 5 second recharge.
• Energy Expulsion: This skill is now a blast finisher and reduced the cast time from 2 seconds to 1 second. Decreased the energy cost from 50 to 35.

So much hype right now due to these changes. Bring on BWE3.

Wow I am absolutely against those mallyx changes. Mallyx was my favorite legend! I understand the change on most skills but making embrace the darkness not copy conditions anymore is a huuuuge hit. There’s no reason to use pain absorption if all those condis you absorb are not gonna get transfered back to your enemy! Do you have any idea how fun it was to embrace the darkness on a ranger with entangle?
I can understand removing the self applied condis and the change to displacement, in fact I like them more like this as mallyx was about condi manipulation instead of condi output, but I will have to please ask, reconsider the embrace the darkness condition pulse! It was what made Mallyx unique imo. Now we’re just another necro. (Ironically better than them still though)

Vennyhedgie.5369:

Wow I am absolutely against those mallyx changes. Mallyx was my favorite legend! I understand the change on most skills but making embrace the darkness not copy conditions anymore is a huuuuge hit. There’s no reason to use pain absorption if all those condis you absorb are not gonna get transfered back to your enemy! Do you have any idea how fun it was to embrace the darkness on a ranger with entangle?
I can understand removing the self applied condis and the change to displacement, in fact I like them more like this as mallyx was about condi manipulation instead of condi output, but I will have to please ask, reconsider the embrace the darkness condition pulse! It was what made Mallyx unique imo. Now we’re just another necro. (Ironically better than them still though)

No, even necromancers will be much better than a mallyx revenant at both boon rip and condi transfers, since now revenant will only be able to copy using pulsating pestilance, which is still a somewhat flawed trait.

WTF!!! Unyielding Anguish nerfed!!

Man this making me not want to spend points in anything other than Herald even more now…

Man this class as a whole is a joke,,, come on… these legend are terrible besides Herald…

First of all, thank you for posting these changes Roy, they cleatly show you’ve been taking our feedback!

Roy Cronacher.1576:

Downed
Unfortunately, the displace mechanic was interacting poorly in the game as a whole. It was causing undesired behavior with NPCs and pathing, its strength varied by game mode, it was very disorienting to the receiving foe and other issues as well. We made the decision to remove displace and change the skills which had it on them. In this case we changed it to a knockback because it was similar functionality.

• Forceful Displacement: This skill no longer displaces foes, instead it will now knockback the foe 600 distance.

Regarding this, the downed skill is now a big too similar to the guardian downed skill 2, except it just hits a single target. I understand the logic in changing it from what it was, but why not add a different effect? For example, revenants are heavily tied to the mists, so why not make it so the skill is tied to teleporting/moving around? The other downed skill deals damage based on your target’s positioning, so it could be an interesting combo if you could cast that then teleport somewhere else to deal more damage or something.

Sword
For sword, there were some minor tweaks. Precision Strike was made a whirl finisher because it made sense as your character is spinning around, plus the skill needed a bit of help. Unrelenting Assault was a bit strong after the last set of changes so I slightly increased the recharge to have a lower window between evade times.

• Precision Strike: This skill is now a whirl finisher.

What about increasing its range too? As it is, the 450 range makes the projectiles miss a bit too much :/

Shield
We were trying out defiance bars on player skills in a few places, but it didn’t really work out. Defiance bar is balanced around being on creatures which left some pieces of it feeling awkward for players. It also had essentially a duplicate functionality to stability. In the end we felt like it didn’t play well on player skills so we removed all player defiance bars.

• Envoy of Exuberance: Decreased the energy cost from 15 to 10. Fixed a bug so that this skill will properly heal at the target location instead of around you.
• Crystal Hibernation: Removed the defiance bar. This skill will now block attacks for the duration while regenerating health. Lowered recharge from 30 seconds to 20 seconds.

I appreciate the new changes, that said, I would like to make a few suggestions to this: Since revenant doesn’t have access to an off-hand finisher, what about adding a Blast Finisher to Envoy of Exuberance? That would enhance Revenant’s support with the shield since blast finishers provide support, be in the form of more might, or healing.

I also understand the logic behind Crystal Hibernation’s changes. You lowered the cooldown (which is awesome) and allowed it to block all the way through, but it can only do this stuff (in comparison to, say, warrior shield 5, which people will compare it to) because it keeps you at the same place for its duration. I understand this is part of the design, but I would consider making it so it gives capture point contribution in PvP since it makes you a sitting duck.

Legendary Centaur Stance
Here I made some changes to the cast time. Now all utility skills are instant, only the heal and the elite have a cast time. The elite has also been lowered in cast time as well as decreased energy cost.

• Naturalistic Harmony. Decreased the energy cost from 25 to 20.
• Purifying Essence: This skill is now instant cast. Decreased the energy cost from 35 to 30 and added a 5 second recharge.
• Energy Expulsion: This skill is now a blast finisher and reduced the cast time from 2 seconds to 1 second. Decreased the energy cost from 50 to 35.

I appreciate these changes, the Centaur stance will be far more mobile now I also like that you added a blast finisher to Energy Repulsion since that’s something I wanted to see, but I would like to add a suggestion to this:

As it is, Water Fields are very lacking in classes all around. They are mostly centered on Elementalist, so it would be nice to see Revenant having access to at least one for further support. What I originally thought was, since Water Fields seem a bt off to the Centaur theme (and have a risk of being abused in a Revenant thanks to most skills not having cooldowns), I thought of a way to make Water Fields accessible yet require skillful use to be fully utilized.

The idea is to add a Water Field to Energy Repulsion, but making it so it lasts only 1 second and right before it explodes so the Energy Repulsion’s Blast Finisher can combo on itself. The cool thing is that a Revenant could, say, blast it with Mace 3 or (if you change it ) Shield 4 to add more healing, or coodinate with their allies so they blast it in this tiny window too. The skill CD’s would be balanced around the fact the Field lasts 1 second, and requires one to destroy the Tablet, summon it again and then have the energy to cast Energy Repulsion again. Could be a neat idea

Legendary Dwarf Stance
A lot of you thought Forced Engagement was too high of a cost for a single target control skill, and I agree! But, I can’t allow you to use it back to back or else it creates bad chain controlling situations so there is an added recharge as well.

• Forced Engagement: Increased the recharge from 3 seconds to 5 seconds and lowered the energy cost from 50 to 35.

I appreciate this change! It’s what the skill needed, I feel. That said, what about adding it as a Stun Breaker too? I know the elite is a stun breaker already, but it would be neat to add two stun breakers to this tanky legend, plus the fact you taunt an enemy balanced the fact it is somewhat accessible.

Herald
In herald overall I think it played out fairly well, but there was a few small tweaks I wanted to make. Shared Empowerment was slightly under-tuned compared to other similar traits. Gaze of Darkness bypassed defenses like dodging which wasn’t intended.

• Shared Empowerment: Increased the might duration from 5 seconds to 8 seconds.
• Facet of Nature: This is now useable underwater.
• Gaze of Darkness: Fixed a bug so that this can be properly avoiding using things such as your dodge.

I appreciate the change to Share Empowerment! That said, I would consider making it give two stacks of might to offset the fact the facets give boons at the same time (during the beta, I was hoping to be able to maximize the might output by making the facets pulse at different times, but they do boon sharing together ) and allow it to stack more naturally.

Corruption
In the corruption specialization, there were a few traits which needed some tweaks in power to be competitive options. As an example revenant did not have many options to apply poison, but had the trait Venom Enhancement which increased poison duration so I thought it made sense to also apply poison itself.

• Pulsating Pestilence: Increased the trigger chance from 15% to 25%.
• Replenishing Despair: Increased the base heal by 300% and added a 1 second internal cool-down.
• Venom Enhancement: This trait will now apply poison for 5 seconds with a 20 second recharge when you apply torment as well as increasing poison duration.

Great changes! I have to mention though, what about making Pulsating Pestilence work on a more accurate trigger, like weapon swapping? That gives the revenant more control over it.

Devastation
In this specialization, I addressed an issue a lot of you brought up in feedback which I thought made a lot of sense. Basically you all said the profession stat buffs like empower are generally in master tier and ferocious strikes was just a weaker trait. So I went ahead and switched the position of both of these traits.

• Assassin’s Presence: This trait has been moved to master tier replacing the place of Ferocious Strikes.
• Ferocious Strikes: This trait has been moved to adept tier replacing the place of Assassin’s Presence.

Love ya!

Loving these changes, I hope they are not the last ones! (and sorry for the wall of text :P )

I don’t like complaining on here, but my hype took a hit reading these.

Sounds like a lot of the more unique aspects of the class just got gutted with the removal of displacement, condition copying, defiance bar, and addition recharges on top of the energy system. I can understand the reasoning given the bugs with displacement, but still that was fresh idea I wanted to use. A big part of the draw was having a different sort of front liner doing new things. Now it just seems a whole lot more generic if you aren’t into support (Which is great, sure.)

Main hand sword could use something. Not a whole lot to do while waiting for Unrelenting Assault to recharge. Whirl finisher isn’t going to set the charts on fire. Torment is pretty lackluster, Mallyx’s elite pulsating it isn’t going to do much unless the range is big enough for most team fights in foefire, even then torment is bleh in pve. The shield skills don’t seem terribly useful if you aren’t 100% supporting, even with the possibility of a defiance bar. Offensive builds couldn’t heal much of anything off it to begin with.

Maybe it won’t be as bad as it sounds.

I have to say, as much as I hate to, that the changes to Mallyx are probably necessary. I mean, think about it: in order for it to work, it requires that you have conditions on yourself.

And you are no longer applying condis to yourself – which is actually a good thing, because yes, people in groups were doing aoe condi clears that were washing off your own condis. That sucked.

I LOVED the feel of the old mallyx… but it was just too situational, on a class where you cant change your elites, only your entire skill set.

So, while I regret the necessity because it was so cool, it just had too many problems when in a group where others might be doing aoe condi cleansing… and without the self condis, it was much less likely the condi duplication would be effective in a skill set where you can’t change any of the skills.

I do have to agree though that some of these mallyx changes felt like they were made a little less unique with these changes. Losing Mallyx’s condi duplication AND losing their displacement effects took two unique things and made them a bit more… generic.

We already have a lot of torment going on with Mallyx. What if we did something else with Embrace the Darkness, like.. I don’t know, maybe each second to enemies near you, all conditions on them gain one stack o each condi already on them plus their endurance extended another second or something? That way you are increasing your own condis on them plus allies?

Just trying to think of something that might regain at least a little o the uniqueness.

I have to agree that the class just took a huge flavor hit. Just flat out giving cooldowns to skills which we already have to use energy for is a bad move. The problem with jade winds wasn’t the fact that you could use it twice in a row(which left you completely defenseless) but the stun was too long in itself.
The discussion of energy vs CD is something that has been extensively talked about but I’m honestly feeling like we’re going more and more towards a situation where we’re punished twice for using our skills compared to other classes, and removing a lot of what that energy management was supposed to be.

Morfedel.4165:

I have to say, as much as I hate to, that the changes to Mallyx are probably necessary. I mean, think about it: in order for it to work, it requires that you have conditions on yourself.

And you are no longer applying condis to yourself – which is actually a good thing, because yes, people in groups were doing aoe condi clears that were washing off your own condis. That sucked.

I LOVED the feel of the old mallyx… but it was just too situational, on a class where you cant change your elites, only your entire skill set.

So, while I regret the necessity because it was so cool, it just had too many problems when in a group where others might be doing aoe condi cleansing… and without the self condis, it was much less likely the condi duplication would be effective in a skill set where you can’t change any of the skills.

Mesmers have condi transfer (arcane thievery was it?) and they dont apply condis to themselves, should that be changed too?
I honestly dont think the point of mallyx was ever to pulse out your self condis, those were always just too short to even properly pulse. Honestly by the time the skill that applied the self condi ended+EtD casting time, those condis had already worn off. It was all about fighting back against the condis enemies put on you.

I’m absolutely against most of the mallyx changes. While i agree that unyielding anguish needed to be changed, you pretty much killed that whole unique playstyle the summon had it and replaced it with boring condi spam. Please revert back the playstyle;

There is absolutely no reason to believe that if someone runs support, it will weaken you, this kind of situation that is barely detrimental at best, and if not a good thing instead. The self condies and pain absorption made sure that you always had condies on you, and with plenty of time to apply on enemies before condies are cleaned. Even if the condies really empower you and cleaning them might not be a good idea, it is part of the reason why the build it is so unique and fun. If you don’t clean, you got a crapton of condies on you, if you run resistance, the opponent can remove it and then you would be in big trouble. BUT, if you managed to manipulate the conditions before it weakens you too much, the opponent would be in trouble instead, and if someone is there helping you after by cleaning them, there wouldn’t be any tension. You copied your condies and so on and want to get rid of them after you swap legends. Like, the only time i can even think of supports creating tension, would be a team of 4 eles with 6 in water. And that’s only if they are all packed around you.

Also, unrelenting assault really need further nerfs, at least for PvP. How does one avoid 8~7k damage if you don’t have any rolls? That’s every 12 seconds, it is easy to make someone waste their roll, then it is pretty much game over for them. Can’t interrupt, can’t hit back. Reduce the evade to not last during the whole animation. Or give it a longer casting time.

Morfedel.4165:

I have to say, as much as I hate to, that the changes to Mallyx are probably necessary. I mean, think about it: in order for it to work, it requires that you have conditions on yourself.

And you are no longer applying condis to yourself – which is actually a good thing, because yes, people in groups were doing aoe condi clears that were washing off your own condis. That sucked.

I LOVED the feel of the old mallyx… but it was just too situational, on a class where you cant change your elites, only your entire skill set.

So, while I regret the necessity because it was so cool, it just had too many problems when in a group where others might be doing aoe condi cleansing… and without the self condis, it was much less likely the condi duplication would be effective in a skill set where you can’t change any of the skills.

It seems like this would is mostly an issue in larger fights or organized PvP where heavy cleansing takes place.
How about allowing Pulsating Pestilance copy conditions while you use EtD instead of hoping your opponent hits you and you getting lucky or maybe allow EtD to return conditions once applied? That might be a little too much like Necro(Mallyx killed both players through condi, Necro feeds off it and/or returns it), but I just don’t want to see Mallyx lose all his flavor while also losing a ton of his strengths.

word: hammer

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Vennyhedgie.5369:

Morfedel.4165:

I have to say, as much as I hate to, that the changes to Mallyx are probably necessary. I mean, think about it: in order for it to work, it requires that you have conditions on yourself.

And you are no longer applying condis to yourself – which is actually a good thing, because yes, people in groups were doing aoe condi clears that were washing off your own condis. That sucked.

I LOVED the feel of the old mallyx… but it was just too situational, on a class where you cant change your elites, only your entire skill set.

So, while I regret the necessity because it was so cool, it just had too many problems when in a group where others might be doing aoe condi cleansing… and without the self condis, it was much less likely the condi duplication would be effective in a skill set where you can’t change any of the skills.

Mesmers have condi transfer (arcane thievery was it?) and they dont apply condis to themselves, should that be changed too?
I honestly dont think the point of mallyx was ever to pulse out your self condis, those were always just too short to even properly pulse. Honestly by the time the skill that applied the self condi ended+EtD casting time, those condis had already worn off. It was all about fighting back against the condis enemies put on you.

I was also thinking of necros using corruption skills that self condi… but the condis themselves werent integral to their plan the way Embrace the Darkness is.

That being said, honestly I was fine with it, but apparently they were getting complaints about it from others. I would rather keep it the way it was, but if they were getting legitimate complaints, I can understand.

The transfer of condis with mesmer, though, was from a single utility, not an elite, and it was not integral to their offense the way Embrace the Darkness was; furthermore they only used Arcane Thievery if they needed to – if an ally washed condis off them no big deal. .

Even corrruption Necros didnt need to have the condis on themselves. They COULD transfer the condis, but that was a part of the effect of a skill doing something else, such as bleeding the opponent WHILE bleeding you, etc etc. Therefore a condi cleanse ddn’t hurt your offense as much as it does with the revenant, where they are all wrapped up in a single package.

I guess thats why I see their point, and I can go along with it. But I’d prefer there be another way if possible.

As someone that asked for the removal of displacement I was very happy to see you have removed it, gg.

I’m very sad right now for the gutting of the Legendary Demon Stance. I get get the point that was being made as it made it difficult to run with others who were pulsing condition cleanse, but it seems like it was taken too far.

Mallyx now seems very bland. I loved the unique feel of Mallyx in BW1 and BW2. He was unique, interesting, and had his own play style. Seems now he is a poor man’s necromancer or condi engi. Even with these changes, I was surprised that he didn’t deal in more “corruption” given that is what his trait line is even named. He applies some conditions and that is it. He doesn’t transfer much, he doesn’t corrupt, he doesn’t absorb and send back at all.

Suggestions: Give Mallyx some unique corruption mechanics.
-Have a skill that steals conditions from allies and instantly transfer them to enemies.
-Perhaps another skill that applies a stack of torment, then also applies another stack of any condition the target already has on them.
-An upkeep skill that returns all incoming conditions to their source (if somebody tries to apply a condition to you, they receive the condition themselves instead)

Things along those lines that are unique and interesting.

Malchior.5732:

Morfedel.4165:

I have to say, as much as I hate to, that the changes to Mallyx are probably necessary. I mean, think about it: in order for it to work, it requires that you have conditions on yourself.

And you are no longer applying condis to yourself – which is actually a good thing, because yes, people in groups were doing aoe condi clears that were washing off your own condis. That sucked.

I LOVED the feel of the old mallyx… but it was just too situational, on a class where you cant change your elites, only your entire skill set.

So, while I regret the necessity because it was so cool, it just had too many problems when in a group where others might be doing aoe condi cleansing… and without the self condis, it was much less likely the condi duplication would be effective in a skill set where you can’t change any of the skills.

It seems like this would is mostly an issue in larger fights or organized PvP where heavy cleansing takes place.
How about allowing Pulsating Pestilance copy conditions while you use EtD instead of hoping your opponent hits you and you getting lucky or maybe allow EtD to return conditions once applied? That might be a little too much like Necro(Mallyx killed both players through condi, Necro feeds off it and/or returns it), but I just don’t want to see Mallyx lose all his flavor while also losing a ton of his strengths.

Honestly, I dont like the changes either. Its one of those heavy heart things: “With a heavy heart I accept these changes are necessary, much as I dislike them.” But thats going with the premise that the tension and complaints that Roy mentioned are in the majority.

I mean, if they aren’t, if its a minority, I’m not sure its such a big deal then.

kitten it, Legendary Demon Stance was what had me hooked to the revenant in the first place! Now it’s nothing more than a crappy necromancer replacement, and while I understand why you got rid of the displacement skills, I don’t agree with it at all….rest of the changes I don’t really care about, but they seem solid.

Also the removal of defiance bars I think was a good call, just created more clutter and confusion, and reduced the need of boon stripping, and it sounds like they’re getting removed from all specs by your post.

Overall, really upset about Mallyx’s unique aspect being gutted. Ah well, least I still got my necro…oh god i hope they don’t screw us over.

Roy Cronacher.1576:

Shield

• Crystal Hibernation: Removed the defiance bar. This skill will now block attacks for the duration while regenerating health. Lowered recharge from 30 seconds to 20 seconds.

Legendary Assassin Stance

Legendary Centaur Stance
Here I made some changes to the cast time. Now all utility skills are instant, only the heal and the elite have a cast time. The elite has also been lowered in cast time as well as decreased energy cost.

• Naturalistic Harmony. Decreased the energy cost from 25 to 20.
• Purifying Essence: This skill is now instant cast. Decreased the energy cost from 35 to 30 and added a 5 second recharge.
• Energy Expulsion: This skill is now a blast finisher and reduced the cast time from 2 seconds to 1 second. Decreased the energy cost from 50 to 35.

Legendary Demon Stance

• Unyielding Anguish: This skill has been re-worked. This skill will now leap to the target location creating a dark field which chills for 1 second and torments for 4 seconds per pulse. The field lasts for 4 seconds and pulses every 1 second. Added a 10 second recharge.
• Embrace the Darkness: Removed the self-applied torment. This skill no longer copies conditions to nearby foes. This skill will increase stats by 10% while active and pulse 6 seconds of torment every 1 second to nearby foes.

Legendary Dwarf Stance
A lot of you thought Forced Engagement was too high of a cost for a single target control skill, and I agree! But, I can’t allow you to use it back to back or else it creates bad chain controlling situations so there is an added recharge as well.

• Forced Engagement: Increased the recharge from 3 seconds to 5 seconds and lowered the energy cost from 50 to 35.

Retribution
In the master tier for this line there were two traits based around incoming control effects, which made little sense and ended up fighting with each other. I went ahead and merged these two traits together creating room for a new trait which I added as the master tier needed a trait to help support the tank feel of retribution.

• Eye for an Eye: The Redeeming Protection trait has been merged with this one. When Eye for an Eye triggers, you will also gain protection for 5 seconds.
• Redeeming Protection: This trait has been merged with Eye for an Eye.
• Dwarven Battle Training: This is a new master tier trait replacing redeeming protection. This trait provides a 25% chance on hit to weaken foes for 4 seconds with a 10 second recharge and decreases weakness’s effectiveness on you by 50%.

I quoted this because I think those are either too impactful or they won’t change or have that much of a Positive effect.

Legendary Centaur Stance First off a lot of the players got a feel okittenwardness and slowness on the healing on the LCS not because of the cast times themselves, but because of the tablet mechanics: willing the tablet, moving it around while managing to click other skills at the same time in the right time, this could be fixed by instantly willing the tablet, making the tablet follow you automatically or the nearest target it has been willed to and just fragmenting the tablet and making it disappear for 5 seconds after using the elite, then resetting it to your position. I do not think that making the skills instant cast will have that much of an impact on the clunkyness feel however it will make the skills much faster and the support healing will be better overall, positioning the tablet does play a great role in that and you need a lot more micromanagement than lets say launching granades with engi and even top engineer players miss targets a lot of the times.

Legendary Demon Stance For Unyielding Anguish the changes to displacement were needed mostly because the random placement wasn’t working like you expected to but this skill was useful in some situations, specially in wider On Point Fights in PvP as you could decap and use it defensively, now it just feels like a costy gap closer with spammable conditions it will have some uses as it will of course make disengaging easier but I liked the older version better. Embrace the Darkness is just not worth using now in PvP and WvW, the cost vs. effect is not that stronger now, sure if you trait it you spam a bit of burning and torment, sure the 10% bonus to stats is nice, but you still can get knocked back, knocked down and forced out of EtD with polymorph moa and CC if this is to be viable it CRAVES AND NEEDS Demonic Defiance, overall both skills either need a buff, or reduce/remove the ICD on Pulsating Pestilence and leave the chance on hit to copy condis at 25% sure condition revenant is still viable but it will never be as good as the power/crit builds, as still, the only on demand conditions revenat has access too are torment, confusion, poison (too a low extent) and burning, sure burning is strong atm, but confusion and torment are way too weak in PvE, and there’s so much you can do by just spamming 3 moderately strong and 1 strong conditions in PvP/WvW that just works in unsuspected players, and/or inexperienced players.

Legendary Dwarf Stance Forced Engagement had a nice change, now the only thing the stance needs is that the hammers need to stay even after hitting walls, Inspiring Reinforcements still needs a duration increase as the stability it gives can get washed away pretty easily, and IMO this synergizes way way better with Herald, the new trait seems nice, the problem is that having a character this tanky isn’t suited yet for any instance in the game, excepting maybe for raiding and we’re yet to see if that’s really the case, for PvP/WvW the real problem lies in how Vengeful Hammers stay and the usability of the stability on IR.

The dodge roll effect is neato as it gets, I’m looking forward to having my Revenants live (yes I will make 1 revenant of each race).

As a side note, what can the Revenant specialize in the future? currently there are 3 jack of all trades master of none professions, and there’s only 1 of them that truly shines in all game modes to the extent every meta team runs with that profession (D/D Cele, GWEN, and PvE, you know what profession I’m talking about) as I see it Revenant it’s decent and well rounded for sure and it’s far better than a lot of professions, but it just doesn’t have something that makes you say “oh we’re gonna really need to get a Revenant”, also bear in mind that Herald is quite mandatory now for every build, even condition does get benefit from the boons and effects on LDS too much to ignore or avoid picking it.

I don’t like the changes to mallyx at all. It was a truly unique playstyle. And unyielding anguish was fun to use, not to mention useful at the right times. Now you made it completely uselss.

I was expecting some change to Unrelenting Assault because of all the pvp crying. I still don’t like this change at all and feel it’s an unnecessary pve nerf. But hey, at least it wasn’t raised to 15 seconds. Because then I’d really be raging.

I don’t like all these recharges being added to skills. It really ruins the feel of the class. What’s the point of energy if you are going to be adding cds constantly? It feels like double punishment. Jade Winds was great for pve too and you nerfed it by adding that recharge.

Well, at least the ventari changes seem good. And the change to crystal hibernation was also much needed.

Not everything I hoped for, but pleased with the changes overall. Thanks, Roy! The one thing I’m bummed about is the lack of changes to Inspiring Reinforcement.

Can you provide any updates on these bugs/issues:
• vengeful hammers being destroyed near terrain (bridges/walls/cliffs)
• issues with Hammer skills not hitting targets above/below you
• unrelenting assault failing to teleport to foe across uneven terrain and failing to activate near walls or getting stuck in them (thanks xarallei)
• similar issues w/ Grasping Shadow and Frigid Blitz across uneven terrain (thanks Rygg)

Any info would be appreciated.

I don’t love the Mallyx changes but no point crying over it. Now that Mallyx can’t send conditions back to enemies all we can do is wait out the condition duration.. As we no longer want conditions on us with this new iteration of Mallyx can Pulsating Pestilence TRANSFER conditions instead of simply copy them? Or maybe the heal can consume conditions? Its just now that we don’t want them whats the point of making it based on how many you have?

Also Vengeful Hammers still get destroyed against walls etc.

I personally would like to see a little change in the Salvation traits because you kind of HAVE to be ventari to run this seems a bit biased. I would like to try it out with glint instead of ventari but its just soo weak and many require ventari to even work. (more so then with the other trait lines where you can mix n match)

Aside from that changed look good for the most part. Thanks for all the great work!

Misguided.5139:

Can you provide any updates on these bugs/issues:
• vengeful hammers being destroyed near terrain (bridges/walls/cliffs)
• issues with Hammer skills not hitting targets above/below you
• unyielding assault failing to teleport to foe across uneven terrain

Grasping Shadow and Frigid Blitz also have problems in uneven terrain, you hit but the displacement effect doesn’t trigger all the times

Oh and Unrelenting Assault still can’t be used by walls it seems. It either stops the attack completely or actually gets you stuck IN the wall. -_- This needs fixing.

Roy: I think there is a valid complaint here RE: Embrace the Darkness. I’m not pleased with the displacement changes, but this change I’m not sure is necessary. I can understand tension with condi cleansing people, but is that really that much of a problem?

If it is, though, and this change is going to stick, maybe you could add on to it either a pulsing Resistance or a TRANSFER of conditions instead, but without the self conditioning effect. Do the same perhaps with Pulsating Pestilence.

Or maybe do something to return some of its distinctiveness. I’ve already made a suggestion, though maybe its a weak one, where Embrace the Darkness could maybe increase the stacks and durations of conditions (or maybe just damaging conditions, as some, like fear, would be bad to increase like that) on nearby enemies… I don’t know, i like torment and already picked up torment runes for my revenant mallyx build, so more torment is great for that build, but… ah, it just had a unique flavor that just got kinda lost a bit.

Were the issues about aoe condi cleansing really that bad? Because I’ll admit I didn’t notice anyone else complaining about it before you mentioned it… though I dont read these forums addictively. I mean, how is this any different from a Corruption Necro using all those self condis and transferring them too?

EDIT: I was hesitant to suggest this, but after thinking about the unique effect that chronomancers got, Alacrity, what about a unique effect for Mallyx? something like.. Agony Without End or something like that… the embrace the darkness could add it on every second to enemies in his aoe… while active, conditions cannot be removed by enemies in your vicinity.

It may be too late to add an effect like that, and maybe it would be too powerful, but I’m grasping at straws at how to keep our uniqueness without making it too powerful lol… i know, I know, us fans always have suggestions that are usually unfeasible, but what the heck

I trust Roy enough at this point that I’m willing to see the mallyx changes in action before passing judgement.

Are there any planned changes to the hammer? Particularly the 3 skill range is 1200, but you only deal damage at 900 range.

I don’t believe adding 2 seconds to Unrelenting Assault’s cooldown is the solution; I’d suggest making its execution faster so the built-in evade is more tactical and a single dodge can avoid its damage entirely. Reducing its range to 900 or even 600 could make it more grounded as well, as a 1200 range attack with 12s cooldown feels really strong.

I can totally see why you’ve changed Mallyx, but I can’t help but feel we lost a bit of flavor in the process… This Legend had a very unique gameplay that felt pretty interesting when fully grasped, and it’s much more bland now.

The other changes overall are very welcome, although I was really expecting Hammer #2 to be nerfed. It’s kitten OP against crowds.

Plz revert to old mallyx. I really enjoyed the “Condi me bro I dare you” button. At the end of the day it wont stop me from playing revenant but plz reconsider. Im okay if the elite only copied condis. it just wont feel the same if this happens.
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Roy Cronacher.1576:

Hey, everyone! Once again, I’m back to talk with you all about upcoming changes to the revenant which you’ll get to play in the upcoming BWE3. These were made from all the awesome feedback we received from BWE2 as well as our internal testing.

Similar to the other posts like this that I have made, I’ll be providing some of the thought behind these changes as to why we made them. Overall, revenant has been doing very well and is much closer to how we want it for HoT launch. As you all have seen, the profession has come a long way since the first time that it has been played and a lot of that is with the help of all the amazing feedback from you all. (Thanks!) There were a few lingering issues, tweaks, and polish which I’ll discuss below. So, let’s get into it.

General
Here we have some polish changes for the profession. It was brought up on the forum as a suggestion to have a custom dodge FX and that got added as a direct result.

• Added an effect to dodging.
• Added underwater versions of the downed skills.
• Added a hand glow when invoking legendary centaur stance.

Downed
Unfortunately, the displace mechanic was interacting poorly in the game as a whole. It was causing undesired behavior with NPCs and pathing, its strength varied by game mode, it was very disorienting to the receiving foe and other issues as well. We made the decision to remove displace and change the skills which had it on them. In this case we changed it to a knockback because it was similar functionality.

• Forceful Displacement: This skill no longer displaces foes, instead it will now knockback the foe 600 distance.

Sword
For sword, there were some minor tweaks. Precision Strike was made a whirl finisher because it made sense as your character is spinning around, plus the skill needed a bit of help. Unrelenting Assault was a bit strong after the last set of changes so I slightly increased the recharge to have a lower window between evade times.

• Precision Strike: This skill is now a whirl finisher.
• Unrelenting Assault: Increased the recharge from 10 seconds to 12 seconds. Fixed a bug so that this skill will more report damage as a multi-hit skill allowing it to stack up damage per target rather than displaying each instance of damage individually.

Staff
In staff the changes were mostly about the flow of play. It felt awkward to have to stand still to cast Renewing Wave so I changed out the animation to one that would work while moving to keep this weapon more mobile feeling. Debilitating Slam had a long cast time for a skill which is used for an interrupt so I went ahead and shortened that down to so it could be used as a more reactionary skill.

• Warding Rift: Fixed a bug where this skill could be cancel-casted to gain the benefit of the block without going on full recharge.
• Renewing Wave: Changed the animation on this skill so it can be used while moving. It retained the same 1 second cast time.
• Debilitating Slam: Decreased the cast time from 1 second to 0.25 seconds.

Shield
We were trying out defiance bars on player skills in a few places, but it didn’t really work out. Defiance bar is balanced around being on creatures which left some pieces of it feeling awkward for players. It also had essentially a duplicate functionality to stability. In the end we felt like it didn’t play well on player skills so we removed all player defiance bars.

• Envoy of Exuberance: Decreased the energy cost from 15 to 10. Fixed a bug so that this skill will properly heal at the target location instead of around you.
• Crystal Hibernation: Removed the defiance bar. This skill will now block attacks for the duration while regenerating health. Lowered recharge from 30 seconds to 20 seconds.

Legendary Assassin Stance
Jade Winds was a bit too strong being able to cast it back to back if you stored up the energy. This skill got a short recharge to limit being able to chain it back to back with itself. You may notice we have some this with a few skills so pressing one skill multiple times wouldn’t be encouraged and allow for a breathing room for your foes.

• Jade Winds: Added a 5 second recharge.

Legendary Centaur Stance
Here I made some changes to the cast time. Now all utility skills are instant, only the heal and the elite have a cast time. The elite has also been lowered in cast time as well as decreased energy cost.

• Naturalistic Harmony. Decreased the energy cost from 25 to 20.
• Purifying Essence: This skill is now instant cast. Decreased the energy cost from 35 to 30 and added a 5 second recharge.
• Energy Expulsion: This skill is now a blast finisher and reduced the cast time from 2 seconds to 1 second. Decreased the energy cost from 50 to 35.

Legendary Demon Stance
In this stance we had a bit of a bigger change happen. Demon Stance was in an awkward place because it was mechanically cool when you looked at it in a vacuum, but when you were put around other players there was this point of tension which was created. When using demon stance you wanted to manage your conditions and try to keep certain amounts on yourself to empower your skills.

Though, allies directly impacted this play style. While you were around allies, especially players running support, it created tension and frustration between the two players. You wouldn’t want to be near these other players that removed conditions from you as it weakened your skills. This isn’t a tension or frustration that we wanted to create between allies so I moved this stance away from focusing on scaling effectiveness based on your personal conditions. As such, the self-conditions didn’t make sense anymore as you had less reason to utilize these so they were removed. Similar to Forceful Displacement, the displace was removed on unyielding anguish and the skill was re-designed a bit.

• Empowering Misery: Removed the self-applied weakness. Increased the base heal by 40% and decreased the heal per condition by 40%.
• Pain Absorption. Removed the self-applied blind.
• Banish Enchantment: Removed the self-applied vulnerability. This skill now applies 3 stacks of confusion for 6 seconds instead of being dependent on the conditions you have on you.
• Unyielding Anguish: This skill has been re-worked. This skill will now leap to the target location creating a dark field which chills for 1 second and torments for 4 seconds per pulse. The field lasts for 4 seconds and pulses every 1 second. Added a 10 second recharge.
• Embrace the Darkness: Removed the self-applied torment. This skill no longer copies conditions to nearby foes. This skill will increase stats by 10% while active and pulse 6 seconds of torment every 1 second to nearby foes.

Legendary Dwarf Stance
A lot of you thought Forced Engagement was too high of a cost for a single target control skill, and I agree! But, I can’t allow you to use it back to back or else it creates bad chain controlling situations so there is an added recharge as well.

• Forced Engagement: Increased the recharge from 3 seconds to 5 seconds and lowered the energy cost from 50 to 35.

Herald
In herald overall I think it played out fairly well, but there was a few small tweaks I wanted to make. Shared Empowerment was slightly under-tuned compared to other similar traits. Gaze of Darkness bypassed defenses like dodging which wasn’t intended.

• Shared Empowerment: Increased the might duration from 5 seconds to 8 seconds.
• Facet of Nature: This is now useable underwater.
• Gaze of Darkness: Fixed a bug so that this can be properly avoiding using things such as your dodge.

Corruption
In the corruption specialization, there were a few traits which needed some tweaks in power to be competitive options. As an example revenant did not have many options to apply poison, but had the trait Venom Enhancement which increased poison duration so I thought it made sense to also apply poison itself.

• Pulsating Pestilence: Increased the trigger chance from 15% to 25%.
• Replenishing Despair: Increased the base heal by 300% and added a 1 second internal cool-down.
• Venom Enhancement: This trait will now apply poison for 5 seconds with a 20 second recharge when you apply torment as well as increasing poison duration.

Devastation
In this specialization, I addressed an issue a lot of you brought up in feedback which I thought made a lot of sense. Basically you all said the profession stat buffs like empower are generally in master tier and ferocious strikes was just a weaker trait. So I went ahead and switched the position of both of these traits.

• Assassin’s Presence: This trait has been moved to master tier replacing the place of Ferocious Strikes.
• Ferocious Strikes: This trait has been moved to adept tier replacing the place of Assassin’s Presence.

Retribution
In the master tier for this line there were two traits based around incoming control effects, which made little sense and ended up fighting with each other. I went ahead and merged these two traits together creating room for a new trait which I added as the master tier needed a trait to help support the tank feel of retribution.

• Eye for an Eye: The Redeeming Protection trait has been merged with this one. When Eye for an Eye triggers, you will also gain protection for 5 seconds.
• Redeeming Protection: This trait has been merged with Eye for an Eye.
• Dwarven Battle Training: This is a new master tier trait replacing redeeming protection. This trait provides a 25% chance on hit to weaken foes for 4 seconds with a 10 second recharge and decreases weakness’s effectiveness on you by 50%.

Thanks for informing us of these changes. I’m a little disappointed on several of these, but will trust the balancing reasons behind it.

I am very concerned about the amount of additional Cooldowns (CDs) and the increasing of CDs on skills though. As others have stated, it is beginning to feel like we are being double punished for skill use and losing the focus on Energy management. I’d like to kindly implore you to rethink some of the balancing to these skills and either reduce or remove the CDs and instead reduce the benefits to some skills. After all, Energy management is one of the core features to this class. CDs take away from that concept.

Thank you for your continue passion to the class.

I like/agree with all the changes but legendary demon stance

the demon heal, 2, and 3 are all … acceptable changes to comprimse between what they want moving forward and what they had established.

demon 4 and 5 got completely gutted. I think demon will still be wildly used but 4 and 5 will bascily become wasted slots now.

ps im SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO sad about the displacment change. that was an absolulty fun factor that i personally never had an issue with. the downstack knockback is a pretty sad change. and teh fact its gone off of demon 4 is sad puppy.

i would leave the displacments,( or just change to a knockback i guess ;/ ) and do what u did for banish enchantment and make the 4 apply 5 torment for 5s and knockback once and leave the dark field.

i just just leave the ult as is. I dont understand the reason to nurf it form all condis potentially to just 1 torment stack for such a high upkeep. If you want to change it i would ask to reduce the upkeep of it to mabey -5.

hopefully anet realizes that people are upset about the changes they’ve made to demon stance. The displacement was unique, and removing it completely ruins the fun of Mallyx.

I hope that if they’re keeping the change about removing displacement, that they go ahead and remove taunt as well.

Hey Roy! Really excited to see these changes go in and i’m really happy that the displacement skills have been changed. I thought it a bit silly that you could have an area of denial that ignored stability..

One question though, has the issue with Momentary Pacification been fixed? Wherein the daze applied by the trait would cancel any CC that the elite skill caused. Example being Facet of Chaos knockback was cancelled and only the daze applied.. I fully outlined the bug here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/revenant/Bug-Momentary-Pacification/first#post5460495

Roy Cronacher.1576:

Legendary Demon Stance
In this stance we had a bit of a bigger change happen. Demon Stance was in an awkward place because it was mechanically cool when you looked at it in a vacuum, but when you were put around other players there was this point of tension which was created. When using demon stance you wanted to manage your conditions and try to keep certain amounts on yourself to empower your skills.

Though, allies directly impacted this play style. While you were around allies, especially players running support, it created tension and frustration between the two players. You wouldn’t want to be near these other players that removed conditions from you as it weakened your skills. This isn’t a tension or frustration that we wanted to create between allies so I moved this stance away from focusing on scaling effectiveness based on your personal conditions. As such, the self-conditions didn’t make sense anymore as you had less reason to utilize these so they were removed. Similar to Forceful Displacement, the displace was removed on unyielding anguish and the skill was re-designed a bit.

• Empowering Misery: Removed the self-applied weakness. Increased the base heal by 40% and decreased the heal per condition by 40%.
• Pain Absorption. Removed the self-applied blind.
• Banish Enchantment: Removed the self-applied vulnerability. This skill now applies 3 stacks of confusion for 6 seconds instead of being dependent on the conditions you have on you.
• Unyielding Anguish: This skill has been re-worked. This skill will now leap to the target location creating a dark field which chills for 1 second and torments for 4 seconds per pulse. The field lasts for 4 seconds and pulses every 1 second. Added a 10 second recharge.
• Embrace the Darkness: Removed the self-applied torment. This skill no longer copies conditions to nearby foes. This skill will increase stats by 10% while active and pulse 6 seconds of torment every 1 second to nearby foes.

Legendary Dwarf Stance
A lot of you thought Forced Engagement was too high of a cost for a single target control skill, and I agree! But, I can’t allow you to use it back to back or else it creates bad chain controlling situations so there is an added recharge as well.

• Forced Engagement: Increased the recharge from 3 seconds to 5 seconds and lowered the energy cost from 50 to 35.

Corruption
In the corruption specialization, there were a few traits which needed some tweaks in power to be competitive options. As an example revenant did not have many options to apply poison, but had the trait Venom Enhancement which increased poison duration so I thought it made sense to also apply poison itself.

• Pulsating Pestilence: Increased the trigger chance from 15% to 25%.
• Replenishing Despair: Increased the base heal by 300% and added a 1 second internal cool-down.
• Venom Enhancement: This trait will now apply poison for 5 seconds with a 20 second recharge when you apply torment as well as increasing poison duration.

Retribution
In the master tier for this line there were two traits based around incoming control effects, which made little sense and ended up fighting with each other. I went ahead and merged these two traits together creating room for a new trait which I added as the master tier needed a trait to help support the tank feel of retribution.

• Eye for an Eye: The Redeeming Protection trait has been merged with this one. When Eye for an Eye triggers, you will also gain protection for 5 seconds.
• Redeeming Protection: This trait has been merged with Eye for an Eye.
• Dwarven Battle Training: This is a new master tier trait replacing redeeming protection. This trait provides a 25% chance on hit to weaken foes for 4 seconds with a 10 second recharge and decreases weakness’s effectiveness on you by 50%.

I really think Unyielding Anguish should have some form of CC with it. Remove the chill and make it an AoE knock back or make it work like Necro staff five and apply fear when people walk on it. I think at the very least Embrace the Darkness should still copy conditions since you can still take conditions from your allies.

I like the change to Forced Engagement but I think inspire reinforcement needs to instantly apply stability and pulse two seconds of stability.

The Rest of the changes are great, Roy! I am really happy to see that so much attention is being given to our feedback.

As someone that played nothing but condition revenant in spvp last beta, these Legendary Demon Stance changes were just sad to read.

All that was needed was for unyielding anguish displace once on the first tick and apply conditions on the rest of them; the displacement could have even been changed to be countered by stability.

The conditions applied from enemies and the self-applied conditions were enough to trigger the extra effects of the condition threshold skills and synergized well with the old embrace the darkness.

As for the new embrace the darkness, it has been reduced to a mace auto attack with an upkeep cost; it can no longer pulse bleeds, poison, confusion, burning, blind… The old embrace the darkness provided offense, defense, and control, it was what made having the lack of condition removal on revenant worthwhile.

Also, what’s up with the cool downs? What happened to balance based off of energy consummation management?

Hoo boy…I’ll have to get my hands on the class again to really give alot of proper feedback but I’m having very mixed feelings…I love the fact that you made crystal hibernation actually usable now but, I may not use him, the changes to mallyx just suck and remove that fun playstyle, why couldn’t you just add an effect where incoming conditions can’t be removed by allies as long as you are channeling Mallyx?

It feels like your gutting alot of what makes the class so unique and fun to play in favor of streamlining and making things more like the other classes…and professions not being distinct enough is already a big enough problem in the game thanks

Too be more specific, I understand the displacement issue, but removing the self inflicted conditions is silly since it takes away from the playstyle and even takes away from the theme of “Mallyx doesn’t like you so he punishes you with condi’s” aside from that embrace the darkness was a very fun and unique skill and this is just gutting it like that is a massive kick in the teeth to Mallyx fans

My 2 cents: I actually really like the mallyx changes. Previously, it wasn’t good at applying condis at all and now it’s great at it. Plus, the displacement field with unyielding anguish was really bad. I like the new change. Overall, really great changes, Roy.

My initial reactions:

1. Are we able to move with Crystal Hibernation on? Honestly the Defiance bar never mattered to me so I am okay with it going and being replaced with Blocks instead of Invulnerability but the biggest question is can we move with it on? Not being able to move with it on is wrong in every way that not being able to move with Renewing Wave was wrong.

2. Yay to being able to move with Renewing Wave! Staff was already one of my favorite weapons and it’s just getting better and less clunky.

3. Displacements…well we knew it was too good to last. Displacements were nuts and just too good in just about any game mode. PvE they let you endlessly kite things. PvP they let you infinitely decap a point. WvW it wrecked whole zergs.

4. Malyx – Eh I’ll have to see. It’s definitely disruptive to a lot of ideas involved with it. For example Anti-Toxin runes I was planning on using are out of the question now cause the 6/6 doesn’t work without the Elite applying Torment to yourself. While I think over all it probably got stronger condition output, it’s really too early to tell at this stage. Unyielding Anguish was powerful CC in the Malyx line that also got removed as part of the Displacement changes in favor of more AOE damage instead. Without that CC, it definitely removed any notion of a back line Malyx play I had for WvW for sure because that CC was pretty much the main reason to go it (for back line protection).

5. Eye for Eye changes does this mean Redeeming Protection goes on a kitten internal cool down with Eye for Eye? If so that’s kinda bogus. The reduced effectiveness of Weakness is interesting though!

6. Forced Engagement – Not sure why you think this is some great skill, but it’s really not. For one it’s a 2 second taunt, not some 5 second CC. 2 seconds is nothing. For two, it slows the target which is entirely pointless since they’re already taunted and attacking you. It’d be like putting 2s of Cripple with 2s of Immobilize. It’s…like…why? I can only assume there’s some kind of feared PvE application you’re worried about that we haven’t seen yet because honestly I don’t see what the fuss is about.

RIP Mallyx. It was unique and a great play style! Just because it was a strong condi counter doesn’t mean you nerf the living hell out of it and alter it completely. Now every rev will be a kitten glint/shiro power rev. GG Roy. Really screwed this one.

I understand everything, especially the displacement changes.
There’s only 1 thing that i’m not glad: Unyielding Anguish not copying conditions…it’s an amazing tool against condi foes…sure it was 1 per time, but it made incredible gameplays. Even with pulsating torment the cost is overwhelming now, so at least reduce it by 1 pip.
RIP Mallyx q_q
Overall i’m satisfied of the changes and the really amazing work!

Edit: good call cut the costs and add cd to balance; why didn’t you do the same to the taunt? Main issue is spammability, make it 35 energy and 5s cd pls!

Regarding Shared Empowerment, I think you really should take another look at it, as it’s still not great with the Facets. It’s got a 1s ICD, which means it’s only usable really with the Stability skill on Jalis and Impossible Odds on Shiro. Main reason it is bad with the Facets is because while the ICD on SE is 1s, the Facets are on a 3s pulse timer, and I wager that it’s gone unnoticed that the pulse timer is SHARED between them. So even if I stagger turning my Facets on, they will all be pulsing on that same 3s timer, and SE will only be putting out 1 stack of Might every 3 secs. I feel this can’t have been intended, so would like to see if you can take a look into this and check if I’m mistaken or if it’s something that could potentially be changed, thank you.

Most of these changes sound really good and needed.

I’m also not too happy about Mallyx though. These changes do a couple of things that I don’t like:

-Pigeon-hole Mallyx even more as a ‘condi-only’ legend due to the removal of utility and addition of outgoing damaging conditions
-remove mobility, leaving Shiro as the sole source of in-combat mobility available to the Revenant, by putting a 10 sec cd on Unyielding Anguish
-remove the interesting tactical choices by re-balancing the heal and the elite.

I’ll go through each change to Mallyx and explain my thoughts:

Empowering Misery – This skill used to be able to heal anywhere from about 3500 to 12,000, when smartly used. This punished players for using it at a bad time and rewarded them for using it at a good time. With increased weighting on the base heal and decreased weighting on the bonus heal per condition, this skill will be a lot less skillful. I do not like this change.

Banish Enchantment – This suffers from the same general loss in Mallyx’s role as a high-risk high-reward playstyle by accumulating conditions and using them to empower yourself. This role is now gone, and Banish Enchantment suffers for it.

Unyielding Anguish – I completely understand why displacement had to go. However, Unyielding Anguish is now primarily an AoE condition damage skill and offers neither the protection it used to (due to the lack of displacement) or the mobility it used to (due to the 10 second cooldown). I do not advocate for putting the displacement back in, but I do really think the cooldown needs to go. A perma-chill field is not really OP when it costs 35 energy each time and leaves the Rev vulnerable, unlike the displacing version.

Embrace the Darkness – This skill is now primarily useful for condition damage – the 10% stat boost alone is probably not worth it (in PvP / WvW) for the hefty cost of -8 energy. Again, this means that only condition damage builds will find much use for Mallyx, and even moreso, all condition damage builds may require Mallyx. I don’t think this is a good idea. I do not have any recommendations to improve this skill at the moment, but I think it needs versatility and value for something other than condition damage.

This transparency is so very appreciated. We all know you put a ton of time into the class itself and into your presence on the forum and how much time you spend on feedback.

All in all, there’s some great stuff here; however, we all scream to have either cooldowns or (more sensibly) energy costs removed on weapon skills, but you go and ADD cooldowns to utility skills?!!? What exactly is our class mechanic now?

I totally get spamming Jade Winds is possibly too strong, but you have to burn 100% energy to do so. We all know how long it takes to save up 100% that means no using skills while saving nor using skills after you burn it all. It’s quite risky. And other examples are similar. JW may be an exception where a CD is warranted, but adding CDs to so many skills just kicks our class mechanic in the face. Think of a thief with cool downs on weapon skills and initiative costs on utilities. Ugh.

The majority of the changes are favorable.

I am surprised so see Rolling Mists (Fury gives 40% crit instead of normal 20%) didn’t get any love, but with the Herald now pumping out fury, I suppose that may be the balance.

I’m sad to see the displacements removed. They were also class-defining and unique.

Roy Cronacher.1576:

Devastation
In this specialization, I addressed an issue a lot of you brought up in feedback which I thought made a lot of sense. Basically you all said the profession stat buffs like empower are generally in master tier and ferocious strikes was just a weaker trait. So I went ahead and switched the position of both of these traits.

• Assassin’s Presence: This trait has been moved to master tier replacing the place of Ferocious Strikes.
• Ferocious Strikes: This trait has been moved to adept tier replacing the place of Assassin’s Presence.

I personally made a thread about this after BWE1 and it feels great to not only have my views heard, but taken into consideration. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one with this thought as well.

Can anyone ball park out 150 ferocity (Ferocious Strikes) on a zerk rev vs 10% attack speed (Rapid Lacerations) in terms of DPS? Does Rapid Laceration speed stack with quickness?

As a Rev who plans to spend a lot of time between Herald and Assassin stances with a mainhand sword, I’m very pleased I can provide my party-wide buff and still choose to have my assassin-defining mechanic of speed vs 150 personal ferocity.

Your work is much appreciated. I do hope you reconsider energy costs on weapon skills and cooldowns on utilities.

As a side note, is there any chance we can fit Stability into Herald? Stability in its post-nerfed state is not as strong as it used to be and the Dwarf “stability road” is clunky at best.

Honestly Roy i think you’ve a little exaggerated with Mallyx, I agree displacement created some issues basically everywhere but now in general Mallyx seems a little to weak.

The displace basically carried the entire legend, now you reworked it but other issues remain.

Basically it’s a line only for resistance, little condi pressure applied, basically weak transfers, no break stun, high cost skills.

It sounds bad.

Okay,

Let me say – I don’t really like majority of the changes. Wish I had more time to finish my feedback thread, but I will post it anywayl

1. Adding cooldowns to even more abilities – I think we have to stick to something. Are we about Cooldowns or are we about managing Energy? Because Energy mechanic is taking the backseat, more and more. Yes, technically nobody will be using Jade Winds twice for example, but we had a possibility. But adding a cooldown to Purifying Essence which stays at 240 radius? Was this really so powerful?

2. Removal of Defiance Bar – I personally liked the breakbar. It just needed to be affected a little less by soft CCs. Does it means that CH now heals for less?

3. Mallyx – You’re killing a good Legend and I don’t like it. Your argument applies to Corruptions, too, since they’re meant to be that “fuel”. You delete the soul and fun of Mallyx and replace it with ultra-generic, boring abilities while majority of people who got some experience as Revenants and learned Mallyx considered him as a fun and decent Legend that just needed couple energy tweaks. You removed a lot of depth I enjoyed with copying various self-inflicted conditions and being rewarded for being in danger.
What’s the point of Resistance anymore? Now you can just replace it with generic condition removal, because the fun risk of keeping both tons of deadly conditions and periodic immunity to them is gone.
And 10s cooldown for Unyielding Anguish. I get it that the release is coming close and you didn’t have time to make Displacement work properly, but does it really need that huge cooldown? Again, what’s the point of Energy if I have tons of cooldowns anyway?

4. Unrelenting Assault – Increasing the cooldown by 2s changes nothing, but limits the possibilities. It will still carry bad Revenants to victory, it still has little counterplay, it’s still not fun to fight against.

Now as for the good stuff:

1. All the Energy reductions (Ventari and Jalis especially) are welcome.

2. I think you got name inspiration for new Retribution trait from my suggestions and I like it. I don’t really like the latter part of trait, permanently nerfing Weakness. We already have Resistance.

3. All the fluff with dodging etc. is nice.

4. It’s good to see Precision Strike is a whirl finisher.

5. Good Staff improvements all around.

Concerns:

- I still don’t like the Ventari Elite. Pretty much nobody does. It got Blast Finisher and shorter cast time, but if you don’t nerf base healing from Water Field blasting we will never see a usage of Revenant focused on healing outside of blasting water fields and applying Regeneration with Glint.
Simply remove the knockback and Blast Finisher and make it spawn a Water Field.

- Was Gaze of Darkness ultra-delay fixed?

- Did Infuse Light get better visual effect?

I will post my feedback in following days.

Cheers,
Rym

mostly copied from a post I made on reddit:

has there been any discussion of Nourishing Roots’ effect becoming baseline for the tablet? I enjoyed the Centaur Stance play-style, but I kind of felt like having to choose between the regeneration and Tranquil Balance’s boost to healing in general was unfortunate.

perhaps Nourishing Roots could instead cause the tablet to create a water field with a rather limited lifespan after its been moved? imho that’d combo well with the new blast finisher? like moving, blasting, and re-summoning the tablet for even bigger heals in moments of need, when the other utilities aren’t quite enough on their own? I also think that’d better fit the nature theme of the stance, rather than just adding a water field to one of the utilities, where the animation might not quite fit. gives further incentive to keeping on top of moving the tablet around too.

using that new combo-field-in-motion tech could also be pretty cool, but I think it’d feel a little out of place with how the tablet plays. that might just be me though, I’m unsure.

as it is, if you don’t have Nourishing Roots selected, Facet of Nature’s upkeep seems pretty useless for the Herald personally while in Centaur Stance. seems doubly unfortunate because Tranquil Balance + the regen from Facet of Light should in theory be pretty nice, unless I’m misunderstanding how that trait functions.

I guess I understand if the intent is for Centaur to be very heavily focused on active healing, with Dwarf and Dragon having more in the way of passive mitigation and heals, but idk. Centaur/Dwarf don’t have regeneration/protection unless traited, and that feels a little bit weird for what these stances seem to embody.

anyway, Revenant/Herald was a blast to play last BWE, looking forward to giving it another go with all the listed changes during the next one.

edit: although yeah the added cooldowns on some utilities seems a little weird.

On the subject of Inspiring Reinforcement, I’m guessing since the stability duration isn’t being increased, the desired effect is for the stability to only be useful while standing on the road as opposed to on the move. If that’s the case, any chance of getting an additional stack?

My initial thoughts:

Too many cooldowns! If the Rev is going to be gated by cooldowns on all the good skills, then what is the point of energy? Why does the Rev need double the resources to use skills now? Revenant has felt great in that if you had energy you could use a skill. It was fluid and it felt good. Now we’re getting cooldowns on all the good skill it seems like, so energy is now another thing to manage on top of cooldowns. I feel it’s taking away from what the Revenant is and was designed as. If a skill is too good to “spam” (which due to energy isn’t really spamming, it’s using it a couple times in a row) then energy cost and potency should be looked at, not cooldowns.

Crystal Hibernation still shouldn’t root. Letting your enemy sit there and get his big spike ready (or just use unblockable now…) doesn’t make this skill very good. Any profession can easily get enough damage and CC ready to cancel out the heal it gives you in less than a second after the block expires, that is if they can’t just do unblockable attacks anyways.

I feel that Mallyx has been gutted. I understand the reasoning behind changing it but I don’t agree, it just kills it in PvP. -8 upkeep on Embrace the Darkness feels like way too much now for what it does. I really think this should get the condition copy back, there’s just way too little condi generation on the expensive skills (that now are getting cooldowns which is a big let down considering how fluid the Revenant has felt so far). A Mallyx Rev seems like it will be little more than an incoming condi tank, meaning tanking against condis but not really dangerous to anything. I am willing to give it a try but it doesn’t look good to me right now.

Ventari… some good buffs to the usability of the legend but still nothing on the most basic hindrance: the tablet. I just hate mashing my 6 key over and over and over just to get the thing to follow me. Not only that, but I have to try and make it pass through dying allies that are running all over the place which never works.

You’ve done a great job so far Roy so I am willing to give everything a try and provide honest feedback when I do. Overall I’m excited to try the changes out, but hesitant on what I’ve listed above. I am especially curious about this dodge roll which sounds fun. Whirl on Sword 2 was a good idea as well, I like that the damage wasn’t just buffed. The rest of the changes look great and I appreciate how open you have been to community feedback! Thanks Roy.