Guild Wars 2

As of this moment, I feel that the change to Vengeful Hammers is not enough to save the Dwarf Stance. This is a nice change but I’m not going to run an entire utility bar for 1 pleasant skill, especially when compared to the boons on Glint or the Evade/Stunbreak and movement on Shiro. Also I don’t believe anyone has asked yet if these hammers can be destroyed or reflected because even with a nerfed range the fact that this skill will cancel itself if you’re close to changes in terrain or a wall makes the micro managing of this skill unappealing (at least to me).

In terms of Jalis specifically, the nerf to Inspiring Reinforcement and no change to Forced Engagement make the legend even more wonky than before. The nerf to Inspiring Reinforcement can be justified but I firmly believe the nerf was too harsh in it’s Boon’s duration unless it ticks faster.

The Elite needed a faster activation but I think the problem with the skill is the style of gameplay that it promotes. Currently there is this feeling of popping for the initial engagement in a fight so that you have protection from opening burst; however the fact that it’s a stun break gives it a reserved attribute so that you could pop it when you’re in trouble. The problem with this is that you are susceptible to subsequent stuns (sometimes interrupting the initial cast with no payout at all other than the stun break) meaning it needs to be accompanied by the use of Inspiring Reinforcement to promote a sense of safety and the likelyhood that you have 70 energy to cast both when you’re trying to escape and reset is minimal.

Of course we don’t know how everything will play out, and these are just my opinions. Would love to hear what other people have to think!

the change is what we asked for and is very good. Imagine vengeful hammers+protection+Jalis elite. I can’t think of anything more tanly in this game, and that’s exactly what Jalis is supposed to be. If you want damage you have Shiro, Glint, Mallyx.

Kidel.2057:

the change is what we asked for and is very good. Imagine vengeful hammers+protection+Jalis elite. I can’t think of anything more tanly in this game, and that’s exactly what Jalis is supposed to be. If you want damage you have Shiro, Glint, Mallyx.

You misunderstand, my main concern with Vengeful Hammers was the fact that it was effected by terrain and that it could be reflected/negated because they were/are projectiles. Like I said, it’s a nice change, no one is arguing that fact.

The Vengful hammers change was good. It felt more like a DPS skill before, which wasn’t in line with what Jalis is supposed to be about.

I do think the nerf to Inspiring Reinforcement will need some looking at, but we’ll get to play with that in the next BWE.

Pretty surprised nothing was done with the taunt skill. Perhaps Roy feels that with the other changes it is now viable, but that 50 energy cost is a killer.

Manarain.7940:

Kidel.2057:

the change is what we asked for and is very good. Imagine vengeful hammers+protection+Jalis elite. I can’t think of anything more tanly in this game, and that’s exactly what Jalis is supposed to be. If you want damage you have Shiro, Glint, Mallyx.

You misunderstand, my main concern with Vengeful Hammers was the fact that it was effected by terrain and that it could be reflected/negated because they were/are projectiles. Like I said, it’s a nice change, no one is arguing that fact.

That is probably a bug. It can’t be working as intended.

Inspiring reinforcement was OP. However I wouldn’t mind that skil lto act faster now. 2 seconds for that low stability is too much.

Kidel.2057:

Manarain.7940:

Kidel.2057:

the change is what we asked for and is very good. Imagine vengeful hammers+protection+Jalis elite. I can’t think of anything more tanly in this game, and that’s exactly what Jalis is supposed to be. If you want damage you have Shiro, Glint, Mallyx.

You misunderstand, my main concern with Vengeful Hammers was the fact that it was effected by terrain and that it could be reflected/negated because they were/are projectiles. Like I said, it’s a nice change, no one is arguing that fact.

That is probably a bug. It can’t be working as intended.

Inspiring reinforcement was OP. However I wouldn’t mind that skil lto act faster now. 2 seconds for that low stability is too much.

I do hate to harp on it, but if it’s a bug it’s a known bug from over a month ago.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Vengeful-Hammer-keeps-turning-off/first#post5275949
I believe I read somewhere that they wanted the hammers to act as a projectile to promote counter play? But I have no citation.

Yes I seem to recall a comment saying it was acting as intended (aside from some instances where terrain collision was buggy with it).

I for sure like the direction of Vengeful Hammers’ change. Damage reduction spam from te rite isn’t enough now that glint provides a similar option, and broader options for support.

I hope Vengeful Hammers + Forced Engagement will be a playstyle. The energy needs to come down a bit before you can use both in the 10 second window between swaps without running out of energy: either Forced Engagement would need to go down to 30- energy (which will require adding a recharge to it to disallow CC lock), or Forced Engagement goes to 40- energy while Vengeful Hammers upkeep go down to 6.

I think that Hammers could be -6 instead of -7 and have some effect when you release them (Cripple!), but overall, after the changes they sound amazing. They give flat reduction and healing which scales with number of enemies.

I believe Taunt needs some work, and Elite should be more precisie about the damage reduction, but overall? You have Weakness, trait damage reduction, hammers damage reduction, Elite damage reduction, healing and you can apply Protection with Herald on top of that. I’d say, it’s pretty kitten tanky.

Two final things I could suggest is giving Jalis some Cripple maybe and an option in Retribution Spec to trait Rite of the Great Dwarf to make affected allies immune to critical hits/reduce chance on critical hit.

I guess I’m in the minority that actually rather dislikes the changes.

I mean, sure. Reducing damage fits much better with Jalis’ overall theme of shrugging off hits, if that’s what you consider to be a “tank”. Maybe its just because I play Pokémon, but I personally I feel that “tank” usually means being able to both take damage and dish it out, not just take hits while hitting like a wet noodle (which would be more of a “sponge” to me). And I feel like having the hammers as a DPS option allowed me to actually use more defensive-oriented weapons (namely staff) without being completely terrible at DPS. In fact, Staff + Jalis was one of my favorite weapon / legend combos period. And I feel like I’m not much going to like it now.

Of course, I’ll have to wait to actually play it before I can say for 100% certain or anything, but I don’t have a great feeling about it in any case.

Electro.4173:

I guess I’m in the minority that actually rather dislikes the changes.

I mean, sure. Reducing damage fits much better with Jalis’ overall theme of shrugging off hits, if that’s what you consider to be a “tank”. Maybe its just because I play Pokémon, but I personally I feel that “tank” usually means being able to both take damage and dish it out, not just take hits while hitting like a wet noodle (which would be more of a “sponge” to me). And I feel like having the hammers as a DPS option allowed me to actually use more defensive-oriented weapons (namely staff) without being completely terrible at DPS. In fact, Staff + Jalis was one of my favorite weapon / legend combos period. And I feel like I’m not much going to like it now.

Of course, I’ll have to wait to actually play it before I can say for 100% certain or anything, but I don’t have a great feeling about it in any case.

I agree. I found in BWE1 that I could equip staff and cleric gear and still do decent damage by using Vengeful Hammers or Impossible Odds (in Shiro stance). I will also need to wait to see how this change turns out, but so far it may indicate that Jalis has become less versatile and can only tank, whereas before the Vengeful Hammers change he could tank (well, if the skills were appropriately balanced) or dps. I think Rev strongly needs build diversity, and limiting legends to a single role really limits that diversity.

The hammers being projectiles doesn’t make any sense, aren’t they unblockable anyway? Can unblockable projectiles be reflected?

Yeah, it was more versatile before, but aside from Glint, none of the others have much versatility, so I guess that was what they wanted.

I’m actually worried that Revenant is going to be kind of painful to level. So many cool toys once we get access to Glint, but it would have been nice to have all that swiftness/fury/protection/etc while leveling.

Misguided.5139:

Yeah, it was more versatile before, but aside from Glint, none of the others have much versatility, so I guess that was what they wanted.

I’m actually worried that Revenant is going to be kind of painful to level. So many cool toys once we get access to Glint, but it would have been nice to have all that swiftness/fury/protection/etc while leveling.

Good point, I’m quite intrigued at how leveling is gonna work for revenant now that you mention it