Guild Wars 2

while my topic title does indeed sound a bit funny it might actually be the key to making ventari a viable healer.

the core problem of ventari right now is: the tablet and micromanaging it. you have to move your tabelet to allies, they run away, you keep chasing them with your tablet but they’re just too shy – to stay next to your tablet and all you do is move your tablet from a to b and back while you won’t even get to use your weaponskills most of the time…

now here it comes: what if YOU become the tablet when you channel ventari? not in a literal way, you won’t transform into a tablet, but you will act as the tablet’s host.

skill 6 would teleport you (possibly like the druid’s staff skill) around, on a higher cooldown but with a higher heal amount and would act as a stunbreak (which is needed). healing, shielding and cleansing from skills and traits will take place around you, because you are the tablet’s host.

this way it would be so much better and more comfortable to heal your allies and the utility skills would act much more like actual utility skills rather than tablet commands. you would actually have enough time to use your weaponskills because you can move to your allies, as the tablet, by moving with wasd.

it’s possible that this might be against the design idea of roy and the balance team, against the idea of the actual tablet as an object, but sometimes you have to change things for the sake of making them better.

what do the revenant players think? would you prefer if you became the tablet or do you like moving the actual object around?

I’d be happier if the tablet were better tuned for its clunkiness of use. Like, balance the fact it’s a target and its clunky mobility by better tuning its heals. That said, the rev is so young that it’s still too early to see if Ventari is undertuned yet with every possible setup/build. Emergent gameplay needs time to cook.

This isn’t to say your idea is bad, though. I’m sure engineers would instinctively wince at my suggesting this, but maybe the tablet temporarily replaces your backpiece in some way to keep the theme.
But at the same time, I’d also be a little sad to see the flavor of managing the tablet go away in favor of another “turn into this, now run around and faceroll buttons to support team” type skill. But the meta may ultimately demand that mobility and the general clunkiness of moving the tablet may be more complication than is desirable in the longterm.

adding visuals to the player for when he “represents” the tablet would not be an impossible job or a “ghostly” version of the tablet could move around with you similar to how herald has that feet icon (although people even dislike that xD) but that might be too much in bigger fights^^.

during all those days i haven’t seen a single ventari revenant in pvp.. the only thing i see in every match is a druid. sometimes a ah guard and rarely a support tempest. i have tested ventari cleric/minstrel a couple of times myself but it’s just ugh… x is low and jumps behind a pillar, tablet can’t keep up. y runs away from you, tablet out of range. z teleports up somewhere, tablet doesn’t know how to teleport. that’s why i find it important that you can act as the tablet, with skill 6 as a teleport so that you can actually follow player z :^)

i play ventari at pvp.
Now engj strong at good hands so not such funny, when about year ago, where he sucks.
Now rev has interesting gameplay=)

you are the tablet…..
i was gonna say make it follow you by itself….but this is actually very interesting.

i’m up for experimenting.

arenta.2953:

you are the tablet…..
i was gonna say make it follow you by itself….but this is actually very interesting.

i’m up for experimenting.

the problem if the tablet actually followed you is the same problem with minions. how do they cross vertical gaps? minions kind of run around until they can get to their target or back to you, they never jump and i imagine the tablet following you could have a similar problem so it would just be easier to make the player the “tablet”. imagine the tablet getting stuck somewhere xD.

Real problem – too much newb at pvp. All veterans play at squads….
And thiefs. Hate noob spam mechanick, when you killed for his too hught dmg with spam and low mobility…
Try build ventari + demon. Too strong even dwarf (at least can good condy protection and dmg from that)

I don’t think this would be an overall improvement, honestly.

Sure, you’d have an easier time following allies running around to try and heal them perhaps. But it would come at the cost of putting yourself in more danger. Right now, I can, say, pop the tablet over to an ally in melee range why staying safe myself, healing them without getting in the line of fire personally. Or if an ally is standing in a harmful AoE, same thing, I can throw the tablet over there to help them freely. Or as maybe a more complicated example, lets say I’m fighting an enemy that uses projectiles and puts down AoE fields and I’m trying to use the tablet to block projectiles for an ally. There’s an AoE field between the ally and the enemy. Right now, no problem. Just throw the tablet into position, pop the reflect, boom. If I was the tablet, though, then I have to put myself into bad situations to attempt to help allies.

Problem, that too much pve newbs. And with they you can’t win. If you play ventari can’t use ypurself as a healer…

Electro.4173:

I don’t think this would be an overall improvement, honestly.

Sure, you’d have an easier time following allies running around to try and heal them perhaps. But it would come at the cost of putting yourself in more danger. Right now, I can, say, pop the tablet over to an ally in melee range why staying safe myself, healing them without getting in the line of fire personally. Or if an ally is standing in a harmful AoE, same thing, I can throw the tablet over there to help them freely. Or as maybe a more complicated example, lets say I’m fighting an enemy that uses projectiles and puts down AoE fields and I’m trying to use the tablet to block projectiles for an ally. There’s an AoE field between the ally and the enemy. Right now, no problem. Just throw the tablet into position, pop the reflect, boom. If I was the tablet, though, then I have to put myself into bad situations to attempt to help allies.

it also comes at the cost of you or your allies. if you’re getting focused you have to retreat the tablet, leaving your allies vulnerable. if you are the tablet you always have the heals with you.

My main issue with this suggestion is that it seems too much like the OP is asking for Ventari to operate like other party healing skills do. You have to be careful with homogenization when balancing in MMOs, because you risk every class feeling the same.
The tablet as it is has a lot of flavor and potential to be fairly written off almost immediately before it even has a chance to be fully experimented with.

I’m even okay with the possibility of Ventari being mostly unsuited for PvP except in teams specifically built to make the most of it. Though again, way too early to condemn Ventari’s potential in PvP until the pros have had a month or two with it.

No. The core idea is good.

There are other things that need to happen, but Tablet should stay.

I haven’t made a rev since the BWEs because of the Halloween event, but I actually really like the tablet. I do, however have extra buttons on my mouse to micromanage Ventari though, because using my left hand for all that and weapon skills was annoying.

On the other hand, if the tablet was not controllable independent of me, I would NOT use it, because I often will put it in places I myself do not want to be. My druid is in full Zealot, and I would consider running a Zealot hammer rev since apothecary was kinda meh when I tested it in BWE (though the 25 area might stacking was super cool). If not that, I’d probably try celestial with mace (because might)/shield and hammer. Either way, I wouldn’t want to be directly in the position my tablet would be because it would be.

Something tells me Ventari’s Tablet was never envisioned to be great in fast-moving PvP. It seems like the sort of ability that is best for raiding and open-world group play, where positioning changes somewhat, but there is quite a bit of stacking and a lot of situations where moving a heal on top of somebody without putting yourself in danger could be useful.

I like the idea of a trait just like the old Illusionary Persona from mesmers, but for the tablet. When you activate a skill on the tablet, it also creates the same skill effect on you, like if you are a second tablet.

Obviously this would need to be balanced, even more if made into baseline, but I guess it would help a lot the legend with its clunkiness and non-reliability while maintaining the micro management of the tablet that is the flavor of it.

I really like the tablet as it is, but none of the problems with it being hard to use or clunky have been addressed. The radius for the heal is still small, theres still a cast time on the movement, and the CD on it is now annoying as well as the 10 energy cost making it harder to adjust the tablet 2-3 times for people who wont kitten sit still who then die because they wouldent just sit still and let you heal them but then you end up out of energy because you just used 30 energy moving the kitten thing.

FEELS BAD ANET.

lmperdigao.2567:

I like the idea of a trait just like the old Illusionary Persona from mesmers, but for the tablet. When you activate a skill on the tablet, it also creates the same skill effect on you, like if you are a second tablet.

Obviously this would need to be balanced, even more if made into baseline, but I guess it would help a lot the legend with its clunkiness and non-reliability while maintaining the micro management of the tablet that is the flavor of it.

Great suggestion.

I don’t mind microing tablet at all. It should be faster though.

I am also against US being the tablet. Right now I can stand at 1000 range with hammer and switch to staff to heal allies around me or buff them with herald and/or have tablet @melee range and also heal melee.

So that lets me heal both groups without having to move myself.

The one and only gripe I have with the entire tablet is that the move/heal has a cast time. I feel that is the entire thing that makes the tablet feel clunky to some people. There is an energy cost and a cooldown on it so I don’t see why it needs a cast time and completely stop you from doing any other actions at the same time. The speed is fine as well in my eyes.

I don’t know I think people might still run away even from you lol…

They always run away from my hammer skill 4 when I place it in front of them…..what’s wrong with some people? O.O

How about the tablet becomes a back pack piece you wear. It is quite fitting and you would take it along where ever you go. I am not talking a actually item, it would just be the effect.

Rym.1469:

No. The core idea is good.

There are other things that need to happen, but Tablet should stay.

+1 An independently placable tablet is far superior to an “aura” or whatever the suggestion really amounts to. Tablet needs a bit of help in some areas, but this sure isn’t one of them.

Darkheron.6271:

Rym.1469:

No. The core idea is good.

There are other things that need to happen, but Tablet should stay.

+1 An independently placable tablet is far superior to an “aura” or whatever the suggestion really amounts to. Tablet needs a bit of help in some areas, but this sure isn’t one of them.

while it might be easy for pve where you can shove the tablet to your zerg the moving tablet is actually very terrible for pvp because you never stack people and when players kite they jump up on spots where the tablet can’t reach at all. while ventari could be used for pve it will never be touched in serious pvp play for just that very reason. so i’d rather have something that can be used everywhere instead of just in pve.

I personally enjoy Ventari way more than I thought. I like the tablet and how it works. Yes, it does take some micromanaging but you can make great use of it. Have it ontop of youself and heal and mitigate projectiles. Be at range but still support your allies. Or just use it offensively and plant it ontop of a hoard of archers and cancel out their projectiles if your group is too spread out.

I thought a lot about the cast time on the movement and came to the conclusion it’s fine. We need a slight tell on it. However, the energy cost feels too high. Reduce it to 5 or even remove it completely. The movement is essential to utilizing the other utility skills and there shouldn’t be a double-cost on it.

Another thing which bothers me: Why does the elite skill blow up the tablet? It doesn’t make any sense since we can instantly recast it again. It just feels clunky. I guess it was introduced so we can manually cancel it. But this is a none-issue ingame. It dissipates at range or when you switch legends.

Finally: Summoning the plate at the start could need a bit more omph. If you switch to Ventari you have to cast the tablet, you instantly use some energy, and then you still have to channel a heal or condition removal through it. A better heal or regeneration on creating the tablet would be great. Additionally, the lost time is rather annoying since some traits, e.g. Invoking Harmony, encourage Legend swapping so you are forced to recast the tablet.

I haven’t used Ventari, but I have a couple of guildies that fell in love with it during Beta. They really appreciate the fact they can have the tablet in one spot healing folks while they revive someone or do whatever they need to somewhere else.

Is anyone using a specific build for Ventari that has a healing/tanky approach? I was thinking of a nomad or cleric set as a spare for really intense encounters.

Just make the tablet a temporary backpack.

It’s not really a difficult thing to implement, so far as I can tell. Mechanically it would be:

-Activate Ventari Legend: Effects are all based around you.
-Activate skill #6: Heals you and conjures Ventari’s tablet. So long as the tablet is in the world skills instead are based around it. Reactivate the skill to move it, interact with the Tablet to “pick it back up”.

A relatively simple fix and it gets past the stupidity that is having to activate skill 6 before you can do anything with your Legend.

That’s easily one of the biggest failings of the Legend. ANet has always encouraged removing onerous steps/activities that remove from the fun. The way Ventari is currently designed epitomizes that. If you can’t use any utilities while invoking Ventari until you activate skill 6 then skill 6 should be auto-activated in some way.

It’s even very thematically fitting. You cast “Project Tranquility” to center your powers elsewhere rather than yourself.

or change a trait so that spells that center around you or the tablet center around both.

I really like the idea suggested to have the effect around you when the tablet is not summoned, but located at the tablet once you summon it with skill 6.

This way the player can choose to either summon the tablet and not change any mechanics from present or not summon the tablet and become the epicenter for the abilities. Becoming the center for the spells would be a nerf for a lot of traits, but it gives the players extra options without granting any extra strength to the legend.

Super great idea, please implement this.

I don’t mind the way it is now but by golly is it hard to heal people. I’m finding more people run away from the tablet like its their creepy uncle coming in for an unwanted tickle. All I want to do is love you guys Maybe people just need to learn tablet is good. I wouldn’t mind if it was the rev that was the tablet since it would allow better control of the heals and for a new skill 6

I love Ventari.

I can park it around a dead person to shield the revivers, or if I’m doing the reviving I can have it over me and pop cleanses/heals while reviving… or I can push it through the zerg and pull it back to heal a lot of people… or I can stand in it to remove conditions with whirl combos and projectile combos. I can send it somewhere and pop the elite to knock someone off a piece of siege or something.