Guild Wars 2

Every beta weekend I have spent a chunk of time trying to work out a way to play Ventari that will be fun and engaging. I’ve tried different combinations of weapons and traits, different gear sets, etc. etc. because I really love the idea of Ventari and I enjoy playing support-based healing characters. At this point though it feels like there’s nothing but my stubborn determination to keep me playing it. It’s not rewarding for open world play, it feels cumbersome and largely disabled (and disabling) 80% of the time.

Running around in the open world obviously means running across distances on the map. On a Revenant with Ventari, that means one of three things: 1) either you don’t have the tablet out, in which case you don’t have access to any utility skills; 2) you do have the tablet out, in which case you’re in the unenviable position of effectively having to ground target your own movement in chunks of <1500; or 3) …you just aren’t actually in legendary centaur stance at all while running around.

IMO, having to make that choice of either not having access to any utility skills or having to effectively ground target your own movement is a major impediment to enjoyable use of Ventari in the open world.

As a fix, I would suggest that the legendary centaur stance utility skills toggle to a different effect when the tablet is not out rather than simply being grayed out completely. For example one of them could grant swiftness (perhaps only to oneself) when the tablet is not in the world; let another one blind nearby foes. These need not be really major effects, but they ought to be something, not just grayed out all the time.

Also, as things stand now, we have the rather bizarre situation where a healing spec on the Revenant, in a game where every class has the ability to self-heal, actually lacks an initial self-heal!

In order to heal oneself with Ventari, you have to project the tablet into the world and then use Natural Harmony with its 2 second delay. Considering that running around in centaur stance is so hugely de-incentivized by all the utility skills being grayed out, in practice you probably have to 1) switch TO centaur stance, THEN 2) project the tablet into the world, and 3) use Natural Harmony. That’s more cumbersome than anything any other class needs to do to heal itself.

Projecting the tablet into the world simply ought to have an initial self heal.

I don’t think it’s any coincidence that with every passing beta weekend there are less tablets around. People try it out and move on and I think that’s a reflection of the fact that it just isn’t fun. Playing it with Herald absolutely does help address some of these issues, but if an elite spec is necessary to make another spec functional then that ought to indicate that there’s a flaw. The Ventari legend ought to be fun and playable even without playing Herald and right now it’s just not.

I think all of these issues with Ventari are compounded by the fact that healing is simply not rewarded in the game right now. Game rewards scale off of damage. (I’d love to see participation in events be calculated off either damage or healing as a way to reward playing healers, but that’s another topic.) But it’s exactly because healing is so unrewarded that Ventari deserves some functional utility skills to make it worth playing in the open world.

ventari is just fantastic in wvw

although you are right about the utilities being dead when the tablet is not active. however the tablet summon has no CD, just pull it out again immediately.

I admit to being an exclusive PVEr.

I think that the issue with the utilities being dead isn’t really about whether or not the tablet summon has a CD though.

If you were playing two other legends not including Ventari, then running around the open world you would have your 5 slot skills available on each one, and you would be able to swap between legends and gain access to any of those 10 total slot skills from the moment that you swap legends.

When Ventari is one of your legends, running around in open world you effectively only have access to half that number of slot skills, because you only gain access to your centaur stance skills when you are willing to have your movement encumbered by ground targeting.

So with Ventari you have to choose between being encumbered or having your utility skills disabled, and that feels far from enjoyable, mentally engaging, or rewarding. It’s just dull to play a level 80 character whose slot skills are grayed out the way that a level 10 character’s are.

I PvE and WvW. I love this tablet. I don’t really have any complaints tbh aside from it really needs to be placeable on summoning. I have been using it with the Staff and oddly enough in berserkers gear. It still pumps out good healing even in berserkers.

Now you mention it tough I do rarely ever see other tablet users. Though when I put the tablet out people sure love to hug it. I think it is fantastic tbh, and I don’t think there is a more “fun and engaging” stance in the entire Revenant set.

Yes, people come and stand by the tablet when it’s out, and not necessarily because they need healing. Even outside of combat people stand by it. I’m pretty sure that’s just because it’s still a novelty, not a reflection of it having great functionality.

threads like this make me nervous cause they might actually listen and meddle with it and the result is vile dark suffering.

why would you run around in centaur stance any way? you dont just precast you 6 heal before going into combat do you? its a fall back and recover bring out the utility stance.

even if you dont wanna run herald for swiftness you can get jalis and smacks some combos or just push 9 in shiro.

why cant we have f1-5 be stances and available all the time? I know what your gonna say… it would be way OP. I dont care, it would be awesome! I want all the stances.

No stance is just one slot skill, and no stance should only have one slot skill accessible to it.

Rev is built to give us very limited choice when it comes to utility skills to begin with. Our only option is to choose between legends, we cannot make selections of utility skills within a legend. Each legend only gets 1 healing, 3 utility, and 1 elite.

To compensate for that, we get to swap between 2 different lines of utilities when we swap between two different stances. That is the way the class is built.

You’re saying that one whole legendary stance should be “just a fallback”? Well, no. The class is built around having two stances to choose between and swapping back and forth as needed situationally.

Someone who is running Jalis and Shiro as their two stances has 10 slot skills at their disposal. Someone who is running Jalis and Ventari only has half that number unless they encumber themselves with the ground targeted movement requirement. It’s simply unbalanced, unrewarding, and it’s not fun.

I have no idea where you are getting the doom and gloom of “vile dark suffering” from the suggestion that, when the tablet is not out the centaur stance utility skills could have some alternate effects. At any rate, though, I think you needn’t worry since I doubt anyone will actually listen—it’s too late in the development process now and they’ve made it clear from the get go that when it comes to utilities we are stuck with the already meager pickings they have given us. (Seriously, compare the number of utility skills that exist for Rev (12) to the number of utility skills for every other class (20)!) I just think that choosing Ventari shouldn’t mean that you get even fewer utilities still.

Should just make the stance like Dragon stance in that all the abilities pulse from the player. Call it Ventari’s Will. Let us move around the battlefield instead of constantly worrying about tablet placement.

Just wanting to add one more thing here: when I played Herald, I found that a lot of these issues seemed much less glaring, and I suspect that a lot of people are now playing Herald and testing Revenant with Herald not without it.

Yes, Herald fixes a lot. But Herald is not the base profession mechanic. It adds a whole additional thing on. And despite the fact that the attitude of most people right now is “well I’m just going to level to 80 instantly with tomes anyway,” the profession needs to be functional without its elite spec too.

So my feedback on Ventari here is based on deliberately playing Revenant this weekend without Herald. I played Herald last beta and it immediately pushed these issues from my mind. But the class needs to function well either with or without its elite spec. If it doesn’t, the elite spec isn’t a step up to the next level, it’s a requirement for fun and functional play.

Exclusive sPVPer here and honestly, I liked the rewarding playstyle of the tablet with the herald. You get more than enough support and heals through other means such as shield 5 and the facet of light in glint stance that the lack of a self heal in ventari is barely noticeable. My guardian friend and I were able to 2v5 with that tablet out in spvp with a cleric ammy and flock runes. And there were many occasions that I held my own against 2-3 players by myself for quite a long time. The sustain with the tablet is amazing and rewards skillful play. I love the mechanics and the only thing I would change is the excessive degen for the projectile barrier, I would make it -6 instead of -8 energy and maybe add an effect to ending the barrier as well. I would also make it castable during blocks and evades to promote a more active playstle, especially in spvp or wvw.

notalent.4102:

I liked the rewarding playstyle of the tablet with the herald.

Part of my point exactly.

If we were trying to kitten Guardian as a class and every answer was “I really like Guardian with Dragonhunter,” we wouldn’t be giving or getting feedback on Guardian as its own class without its elite spec.

I’d say try playing Ventari on the Rev without playing Herald and see whether you have a different experience of it and different feedback.

Quells.2498:

Should just make the stance like Dragon stance in that all the abilities pulse from the player. Call it Ventari’s Will. Let us move around the battlefield instead of constantly worrying about tablet placement.

Oh goodness no lol. The ability to independently place the tablet is a huge advantage.

Yeah as in there’s no risk and it makes ranged combat preferential. If you were the source of the abilities then you’d have to be able to move to targets whom are sometimes in very dangerous places which means you’ll need to have a strong build with adaptable play.

I really hope they don’t balance the tablet around zergs and PvE. Any small-scale engagement or even solo is going to show you just how horrible Ventari is right now compared to…well any of the other legends in general. It’s slow, clunky, small radius, long cast times, and high energy cost. Great concept, but needs a lot of tuning to be actually viable.

karulegend.4960:

I really hope they don’t balance the tablet around zergs and PvE. Any small-scale engagement or even solo is going to show you just how horrible Ventari is right now compared to…well any of the other legends in general. It’s slow, clunky, small radius, long cast times, and high energy cost. Great concept, but needs a lot of tuning to be actually viable.

I agree with this tbh. I don’t think the tablet should be balanced around zergs but I feel like right now it really is. Running solo around the open world makes Ventari feel not just cumbersome but really pointless what with the grayed out utilities, etc.

So far, the places I’ve found the tablet to be useful are during things like Vinewrath (follow the siege carrier back and forth) and some of the world boss fights (Jormag for example). Those are pretty specific sorts of situations.

Imagine trying to do map completion with Ventari. It would be like an exercise in slow torture. So of course you’d swap to your other legend and just camp in that. What possible incentive is there to switch back when you have a grayed out utility bar?

I suppose people will say that then you should just change your build, lose the Salvation trait line and go with a different second legend…and a different gear set? …and at what point do we acknowledge that Ventari has such incredibly limited niche uses as to be dead weight 80% of the time?

I would say it comes more in to play in the PVE aspect of the game. That is my two cents…

Quells.2498:

Yeah as in there’s no risk and it makes ranged combat preferential. If you were the source of the abilities then you’d have to be able to move to targets whom are sometimes in very dangerous places which means you’ll need to have a strong build with adaptable play.

It doesn’t make it preferential it makes it optional. And fixing it to be centered on the player makes it less adaptable not more so. Honestly it’s the worst suggestion I have seen for the stance.

Darkheron.6271:

Quells.2498:

Yeah as in there’s no risk and it makes ranged combat preferential. If you were the source of the abilities then you’d have to be able to move to targets whom are sometimes in very dangerous places which means you’ll need to have a strong build with adaptable play.

It doesn’t make it preferential it makes it optional. And fixing it to be centered on the player makes it less adaptable not more so. Honestly it’s the worst suggestion I have seen for the stance.

Yeah agreed. I don’t think that having the tablet automatically follow you around in combat or just be placed where you are is the solution. I think that the ground targeting and placement are as they should be for combat.

But I think that outside of combat just running around the open world, moving the tablet is awful. I really wish there was a way that it could toggle: when you leave combat and the tablet basically isn’t doing anything, it auto-follows you; when you enter combat you then have to manage its placement yourself.

I don’t know if there’s a functional way to make that work though, and I could imagine it creating lots of persnickety difficulties like in events where there are waves of enemies or whatnot.

hibari.9836:

Yeah agreed. I don’t think that having the tablet automatically follow you around in combat or just be placed where you are is the solution. I think that the ground targeting and placement are as they should be for combat.

But I think that outside of combat just running around the open world, moving the tablet is awful. I really wish there was a way that it could toggle: when you leave combat and the tablet basically isn’t doing anything, it auto-follows you; when you enter combat you then have to manage its placement yourself.

I don’t know if there’s a functional way to make that work though, and I could imagine it creating lots of persnickety difficulties like in events where there are waves of enemies or whatnot.

I definitely agree with the part I bolded. Even in wide ranging open world events it is a major pain. But then again in open world travel mode I was always in Glint with Facet of Elements activated. There is certainly an element okittenwardness if you wish to either stay in Venetari or use the tablet on a wide battlefield, just not sure what to do about it since the problem really isn’t just a combat/non-combat issue. I mean you could just detonate the tablet and resummon but it costs a lot of energy, and I don’t think you should have to do that tbh. It’s almost like it needs a command to withdraw to your position and orbit you until it can be redeployed, like a sheathe/unsheathe sort of function.

EDIT: what the heck “a w k w a r d n e s s” is censored?

I only tried ventari during the last 2 hours of BWE3. I never play healers in mmos but I was amazed how much fun I was having with it and hammer.

Ventari is mostly great it needs a slightly better scaling with HP a lot more range (1200-1500 with a 1800 leash) , instant cast for moving and being able to position it while deploying would help too.

What I think the tablet(Ventari) needs:

• It needs to be summoned automatically and instantly when swaping to Ventari.
• It needs to follow you out of combat.
• It needs to follow you in combat unless the following conditions are met:
  —you command the tablet to move with Ventari’s will, in which case it will stay there for a few seconds.
  —you cast Protective Solace, it will stay there (if you even moved it) as long as you have energy or you cancel the skill, in which case it will stay there for a few seconds and then come back to (follow) you.
  —Same thing applies to Natural Harmony, Purifying Essence and Energy Expulsion, the tablet will stay there for a few seconds after such effects expired or took effect.
• Ventari’s Will has its radius doubled and now has a burst healing effect at target location.

Khenzy.9348:

• It needs to follow you in combat unless the following conditions are met:
  —you command the tablet to move with Ventari’s will, in which case it will stay there for a few seconds.
  —you cast Protective Solace, it will stay there (if you even moved it) as long as you have energy or you cancel the skill, in which case it will stay there for a few seconds and then come back to (follow) you.
  —Same thing applies to Natural Harmony, Purifying Essence and Energy Expulsion, the tablet will stay there for a few seconds after such effects expired or took effect.

I strongly disagree with this part if it worked that way you would be unable to heal in 2 different places at the same time which is an important functionality that keeps getting underestimated.
And about ventari’s will it’s mostly l2p increasing the movespeed and having 180 radius could help though.