Guild Wars 2

Disclaimer: I’m only talking about design decisions, not about numbers since they can be changed easily.

I think what most people here experience as disappointment comes from the misunderstanding that the spec would be a full condi spec (at least better than Mallyx, as if it were bad or something) and the purposefully (?) designed lack of connection between the legend utilities and the shortbow.

The shortbow seems to be an engaging weapon, something to start fights or to be changed into when the contrary is trying to escape. Whether that is its intended design, I don’t know; but it doesn’t surprise me at all: I’ve heard many times that range weapons aren’t supposed to be as powerful as melee to reward being exposed. It has great cc that helps when breaking defiance bars but doesn’t leave you as “condiless” as changing to staff.

The legend itself is designed around having a warband fighting along you and, therefore, around team play. I’m not sure, but maybe before kalla’s fervor was changed, the ability to give the buff around yourself justified a little better the fact that they were summons and not wells (so that they could be targetable to receive the buffs). Being completely justified or not, I didn’t have any troubles with them while I played: I haven’t seen them die because of damage and always did what I expected them to do.

The f3 and f4 skills could be good, if properly balanced. The one I don’t understand is f1: you’re almost always at full stacks of Kalla’s fervor, at least in a long enough fight. Why would I refresh them if gaining them is so easy?

I still kinda trust devs (I know I’ll be disappointed later, I’ll blame on myself) so i’m attributing the lack of connection between the spec’s legend and its weapon to a purposefully attempt to create build variety and situational flexibility. As I said in a previous post, there are many reasons why using Kalla as a secondary legend while doing a healer role might work better than Glint, an interaction I didn’t expect and that’s thanks to the legend working without shortbow.

I’m probably too optimistic, but if they could balance the spec, decreasing energy costs and so on, I’m quite sure they could craft a great pve spec. In pvp it kinda lacks Glint survival and it’s much more dependent on team play.

The only problem I see with Kalla’s Fervor affecting 10 people is that, in its current implementation, you don’t have to do anything to get max stacks, not even using Kalla as a legend. It’s not a mechanic (F2 suggests otherwise tho), it’s more similar to a buff that rewards staying in combat.

Even if it was included in one of the support bottom line traits, any renegade would choose group dps against personal. That creates a situation where condi renegade dps rotation can keep it up with no effort and not implying a great personal dps loss. This state would devalue healing renegade support abilities against druid, since:
- Mutually exclusive buffs, even if it’s probably possible and a “good” solution, doesn’t seem the way they’d balance the game around.
- If the condition of mutually exclusive buffs isn’t there, using a condition renegade in a dps spot would be enough to grant Kalla’s Fervor without losing Grace of the Land.

It (probably) won’t be condi renegade the one that has difficulties finding a raid spot, even now condi revenant has enough dps to get one. It’s healing revenant (or renegade) the one who can’t compete with druid, and not in the healing aspect.

To me, comparing Scourge and Renegade is like comparing apples to pears.

Scourge is a very defensive support spec with tons of boon hate and the only one with access to significant group barrier (as far as I know) IF they use healing power. I’m sure the new raid bosses are designed with barrier in mind. But its barrier traits compete with its condi traits, and you can’t keep using LF to proc Dhuumfire with shade skills if you need it to provide barrier, so don’t expect the support scourge build to have great dps in comparison to the condi scourge build.

Renegade is an offensive support spec. It’s designed in a way that benefits power (extra ferocity), condi (extra condi damage, Razorclaw’s Rage) and support builds (extra alacrity, Soulcleave’s Summit).

There haven’t been any dps tests yet, so we don’t know who’s better between condi renegade vs condi scourge. But in the support aspect, scourge can’t provide permabarrier (I’m sure devs intend that), so it doesn’t compete with a healer in bosses where barrier is not needed or not that interesting.

Vennyhedgie.5369:

You essentially have perma alacrity, I’ve managed to get it to only have like a 1 or 2 second gap every 30 seconds while energy refilled a bit. Granted you can only auto attack to do this, but let’s be honest that’s most of what you do on rev anyway

True, but you can’t take advantage of Soulcleave’s Summit, the only reason to leave Ventari for a party dps increase, right?

Vennyhedgie.5369:

The biggest issue is your heal does not benefit from outgoing healing effectiveness buffs for some reason, and until that gets fixed, you’re better off sticking with ventari

Sure, thats something they should be changing asap. It’s a group heal, so the group should enjoy your outgoing healing modifiers. And you’re always taking Ventari, obviously. Kalla is just a secondary legend.

Miellyn.6847:

You still can’t provide perma alacrity as the heal with it costs too much and the cooldown of Orders from above limits you even with reduced energy costs. Glint will be most likely still better as you can give perma protection. The protection from heal skills procs everytime you move the tablet.

Of course, right now with these immense energy costs it’s quite difficult to provide permalacrity. But the possibility is still there with some adjustments. Why introduce alacrity to Ventari AND Kalla if that’s not the reason? (For aesthetics reasons they could change the effect of alacrity with revenant to some class characteristic color, like light grey, or to legends characteristic colors, light green and dark orange.)

All for one has no ICD, so you just need to invoke 2 spirits (or Soulcleave twice) to have protection while waiting for Ventari, even with no boon duration. Chronos could take that protection and provide it to the group with their quickness rotations. Otherwise, yes, some protection is lost.

Loboling.5293:

I think Renegade could work, but I don’t see it replacing glint in pve. To me healer rev plays like this: Grants boons, and switch to ventari to heal allies, when things stabilize back to boons. But the heal on renegade means when you swap you’ll have a powerful ally heal available outside of ventari. But otherwise, I don’t see why you would swap, since throughput is still higher in ventari. So I don’t see renegade healer working for pve.

The most problematic disadvantage about healing revenant has always been, imo, the lack of offensive support in the form of unique buffs. These boons that you provide via Glint are provided by the party easily or the change to Kalla doesn’t affect the most important ones:
- Regeneration gets overwritten by chronomancer’s with (usually) less healing power, and Soulcleave’s Summit (even when the target has no healing power) seems as powerful as your regeneration (maybe there’s some difference in pvp with regeneration?). Making the life siphon use your healing power and take into account outgoing healing modifiers would be a great change tho.
- fury shouldn’t be a problem if you take invocation or if you have a warrior with For great justice.
- you can still keep protection just by summoning spirits.

And while you keep the most important boons, you add better access to alacrity, Soulcleave’s Summit and, potentially with some trait changes that I proposed, group Razorclaw’s Rage.

I admit that keeping tha party healed while you’re in Kalla is more difficult (Soulcleave’s Summit, Breakrazor’s Bastion and/or changing to staff for Renewing Wave) but you shouldn’t be leaving Ventari in any case if you think a damage spike is coming.

Rexivus.3794:

Honestly, I was hoping for a Healing Renegade spec before the weekend. I thought it would give me another option other than Druid.

I still don’t think Ventari Tablet energy management nor the healpower scaling on Renegade is going to make raid groups take a Healing Renegade over a Condi Druid.

Perma-/Almost perma-alacrity would definitely give the spec a niche to maybe alleviate chrono tanks; however, until energy management on Rev is more fluid, or the buffs are longer on a Rev, people will stick to the chrono+condi druid healer meta.

I understand that it’s no match neither for heal druid nor condi druid in meta terms. However, my static lets me play it in some bosses where damage could be a problem to make smoother, slowlier tries.

Xaylin.1860:

I’d say it depends on your non-meta group composition.

Glint provides boon duration which is much more useful since they recently nerfed boon duration food. Also, the heal is great and on demand boons are always convenient (but less needed in raids, I guess?). The traits – from my point of view – are mediocre at best. The only noteworthy one for Ventari is Bolstered Fortification when spamming your #5 in Ventari (pairs nicely with Blinding Truths in Salvation). But you probably want to safe Energy for Alacrity.

Kalla has useful and unique buffs but I don’t like their drawbacks (stationary + killable). I see her strength in the F-skills – F3 can keep Alacrity up when not in Ventari – and the Fury-centered traits (Blood Fury, Endless Emnity and Brutal Momentum). Those basically buff any kind of damage (power + condi) and synergize very well with Invocation which is great for Ventari anyway. If you don’t care for Invocation you could also run a condi setup with Corruption + Mallyx to complement Ventari with Resistance.

So it’s actually like the devs said in the stream. Glint is more defensive support while Kalla provides offensive support. Neither of them innately support a healing build or Ventari.

The problem is that raid healers are chosen not for their ability to heal (both tempest and revenant heal better than druid anyway) but for their offensive support skills. That makes Glint quite underwhelming, since chronomancers today don’t gear taking into account Facet of Nature. It’ll still be used in hand-kiting Deimos because of blocks and Glint’s heal, but those advantages don’t make Ventari/Glint a better healer in, lets say, VG than Ventari/Kalla. If they tuned cooldowns, energy costs and durations, they could craft a build that provides permalacrity, heals and offers some offensive support that could partner with a firebrand to provide quickness and aegis.

Anyone would have thought that Glint would remain BiS as a secondary legend for a healing role until a healing spec, but alacrity in both Orders from above and Natural Harmony and the whole support line make me think that is intentional. So this makes me wonder if they’re planning on revamping Glint to make it more power-friendly.

Disclaimer: By no means I’m pretending that Ventari healer is or will be Meta along this post outside of Deimos hand kiting. I wanted to make sure everyone understands we’re talking about an offmeta build to avoid “who cares its not meta lul” replies.

Hey there! So, I’ve been trying the new Kalla legend sometime this weekend. Shortbow and most skills are tied to a condition dps role that will probably be some mix of Jalis/Mallyx/Kalla with Corruption, Invocation and Renegade.

But I’ve also noticed that there’s a support line in the spec, so I tried using it with Ventari. Renegade:
*Adds a class-unique group buff that this build missed so much (Soulcleave’s summit, that i’ve heard is an appreciable group damage increase and you can time it to use it in phases that need a bit of burst damage)
*Keeps good cc (Darkrazor’s daring), protection application via All for one, help in and some healing from Wrought-iron will’s regeneration, Breakrazor’s bastion and life siphon from Soulcleave’s summit.
*If they buffed durations or reduced energy costs, could provide permalacrity with the help of Orders from above with Righteous Rebel.

If they wanted to buff healing renegade a bit further, they could change All for one so that a somewhat nerfed Razorclaw’s Rage uses allies’ condition damage and expertise but not affect yourself so that it turns to a group dps increase instead of a selfish skill and/or Soulcleave’s Summit life siphon for allies uses your healing power (I think it uses allies’ hp) so that works better as a group healing skill.

Healing renegade would benefit too of some kind of major condition damage and healing power, minor expertise and concentration gear to use Razorclaw’s Rage if there’s no change to it.

In my opinion, all these interactions bring healing renegade a little bit closer to druid in most bosses than using healing herald (at least from what I’ve tested this weekend), what makes me wonder which direction do devs want to give to Glint. Notice that this advantages don’t improve hand kiting role, that needs shield and Glint’s heal to be effective.

So, what’s your opinion? Do you think it would be worthier to use Kalla, or to stick to Glint?

To me spirits aren’t AI. They have an area of effect and they just create pulses, they are longlasting wells with life. And that’s quite ok for pve.

I can only speak from a pve perspective, but you should read this thread to understand how important people kits are in pve.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Kits-Should-New-Engi-ESpecs-get-them/page/2#post6528757.

Some of this people even consider kits the main engineer mechanic, and not the toolbelt skills. This spec is obviously made for them: provides a new kit to play with, both useful for condi or power builds (or so i suppose). And engineer is not the only one that comes back to its origins, core elementalist’s stance dancing seems that will come back in weaver.

After a completely pvp spec (a design failure, if you ask me), they’ve turned to a likely very pve centered spec; tho this one might do good in pvp, not like scrapper in pve.

I was interested a support build, that thing kits don’t seem to do well. But I understand its place and its audience. It may even reduce the number of kits in utility skills condi engineers need to have. Who knows.

Now let’s talk about providing team utility for wvw/raid groups. In the first, there are some changes that could be made to Scrapper, like gyros not being destroyed by damage (that would make a buffed bulwark, purge or even shredder quite interesting choices), adding utility to functional gyro or reverting final salvo to its previous state.

In the second one, I can’t seem to remember group utility options brought by top dps builds apart from gale song (only in some bosses) and rebound (maybe). Engineer provides a very desired buff to the condition meta while having great dps, something many other classes can only dream.

Some months ago I was reading a thread about new specs including new kits to play with and it seemed it was a very supported idea. My impression when I read it was “engineers do love their kits”. In fact, it came as a response against almost-kitless Scrapper. There’s such a love for kits that I don’t think they’ll ever overnerf them, causing that any dps-related utility skill to be discarded in terms of meta.

Photon Forge seems to work like a new kit. And traits support both power and condi options. So I kinda don’t understand so many complaints. Engineers didn’t seem to want a different gameplay when I read that thread, some just wanted more kits. But this spec does include some gameplay, coupled with a new kit.

It’s seems that the meta gameplay won’t change much. Just replacing Tools to Holosmith and making use of the new kit. But engineers still have Pinpoint Distribution, a very powerful buff to condi dps.

It’s not what I was asking for in relation to Holosmith (I wanted a support spec, the point where kits fail since I don’t like them very much), but since they could give barrier to Scrappers this Tuesday I remain hopeful.

I know saying this on a engineer forum is a sacrilege but, don’t you feel engineer is very restricted by kits?

- Condition builds reward using as many skills as possible. And meta viper engi uses 4 kits, meaning lots of skills. A new condition focused spec would need formidable utilities that replace many weaker skills.

- Power engineer is, imo, quite restricted to bomb kit auto attack (because it hits like a truck) and to tool belt skills. There’s no way they can give a better auto attack to any spec weapon. And with a new spec, tool belt might disappear. So the identity of the spec might get lost staying in bomb kit most of the time and using its weapon skills or utilities as “filler”, like grenade and rifle skills are in this build.

Of course it could achieve better dps, to me it’s just a matter of losing identity. Only a very meaningful mechanic change compared to core engineer could save that from becoming a tempest or daredevil in terms of identity.

- The only point where engineer doesn’t seem as restricted would be support. Elixir kit is cool for condi removal, but that’s just it. And let’s not talk about Med kit. That’s where my bets are.

Phineas Poe.3018

That just speaks to the one-dimensionality of PvE being a DPS-over-everything kind of mode. The only time I remember ever really using the shield in PvE was during the Queen’s Gauntlet.

There’s no sense in Holosmith being a power-oriented specialization when there is no off-hand to accompany it.

I am a (mostly) pve player and I find it quite one dimensional as it is designed: simply put, you always take the best dps option, and that’s never gonna be shield. Unless the spec deals a damage so low you can afford changing to shield for its utility/cc. Like chrono does, replacing offhand sword with focus.

Core engineer lacks a power offhand so, if we stick to that rule, it will never have a power main hand. More restrictions to a class with the least possibilities in weapons and combinations between them. Wouldn’t be better if they compensated this issue with a spec with good mechanics and skills?

Phineas Poe.3018:

If ArenaNet does the holosmith sword properly, it could be substantially more broken a weapon just on the basis that it gets paired with everything the shield offers. And given the fact that the only offensive option to pair it with would be the pistol having Blowtorch, I imagine that the holosmith will be a condition-damage oriented specialization—or so I hope.

I really hope not. Offhand pistol is already used in a top-tier condition build, with simplified versions (meaning no or less kits) of it that deal great damage. For build variety’s sake, I hope it is a support spec that enables shield at least for the utility it brings compared to no-condition-damage blowtorch.

Sly.9518:

Uhm what? So Ps Wars are split between both parties normally? so Condi Druid doesn’t take spotter or spirits? Tempests and Guards don’t provide any buffs at all especially from combo just for taking them and them doing their Rotation right? All Tempests don’t increase the Boon duration of all Boons on Allie around them right? It’s like you don’t even know what the classes are capable of.

and to try to make out the only hard cc Condi thief has available that is on a 40 second cd(at best 23 sec cd if you have alacrity every single second it’s on Cd, which isn’t realistic in the majority cases) that isn’t always going to be up for every breakbar so op lol the only Utility thief brings to the raid……

And again the Thief doesn’t do all that much more dps than any of the other Dps classes that bring more Utility/buffs to the party.

In my book, PS is a support build with an overtuned dps = high personal dps + EA + banners + might. So that’s why it’s a horse of a different color, imo. Want to rage against them? I’ll join you.

Condi druid can’t be considered a dps class, it doesn’t even have a benchmark. It’s just a druid with somewhat better dps that focuses only in the support part and not in the healing part. I’d rather have two magi’s druids to keep the party than the little personal dps increase.

I’ve looked at the trait you comment. Imbued melodies’ sand squall only increases 2 seconds the duration of your current boons every 30 seconds. I’d say its negligible when you have designated people with a lot of boon duration whose only purpose is to keep them up. I know I don’t even consider it to keep quickness while playing chrono.

If you told me all those high dps builds had utility skills as useful as mesmer’s, I’d agree with you, but all they have is some cc. Apart from engineer (arguably the most difficult build to reach good dps) they don’t have meaningful party buffs. Condi revenant is in the limit of “better than viable” and some groups don’t take it even in bosses where it should be good.

Thief’s best group utility right now is on a fairly low CD compared to other great CC skills like gravity well or moa. You can argue that you can use those two times in one CD, but you need to have continuum split available to do that. Maybe if they designed raid bosses where group stealth were useful, thief as we know it now could have more utility. But i’d expect mesmer, king of utility, to pick that role too.

Again, my problem with thief isn’t that it shouldn’t have the best dps because of squishy. My problem is that, disregarding engineer because most people won’t reach as good dps as the class can, its dps is 2k ahead of other options that don’t have any utility either. And that doesn’t include finishers in fields that should happen in raid scenarios, since thief doesn’t provide any field. And I’d say tempest is even squishier because they aren’t perma evading with death blossom, if you want the squishiest class to have the best dps.

First of all, thanks for the answers. Nice to see other people views. I’ve edited OP, so go and check.

Sly.9518:

Are people really complaining about a class that brings absolutley nothing to the table besides dps that does slightly better Dps while almost every other class brings support/Utility and class specific buffs to the raid increasing the overall performance of the raid while doing only slightly less dps?

As far as I know, and please correct me if I’m wrong, the only pure dps class that buffs party dps is engineer. Condi revenant has a ferocity buff, but we tend to keep condi classes together, so we don’t take full advantage of it. Ranger usually doesn’t take neither spirits nor spotter. Tempests, thieves, guardians or necros don’t provide any party buff that increases dps.

What some classes have is some utility, mostly in terms of CC. But some of that utility comes as a dps loss, e.g. tempest takes rebound in stead of fiery great-sword. But condi thief actually has utility: its cc is spectacular and easy to use. And it is the best choice to make compared to other elite skills.

UnbentMars.9126:

*ventari revenant can now provide alacrity, which is a step in the right direction towards allowing for more party flexibility, but it cannot yet provide enough to put it on par with the chrono. In order to open the gates for the flexibility you want, ventari rev should have more alacrity generating capabilities to make it a viable option.
IMPORTANT NOTE: I believe much of this will come with the next round of elite specializations. The current issue is that the existence of only one elite spec for each class pigeon-holes everyone, but once more options are available that will open it up for ANET to truly specialize them. Example: Reaper was supposed to be slow-but-heavy dps with some tanking options, but people ended up using it as a condi booster instead. Once the next necro elite spec comes out (which is rumored to be heavily-condi based) reaper will now be available for ANET to move towards what it was originally supposed to be.

Ventari won’t ever compete with chronomancers as things stand now. They are supposed to compete with druids. Thats why alacrity wasn’t a buff to revenant healers in pve. Everyone seems to agree in giving other healers the same buffs druid has. How would you do so? Would you give them all the buffs or only some? Don’t you think that all the healers giving pretty much the same buffs would make the classes feel identical? Wouldn’t giving ventari flat damage buffs be against the philosophy of the legend?

And, according to what I’ve read about the leaks, there won’t be any new healer specs. What makes druid still incomparable to potential healers we already have. Tempest can probably come back to being an auramancer (original design imo) with the expansion if the new spec is mostly dps centered; but this won’t happen with herald, a support oriented build that isn’t being used in the build the next spec is likely to have (condi dps).

Feanor.2358:

As another ele main, I disagree. FA or staff builds are a LOT harder. Staying alive is really a non-issue. If anything, it’s only ever an issue with staff, because of Meteor Shower rooting you in place. Staying up close is a non-issue. You always need to be there or lose a major part of your healing, boons and subsequently dps. On top of that the condi “rotation” requires much less attention, therefore letting you focus more on what happens around you, meaning it’s easier to stay alive. On top of that, it is more forgiving, you lose less dps from mistakes and there are fewer mistakes to make.

Completely on point, imo. Condi dps seems easier to keep than power.

I already do that. Pug mentality being wrong doesn’t change the fact that they should balance better. Why would anyone complain of a better balance?

Some clarifications I’d like to make:

• As stated in the OP, I’m the first one against benchmarks against a golem. In my opinion, boss designs should favour some specific builds against others, not in terms of dps but in utility. But for this to be true, dps builds need to have similar dps.

• When I complain about condi tempest and condi daredevil, I’m not saying they shouldn’t be viable/optimal. But think of virtues guardian. They need to evade as much damage as possible to keep aegis up. And right now the dps is mediocre. Those builds are clearly over-tuned, even compared to condi ranger.

• Balance teams seems eager to change numbers in skills in each patch, so the dps builds issue isn’t so problematic. But support roles have a problem. We’ve had 3 balance patches up to today (12/13, 2/22, 5/16) since the change to signet of inspiration. The meta hasn’t changed at all since then. They raised the cap of some buffs, but they haven’t nerfed the support trinity’s unique buffs nor have they given anything worthy to their current non-meta support specs so that they could compete for a spot. Are they really gonna abandon tempest (as the original support build it was) and herald and hope next support specs are better received?

I don’t know if I’m the only one that feels it, but the raid meta composition™ hasn’t changed in a too long time that it’s become stagnant and I consider that it’s time to talk about it.

DPS role: those builds who perform best against a static golem in terms of pure DPS. I’d love to call BS here, if raid bosses had mechanics that favoured some builds or others, or couldn’t been kept so static. But actually, most of them are just a game of viper vs zerker and don’t favour some builds inside one of those groups enough to really care: basically, you can take a condi ranger wherever some viper build is good, but I don’t feel it’s quite fair. The only exceptions seem to be Cairn and Matthias, where torment (and confusion?) works wonders.

The trend has been to buff viper builds against zerker builds and, even though I understand that gameplay-wise it adds replayability to LS3 maps, I don’t share this idea. Some of those builds are highly overturned. Yes, I’m looking at you tempest, daredevil and ranger. Condi tempest and condi daredevil are braindead for the damage they make, and condi ranger’s rotation is much easier to pull off than engineer’s that the difference in dps doesn’t even matter.

DPS build’s benchmarks are still too far away from each other to choose a build for the utility it brings, that would be perfect balance. Finding a pug group with one of the lower dps options, even if viable, is hard since the difference is big enough for some people to care. For example, pugging as a condi revenant or as a DH must be freaking difficult right now.

Support roles: Nothing has changed since revenant faded away from the meta. Tempest, originally a support specialisation (or at least imo), has been neglected; and Ventari’s changes haven’t created a spot for revenants as raid healers. No other build has been created or buffed to provide might or quickness at warrior or mesmer levels. And that’s because the support roles we currently have are quite difficult to beat:

• Druid’s Grace of the Land is enough to even not consider other options in most cases. But not only do they have that buff, they have Sun Spirit, Frost Spirit, Glyph of Empowerment, Spotter… Revenant found a role as hands kiter in Deimos (stable until a better option is found since 0 dps) and Tempest is a less desired hands kiter or a healer for Matthias. Both classes can kite Cairn just fine, but a druid is usually preferred.

• Though I’ve heard many times that chronomancer’s alacrity contribution to the group in terms of dps can be calculated and, therefore, a build that provides quickness in levels similar to mesmer but with more personal dps could be an alternative, no one’s gonna refute that alacrity brings fluency to rotations, and some builds like engineer or ranger won’t trade it so easily. And no one’s gonna beat them at taking given the amount of distorts, blocks and F5.

• EDIT. Seems like PS have found a challenger in condi tempest with scepter. Probably people won’t agree, but if I had to give an efficient might generator build to some class, it wouldn’t be the one with more viable options according to qT when some are struggling to have even one.

So, here I am asking whoever reads this:

1. Don’t you think that condi thief and condi tempest (specially the first) do too much dps? I don’t have issues with eles and thieves having slightly better dps because of squishy, but this is too much imo.
2. Would you balance so that builds based on difficult mechanics (not only taking into account difficult rotations) had better dps than a build that only uses skills after cooldown?
3. Would you balance the game favouring power dps in terms of maximum possible dps but being more difficult to achieve and keeping viper as an easier and more stable option? As far as I’ve been told, condi dps is easier to maintain than power.
4. How can the support trinity druid, chrono, warrior be changed into something more flexible? Wouldn’t giving class specific buffs (even with other name) to other classes feel they are the same thing e.g. GoL to revenants? Don’t you feel some classes have too many buffs?
5. Would you create another roles that needed different gear/utilities/traits? They’d probably fall under support roles, but different from healer/quickness/might.

EDIT: please, don’t come at me with “you can clear raids with any composition that has a minimum of sense”. I’m already doing that.

My goal is to talk about builds in the range of optimal to “better than viable” and to discuss what to change in viable builds to make them at least "better than viable. If you want a graphic example about this:

• optimal condi dps -> condi thief.
• better than viable condi dps -> ranger or engineer.
• viable condi dps build -> condi revenant.

I’ve also reformulated some of the questions for better understanding.

lucadiro.4519:

Honesty for me, as I already said, condi rev problem is not the bit lower DPS, that is still very solid, but instead the fact at least with Power revenant, or other DPS classes, you have a bit more of flexibility talking about rota. tion while with condi rev you are forced Just to do your rotation.

Well, this depends on how much dps are you willing to lose. You can change venom enhancement for demonic defiance for the ability of giving resistance when needed, since venom is the least effective condition in this build. You can change jallis for glint and provide some protection, this is only 1k dps loss without taking into account AP. Regarding CC, I’d say mace/sword could be a very good option, since the pull applies chil and raid groups have stopped relying on surge of the mists. And as I said earlier: this build doesn’t lose as much dps in raid scenarios comparing to golem as other builds, because of torment.

Edit: seems my rotation is based on a false premise. I now realize that axe 4 costs the same amount of energy than axe 5. Back to the golem.

30k is not negligible (considering the build doesn’t loose as much dps as other builds in real scenarios because of torment and that they’re still trying to figure out runes, stats and sigils) and it can apply resistance when necessary to take some pressure off the healers loosing “only” 1k dps.

Sure, it’s very selfish (only if AP goes wasted because of full condi subgroup). And yes, it deals less damage that other builds for the same spot. But this also happens with guard (less damage than other options, only provides occasional aegis and stability) and there isn’t a bunch of people campaigning against it.

I know I’m gonna use it with my stable raid group, I just hope more people looked on the bright side and didn’t deny revenant players the opportunity to use it.

Edit: I just wondered when has this game become a math challenge where everything is measured in still golem dps. Having fun in a videogame? How ludicrous.

I hope it’s a mix of the last two options.

I’m usually quite a fan of your revamps of trait lines, you know, but I feel this one is a little meh. PvP stuff would work great with other legends/weapons because its centered around torment (and we expect shortbow to have it), but PvE traits are quite focused in blasting fields and I don’t know if Shortbow/New legend will have some blast finishers. Also, Defy Nature has an “issue”. Would you expand the trait with every legend that is added? Or does it only work with core legends?

Maybe Toxic Shock could be a blast finisher (I haven’t understood so if it were) so you have at least some synergy with the trait line while you’re not using mace?

Otherwise, Anet could hire you since you at least try to create synergies and you have eagerness to change wrong-designed trait lines, in comparison with their own skills team.

Nothing in the leak relates the holosmith with fire. Well, not exactly true: one of the traits has an image of a lense focusing light like children used to do to burn ants. But at the same time, there’s one cross that ressembles too much a healing cross. Anything else is related to light and energy.

I’ve looked at the image again today and the character is wielding a one-handed hammer made from light in it’s right hand. So maybe thats the reason he’s taking his sword with the left hand?

Edit: Looked at the image again. Seems that what i thought that it was a one handed hammer is a shoulder protection made of light.

As I said in the other post, I hope the artists have taken the artistic license of drawing a left-handed character, and therefore its main hand is the left one.

A sword with healing skills would be original af. All the healing is tied to staves in this game. And a supporty spec is clearly what engineer lacks: condi is best dps on golem, zerker is good enough and so easy you can probably outdps tempests in a pug party:

I wouldn’t say tempest is a disaster. To sum up, its problems are:

-Powercreep. Well, every single spec has got the same issue at some point except scrapper in pve and druid because it’s so different from base ranger. So it’s not a tempest-only thing. Is it bad? Sure. Is it a reason to call tempest a disaster? No, unless we recognise that every spec has the same problem.

-Too similar to base elementalist. But on the other hand, look at the rangers forum. Everyone complains about druid because they didn’t want a spec so different from base ranger, that had support but just very passive thanks to spirits. Its mechanic isn’t related to pets at all. I’ve always felt that specs should differentiate a lot one from another, but it seems it’s just an opinion.

-Overloads don’t work as a proper new mechanic. That’s true, but again, it’s not a problem that tempests suffer alone. Daredevil introduced a lot of “on evade” traits, but visually its new mechanic is just evading. Scrapper doesn’t have a proper new mechanic, just a reviving/downing helper.

I’d say is not a tempest issue, but an Arenanet-handling-specs issue. In the pve side of things, i wouldn’t complain too much (not i’m not saying you shouldn’t complain at all) about an spec that has its uses in raid terms. Scrapper, Reaper and Herald have it worse by far.

Well, according to the leaks necro’s torch goes in main hand, but that’s quite difficult to believe. So maybe they’ve taken the artistic license of drawing left-handed characters.

On the other hand, offhand sword is quite utility and defence related (revs, mesmers and warriors have a block) and to me the spec is related to support or healing (tanking would be another option, but scrapper is quite tanky in its design ) so it would somewhat have sense.

Personally, I prefer mainhand sword because if it were offhand it would be tied to mainhand pistol and it is quite condition related and because of finding a use for shield.

My bad, happens when you read so fast you’re not paying attention.

If the new spec is dps focused, why would we be expected to give quickness? Tempests or condi rangers nowadays provide little to none support. Chronos will still have a place, but for a different role .

CrimeMaker.8612:

Can someone give me a TLDR? and one thing I would like to mention is that the tablet should just tether to player.. It should just automatically move wherever the player does beside having to keep clicking it to the location you want to move it

That would destroy the current viability of ventari in wvw. I don’t feel micromanagement itself is the problem, not being rewarding enough for such a hard way to heal is. If you don’t like micromanagement, play druid or tempest.

Changing topics, I’ve been toying with the idea on a Salvation’s revamp based on blinds and a minor trait such as:

Blinding truths: effects that should happen when a foe misses an attack due to blindness take place even if stability or a breakbar prevent attacks from missing.

Then you can have a very interesting trait line that increases the blinds you produce and ties foes “missing attacks” to effects like boons, heals or other utility. Correctly crafted, would provide some mechanics to Ventari without a need of some f2 (a proper f2 would help Ventari too, tho)

.

What about keeping deathly chill as it is until Anet releases a condi spec and buff other reaper and core necromancer traits until a power build is viable? I understand that reaper was somewhat meant as a power spec but necro’s most desired skills are related to condi manipulation and epidemic and condi reaper’s traits synergize so well around applying chills.

It’s a shame that, apart from micromanagement, Ventari’s Tablet has no mechanics whatsoever. The design choice of not tying weapons to legends to provide build diversity has resulted in no interaction between them, and Salvation only offers lackluster options: either tablet fragments that appear wherever (even if Ventari’s kiting builds use them) or an increase in healing output while changing legends, only worth when you change from whatever to Ventari since weapons don’t have many healing skills.

Even when they added alacrity to Ventari (that only benefits the healer himself because of making tablet skills spammable) they didn’t try to create a mechanic for it. Just spam Natural Harmony. And the effect is purple as if Ventari were some mesmer.

Many people will disagree but… I feel there’s almost no difference between “mechanics that require a specific class” and “meta raid requirements”.

For example, KC and Gorseval require a great dps check. Might helps archieve that if you have a constant and many stacks and from what I know only warriors can provide 25 reliably (and tempests to some extent or so i’ve heard?). And they don’t only provide might, they have banners and EA. Therefore, I haven’t seen any videos of raid groups beating them without a warrior (but if there are, I’d be glad to watch them). And that dps check is actually something close to one of their mechanic, so… no one complains about being forced to take TWO because you can damage the boss and try to beat him tho it’s quite probable you won’t archive it?

On the other hand, boon stripping can be done with chrono’s sword auto. Can necros boon strip faster than a third skill in the chain or strip multiple boons at the same time ? (I really don’t know) Because I’ve never seen a necro in blue Guardian because of having troubles with the stripping the boon.

And I reassert my previous statement: group support spec would be a nice change of path for selfish necro. I hope it comes some time, and I hope it is based in debuffs instead of HoT’s group buffs meta.

Murdock.6547:

Akeno.4962:

I think it’s even easier: boss inflicts a condition to one person in the party and has to be transfered back to him, meanwhile he is invulnerable. Do it quite often, in a random time so that’s unexpected. Necros would shine attracting the condition from its party members and sending it back easily.

no. just no. absolutely not.
this would mean that ONLY necro would be good here. or builds would have to gut themselves with sigil of transferrance.
that’s now how anet makes encounters; nor is it how they should.

Yeah that was a bit of an overkill, i don’t know what i was thinking of. But it’s also true that it’s a shame that already ingame implemented mechanics have so little room to shine in pve.

And yeah, Necro could use more support.

Omatsuri.4250:

Is the goal to create unplayable content for any profession except necro?

I think the point is having some bosses with different mechanics than let specific roles shine. There are already bosses where pure dps (Gorseval, KC), projectile hate (Sloth, Cairn), sustainanility (Deimos), boon stripping (VG) and even confusion and torment (Matthias, Cairn) are needed or sought after. So why condi manipulation can’t get the same treatment? That would put Necromancer or maybe even Condi Rev in a good spot, but that doesn’t mean that new specs could fulfill the same role.

But if the fight can go on without dealing with the mechanic, why implement it? To this day, I still don’t understand why green areas in VG can be distorted. But then again, I think they learnt, looking at Deimos.

I think it’s even easier: boss inflicts a condition to one person in the party and has to be transfered back to him, meanwhile he is invulnerable. Do it quite often, in a random time so that’s unexpected. Necros would shine attracting the condition from its party members and sending it back easily.

hash.8462:

Well, when ANET introduced Pinpoint Distribution in march I havn’t seen any complaints about the fact that Condi classes had been strengthened…
Anyway, I was just proposing a slight change to the trait, not substituting it with a new one.

Also, I think the worst thing to do is to empower (again) the greatsword, come on, no other weapon in the game has so many effects condensed in it (#4 is stronger than 2 utility skills!); any big change should be useful to all necros, not just to reapers.

There are many changes that can be done to buff self damage, but as I said earlier, this is not the result I’m trying to reach with this suggestion; my intention was only to make this trait useful in any game type.

It’s true that the introduction of Pinpoint Distribution powercrept condition dps, but engineers kinda needed it to be desirable for a party, given that it’s the most difficult build to play. And it’s true that I think that class specific debuffs should be introduced to counter the “everyone getting a party buff” feeling.

But I also feel that just powercreeping Spite is not enough, since Reaper (Necro’s supposed power spec) lost it’s identity (chill) to a condi build. Above 50% hp, dagger and greatsword are almost tied in dps just based in autoattacks, and below 50% greatsword wins by spamming gravedigger. It needs more mechanics. The proposed change to Soul Eater would create some mechanical aspect where dagger #2 would be worth it and would synergize with Blood Magic and life siphoning wells, that are quite important to a power Reaper.

So I guess we could have both changes implemented and that would be great, but if I had to choose one, I’d obviously choose anything that implies mechanical depth.

Wondrouswall.7169:

• Soul Eater: Greatsword skills recharge 20% faster. Gain a stacking buff when you siphon or steal life that increases damage by +1% and Gravedigger’s damage by an additional +1% per stack. Buff duration: 8s. Stacks up to 10 times.
  This creates synergy with Blood Magic, access to Dark Fields, and other Life Siphons to link up a traitline that already has Necro’s unique group buff. It also retains the “Soul Eater” thematic aspect and current emphasis on Gravedigger while using Life Siphon as an activation for synergy rather than allocating it to a single move.

I must say I love it. Makes sense creating a real mechanic revolving around a necro’s life siphon.

On the OP point, I think it would power creep other build like tempest or thief. I mean, top dps classes don’t provide any substantial buffs, so if power necro had similar personal dps, they wouldn’t need to provide party buffs. I think DH levels of dps + utility coming from Blood Magic should be enough to be very competitive. So, what about changing that toughness reduction to be reflected into necro’s own skills?

Haleydawn.3764:

Engineers also don’t have a great power build in comparison to their condition build (I play power scrapper because it’s hilarious, but it’s too weak to take anywhere outside of openworld PvE)

According to qtfy, tryhard zerk engineer has 30k of dps, but autoattacking with bomb kit + tool belt skills reaches to 25k or so and is quite easy to perform in raid environment, so i wouldn’t say it isn’t a great power build, it has less potential dps but it’s easier to use than tempest or new guardian sc/t+gs builds. Tons of cc, some group healing, pinpoint distribution for condi mates and a good dps, imo.

Carighan.6758:

Akeno.4962:

Second, i think you’ve missed the point why you don’t see ventari healers (at least in raid environment). The class needs some kind of unique group support to start competing with a druid.

Actually, doesn’t that still miss the point?

If your healers are only competing with each other in their non-healing support, then isn’t the requirement for healing too low to even require much external support in the first place?

That is to say, isn’t the encounter/combat design the first big problem to worry about here, not actually demanding proper, targeted, focused and designed healing taking place, just “spew some heals to top people up”?

I mean, yes, it’s a combat design problem, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Imo, druids are only wanted above other healers because of their buffs. One evidence is that I’ve been told that taking a tempest healer to Mathias instead of a druid makes him much easier, probably because their constant healing is much better. The other is that i’ve healed in VG many times before the last patch without many problems.

In conclusion, yes its true that it is a design problem. Are they changing it? Not probably, since they last gave one to engis. Therefore, either druids buffs are erased or nerfed (and their healing buffed) or both revs and tempests need unique boons.

But isn’t Chronomacer meta specially because of quickness? I mean, alacrity is a cool buff to the party, but isn’t quickness the real deal?

Regarding druid, i think that a nerf is in necessary in order to keep all healers (or future healers coming with the expansion) viable.

I love your redesign, I just want to make two suggestions.

First, keeping the tablet in place using project tranquillity when you change legends should be basic, not something you need to trait. This would reduce the punishing decrease in hps and healing options while you’re not in Ventari.

Second, i think you’ve missed the point why you don’t see ventari healers (at least in raid environment). The class needs some kind of unique group support to start competing with a druid. In my opinion, the best way to do it is to introduce a debuff you apply to the boss so that all the breakbar damage incoming is increased (longer cc in pvp). So you find a group with enough dps but has troubles ccing (i’ve seen it quite a lot in VG, for example), you change a druid for a revenant.

Why a debuff? In order to provide the effect to all the squad without turning it into something like a 10 man basilisk venom. Why a buff to cc? Because Salvation is quite soft cc oriented and a dps buff is “against lore”. Devs want to make it a must in raiding teams? Increase the breakbar health of every boss 2, 3 or 4 times, you just gotta change some numbers.

I don’t know, isn’t there a way to push them into reworking revenant? Like a signature collection or something?

Malchior.5732:

Some people are advocating for a Revenant to kite one of the new raid bosses, so maybe that will be Rev’s new PvE home for a bit, but we’ll see.

Actually, you can kite the first and the forth.

I guess kiting two bosses in a very healtank way its not what we expected revenant to do, but if those niche builds are good enough to people to acknowledge them, maybe the “rev is ded” meme fiesta stops.

Celiea.3461:

Only way to know that is Anet responds and tells us what they are planning with the Revenant but like a lot of other game companies they no longer listen to their players in the forums.

Why? Well I can say on every forum people put in negative posts, complaints, bickering, and most of all trolling. So I believe only way for Anet to read the post and responds if theirs info on to why theirs something wrong with the Class aka Profession explaining why it doesn’t work. Then someone replies with more good info than replying and putting down the main author of the thread.

I really do like to hear responses from Anet about what’s going on with the game but since a lot of negative posts Anet won’t respond to us.

Last time I participated in this forum, around 8-9 months ago, most people were suggesting changes in a very positive way, many of them changes were absolutely better than the revenant we have now. But they butchered the profession by not giving it any attention other than nerfs, so a very negative environment replaced it.

Let’s be clear, the balance team doesn’t communicate. They barely participate in AMA’s, and I haven’t seen anyone replying in this forum except for one time in the bug list thread.

We are now a jack of all trades, master of none that doesn’t bring the power dps / raw healing of tempest, nor the condi dps of engineers, our equivalents in leather and cloth armour. They have 4 options:

-Rework base revenant so that it can work without Glint. From my point of view, base classes should be at least somewhat usable. This doesn’t happen with revenant because it was designed with Glint in mind. And look us now, from a pve’s point of view we’re dead now that Glint is dead.

-Rework Glint. It would probably limit our build options and we would be sensitive to Glint nerfs, again. I’ve always thought that Glint should be a glue that strengthens every other legend, maybe they thought boons were the way to go.

-Rework the entire class. This probably would be the best option, imo. But I don’t think they’ve courage to accept that the class isn’t good enough in anything. Keep the legends theme, change the mechanics and abilities.

-Do nothing and wait till e-spec. This is the worst option. Build diversity wouldn’t exist, since (again) the new legend would be mandatory and the class would remain dead until the next expac.

So I hope that you’re wrong and that they’re not taking the last option. I’d love to see a thoroughly thought balance patch that brings life to this class, but somehow I doubt it, considering the balance team has avoided any meaningful buff to revenant. The class can’t go worse (well, maybe some nerfs to hammer for wvw builds), so changes are welcome imo.

Jack Skywalker.5674:

Get a friend to use as a guineea pig, lol.

I meant the math part. But I’ve just found it.

Healing 1219 with Ventari’s Will and 1036 healing power means:
1219 = 805 + 1036 * coeff
coeff=0.4

So, my Ventari’s will doesn’t seeem bugged.

How can you check which healing power modifier is being used?

In an 80 level map with 1036 healing power, Ventari’s will is healing me around 1300 hp, much more than tablet’s passive healing that is around 400 hp. Since it’s healing me, no healing output modifiers are being applied.

Well, i guess I’ll stop with the suggestion posts, given they actually killed revenant.