Guild Wars 2

I played the Revenant in 4 Conquest matches yesterday evening. I lost every one of them. In the third match, a player refused to play, and instead spent the entire game sitting at the spawn point and flaming me for bringing the Rev into PvP. Ordinarily I’d say I’d never deserve that kind of shabby treatment, but given how weak the class is, I was literally disadvantaging my team just by playing it.

When I look at MMO classes, I like to consider each one having four areas of potential strengths and weaknesses:
1. Offense/Damage
2. Defense/Healing
3. Mobility
4. Utility/Crowd Control

All of the other GW2 classes have the potential to excel in most of these areas, depending on how they are built. At the present time, the only thing the Revenant can do is heal.
1. Damage is an order of magnitude lower than other classes (there are many threads around where people much smarter than I have done the math).
2. Its lack of reliable CC compounds its too-long cast times, so it’s hard to hit with your skills.
3. It has only one stun break (with an extremely high cost) and very little mobility, so there’s not much you can do to defend yourself from damage spikes/burst.
4. Micro-ing Ventari’s tablet for healing and survival leaves little opportunity to do anything else with the class, and given the tablet move time, cast times, delayed effects of utilities, and lack of stun breaker, you’re dead if someone bursts you anyway.

I’m all for autosummon, but I’d prefer if it didn’t follow you, or at least not close. I like having the ability to position it away from myself to heal allies and CC.

Something I’d really like to see would be when you cast the spells which involve the tablet, they also trigger around you, simultaneously. I think this would shore up some of the problems people seem to be having with the Revenant and would let you make some pretty cool plays, too.

My overarching problem with the Revenant is that everything just takes way to long. Cast times and animations are so vastly in excess of what they should be, especially given the underwhelming effects of most of their abilities. But being able to have the tablet utilities trigger on you would go a long way to alleviate some of the delay. I can’t count the number of times yesterday in PvP that I was getting conditioned or spiked and had to wait for the tablet come over to me before I could cleanse and heal; by then it was much too late. If I can use the abilities on myself without having the tablet around, it would make the class much more survivable.

I was also thinking such a mechanic could enable you to do some pretty unique stuff. If you stayed on top of your tablet game and were able to multitask well enough to keep it close to you, you could reap the rewards of having the tablet utilities trigger twice on you and your nearby allies, one cast centered on you and the other on the tablet. The numbers would almost certainly need to be adjusted for this to be balanced, but I think it would be a fun bonus to reward adroit tablet use. Furthermore, if you were away from your allies, you could move the tablet to them for remote healing without having to give up all of your own personal survivability. You could even support in split-party fights, keeping a group of allies around you for healing and the tablet away to support a different group.

I agree with literally everything in this thread so far. I’m glad it got Roy’s attention. Of all the Rev revision threads out there right now, I think this one has the most thorough and best thought out suggestions.

I’ve been playing Thief a fair amount in sPvP and in non-dungeon PvE, and I’ve found that the Shortbow weapon is really not to my liking – I usually sub it out for P/P instead.

However, what I’ve been reading on builds for the Thief in WvWvW and Dungeons seems to indicate that the Shortbow is an absolute must-have. I can understand some of the reasons why – after all, the Shortbow does bring the Thief’s only AoE, the Thief’s only 1200 range attack, a poison field, a free shadowstep, and an on-demand blast-finisher. But I’ve found that in all of the builds I’ve made in which I try to use it, it doesn’t do me much good beyond the utility of the poison field and the shadowstep. At least for me, I have found that the autoattack does very little damage, and that the flight time on Cluster Bomb makes it really difficult to hit with at the range I typically use it. For whatever reason, I have such a hard time using the Shortbow effectively that I seem to gain both damage and survivability when I substitute it out for P/P.

What I’m wondering about is whether I can keep playing my Thief Shortbow-free, or whether I’m going to need to take it and learn to deal with it, particularly in dungeons and WvWvW. Again, everything I’ve read points to the Shortbow as being a necessity. Will I drag down my party in dungeons if I don’t take a Shortbow? How about in WvWvW? If the answer is “No,” are there any tried-and-true Shortbow-less builds out there? If the answer is “Yes,” what should I be doing and how should I be building in order to make Shortbow more effective?

Thanks.

I’ve been on both sides of the thief, and I do think backstab thieves are a bit OP.

Playing against a thief, out of all of the classes that can burst you down quickly, I find thieves are one of the hardest to avoid, ‘cause you don’t know where its coming from. You can see a warrior brazenly barreling down on you from miles away, but its quite a bit more difficult to spot and anticipate the burst from the stealthed thief that can shadowstep to you. Yes, moving around makes it much harder to land backstab, but it can be difficult to know where to move around to, since after all, you don’t know where the thief actually is. The whole experience has a very out-of-control, Russian Roulette feel to it, and that makes it not much fun.

Playing as a thief, pure glass mug+cnd+backstab was the easiest and most effective build that I explored. Sure, if I failed to hit with my backstab things could go south pretty fast, but that’s only if I got overconfident, misjudged the situation, and tried to stay in against a foe who could burst me back or chain cc me. As long as I didn’t make any glaring mistakes, I could nearly always escape with my life – I might not get a kill, but I could ensure that they wouldn’t get one either. Stealth, SB 5, and the Shadowstep utility could get me out of all but the worst of situations. This is what would happen if I failed my combo – this was the worst case scenario.

Most of the time, I completed the combo without a hitch. This often resulted in instant death for my opponents, but even when it didn’t, they had so little health left that they couldn’t put out enough damage to take me down or have enough time to heal before I finished them off, and that is of course with my extraordinarily glassy build. Few people could avoid the backstab, and when they did, it looked, at least to me, to be just dumb luck – they arbitrarily moved right instead of left, or backward instead of forward. (However, I will concede that maybe some were very skilled and knew exactly how I was going to come in through stealth for the backstab and how to outmaneuver me, in which case, if you guys are out there, please please tell me how you do this).

All in all, this particular build appears to me to have too little risk to accompany its rewards, and it takes a lot more skill to counterplay than it does to play.

I don’t think the answer is to nerf the thief, though, or at least not exactly. Stealth doesn’t seem to be the problem – in fact, I think it represents a brilliant and challenging mechanic for the thief to work with and against in order to get its biggest burst out. I don’t believe mobility is the problem either – the thief’s mobility seems pretty on par with the elementalist, which I actually believe to be a very well-balanced class.

I think the problem is this particular build just does too much damage, too quickly, too unpredictably. But straight up nerfing the damage doesn’t seem to me to be a good option either. I got an appreciation for this when I started trying other builds with similar stats but different trait setups. Playing D/D, at anything less than x/30/x/x/x, I felt like I wasn’t doing anywhere near enough damage – I’d do some, but not enough to kill them before they healed or bursted me down. I’d lose a majority of my fights. But something changed once I got the executioner trait – I’d go from frequently losing to constantly winning. I believe the key to fixing the thief to be more fun for everyone is in retooling the percentage damage trait bonuses they get at the end of several trait lines. Without these traits, many builds feel too weak, which decreases the number of viable builds for the thief in general. With the traits, these same builds seem to be a bit too strong. I imagine that boosting base damage and toning these traits down would both reduce the overpoweredness and increase build flexibility.

Just my two cents, though.

Bloodbath.7084:

Mesmer: VERY strong.

Yes, i used caps there on purpose. Anyone that does not see this as the very best prof needs to properly play one. In the hands of a good PvPer – and i think of myself as one, with over 17 years of PvP on all genres on my belt – it’s a mean killing machine. And support machine. And escape artist. So powerful it hurts.

Guardian: Very Strong

Not a mesmer, but still a very powerful profession with a wide range of viable specs.

Thief: Very Strong

Properly played thieves are not only very dangerous finishers with huge burst but also amazing at evading/harassing and closing distances aswell as very good stompers and rezzers. Anyone that thinks they’re not top notch needs some serious lessons on combat dynamics.

Elementalist: Strong

While the Ele bunker specs (and downed state) are a bit too strong at the moment they do tend to be dead rather quickly when specced otherwise. Can be deadly vs some combos but facing a player that knows the class they can be easy prey as DPS. Hybrid specs can be a real menace in the right hands though.

Necromancer: Balanced

Necros still have some issues that need to be addressed but overall it’s a class that’s very close to being balanced.

Ranger: Balanced

Before the latest patch i’d disagree but from my experience since the 14th the Ranger has indeed been buffed to a point that i’d say it’s close to being balanced. A lot of issues still with pet pathing, bugged abilities and perhaps the class that needs the more focus to play and be successful with as pure DPS.

Warrior: Wouldn’t call it weak, but a bit limited at the moment. Their ability to quickly shift the weight of battles can be decisive when played properly but i’ll admit, could do with a bit more variety.

Engineer: Since the latest patch i’ve faced some really dangerous Engis and since i don’t play the class, i’ll leave it to whoever does to judge.

5 star post.

I want to say that I’m certainly not a pro by any stretch – I play entirely hotjoin sPvP and only just hit rank 30, my play is no doubt quite scattered and clumsy compared to those with more experience or practice, and I usually run really janky non-meta unorthodox builds. So I don’t know how much it counts for, but your post captures my pvp experience just about 100% perfectly.

Good mesmers are just mindblowing. Playing against a good one feels like they’re doing everything at once – what a good player can do with a mesmer is just jaw-dropping. Top of the pile for sure.

I have great success with my guardian as well. I’ve actually played her the least of all my characters, because I find her almost too easy – she’s got enough cc, mobility, damage, and defense to make most encounters a piece of cake.

Thieves, I’ll admit, still ruin my kitten consistently. I have a hard time tracking them through stealth even though most of my builds have an aoe emphasis. Their plentiful gap closers, built in evades, and massive burst damage mean that I often take much more damage from them than I can deal. I can defeat them on my necro by spamming marks, and I can escape them on my ele with my mobility, but all of my other setups are helpless against them. What bugs me about thieves is that unlike the mesmers where talent really shines through, I think I lose to terrible heartseeker spam rank 5 thieves almost as often as I lose to awesome rank 40 thieves, which, while I haven’t played one myself, strikes me as indicative of a balance issue.

I run an ele as my main. I think they’re in an interesting place. D/D is on the strong side, but I’d hardly call it op in comparison to some other classes. Other weapon sets for them strike me as balanced to on the weak side. (Eles do still have unparalleled condition removal and excellent mobility on their worst setups, though). I’ve seen D/D as a really effective bunker, and while they can go burst, its just not as good as what other classes can do, and it sacrifices much more in terms of survivability. Staff is an excellent support weapon and it can do just barely decent AoE damage if you can get into position to do it, which, as an ele, you often can. Its cast speeds are prohibitively long, though, and I’d really like to be able to play the staff playstyle without feeling locked into support. I don’t really know what scepter and focus are for, and I believe I’m in good company on that sentiment.

(Just for reference, I play a tanky dps staff power cantrip ele, a hybrid axe/staff necro, a hybrid shortbow/greatsword trap ranger, and a power burst sword/scepter meditation guardian. I also played a power rifle/grenade engineer, but I’m having some trouble finding a new build and niche for him post grenade nerf).

Atomic Sharks.7250:

the secret of offensive staff ele is finding a build that works

If you have a working build, could you share it?

Right now I’m running a 10/0/0/30/30 build with focusing on stacking multiple boons through traited cantrips. I’m running Runes of Lyssa and full Berserker gear.

I find I’m decently survivable – I can survive burst with the protection from cantrips and can remove conditions with the traits from Water. Chain CCs and quickness bursts can still cause me trouble, especially if I’m not ready for it, but I think those are problems for anyone.

My problem is I don’t do a whole lot of damage. Even going full berserker and with all of my buffs up, my fireballs hit for less than 1k against most targets, and I can’t get more than 2k damage out of my biggest damage spells, like Ice Spike or Lightning Surge. The damage from lava font could be impressive, but even with all of my CC spells, I can’t keep anyone in it for more than one or two ticks.

Am I playing wrong? Does my build need work? I’m eager to get some criticism.

I have this problem as well. That .5 second stun at the beginning of pistol whip is just brutal, too. I’ve tried to counter with the blind with Dagger 4 or the daze from Warhorn 4, but more often than not, it just gets interrupted by the next incoming pistol whip.

A few nights ago, I was in a game with this guy running Haste, Devourer Venom, and Pistol Whip. He’d stealth, apply the venom, Haste, and then pistol whip 3 times for 26k+ damage in about a second. Couldn’t dodge, and stun breaks wouldn’t cure the immobilize. Completely ridiculous.

Just last night, I ran into a thief who had a perma-stealth build. I didn’t even know it was possible, honestly. It was nuts. He didn’t do much damage, but he was literally always in stealth. He’d stealth, come out for an attack or two, and then vanish again. I tried direct damage and stacking conditions on him, but he’d just stealth, and when he reappeared, the conditions would be removed and he’d regained most of his health. We fought for about 3 minutes before his two warrior buddies showed up and finished me off. I’d say he was in stealth about 90% of that time.

TL;DR: Whining about how thieves are OP. Nerf plz.

Anyway, here is my sPvP build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQRBIhtG1IjW6e2mzG/miYSB38GUh3HVAZUPc36QHA;T4Ag1CtoyxkjIHbOuck5sEZkxJjtIvMmZA

I wanted to go for a hybrid might stacking build that spends a lot of time in Death Shroud. I don’t use staff ‘cause it doesn’t gel with my Necro playstyle, though I’m starting to think maybe I should anyway. This build handles a majority of threats with ease, though Hammer Warriors, Hammer of Wisdom Guardians, and the aforementioned Pistol Whip Thieves give it a lot of trouble. Please, please critique.

I just had the same problem. I think I only lost about 15 silver before I realized what was going on, though.

The one on filesharing works perfectly – thanks for putting it up again. I think you’re probably right about google’s coversions – I’ve had this sort of problem with other google spreadsheets before.

Anyway, this is by far the nicest gear calculator available. I’ll definitely be watching your threads in case you have the time to update.

I don’t have a lot of excel knowhow (or time, either, these days ), but if you ever need someone to do some data gathering for this, I’d be more than happy to help out where I can.

This looks amazing – thanks for your hard work! I’ve wanted something like this since the beginning of the game, and its awesome to see one that looks this thorough.

Unfortunately, even when I download it and open it in Excel 2010, the drop down menus do not appear.

Anybody know what might be causing this?