I’ve been using a condition thief in spvp lately. I have so many dodges I feel indestructible. I can survive a 4v1 long enough to get my teammates to come to my aid (if we have voice coms up).
I still run and decap, but I don’t have to run from 1v1’s… or sometimes even 1v2s. The damage is nuts.
I love thief.
Exactly.
Multiple things should be viable. I’m not saying “all builds should be meta”… I am saying that there should be more builds that are almost meta.
I take non meta builds from other classes into raids, and pvp alot. I understand they’re not the best, but I do well with them.
You can take a condition damage elementalist into raids. It’s not the best possible damage. But… it is viable. Hence why it’s not a “meta” build, but it is viable
Rev, does not have this luxury in the way that nearly every other class (other than arguably mesmer) does.
Folk alwayso seem to misunderstand what we’re asking for here.
Give me a reason to use Jalis in pvp.
Give me a reason to use the Hammer.
Give me a way to apply conditions at range.
Ect.
This skin is upside down.
Quite simply, every class uses a dagger point down. the kama would be used pointing out of the top of the hand, not the bottom. This has the effect of making most classes look as though they are punching, or otherwise badly misusing this weapon.
Simply flip it to be “blade up” and nearly all the animations will be fine.
I don’t buy that this is impossible, or likely even hard, as you could have an “invisible” weapon held normally, and the kama model flipped and attached to the hand point on the skeleton.
This skin looks amazing on your hip, and stupid when used.
What are the odds we can get that flipped around there Anet?
I agree with your proposed nerfs, other than facet of light. That should stay at 1. Otherwise, golden.
Seems like they could just code confusion to only proc on the last hit.
Yeah, this trait seems…. bad. Bummer because it doesn’t look bad on paper.
I feel like we ought to add main hand axe, and off hand mace.
MH Axe, ranged condi aplication tool.
OH mace, ranged intereupt, only source of bleeds.
Both should operate at 900 range at least. This would help pve greatly, and would break the “Mallyx uses mace axe… so, we have to stay true to lore” argument.
Also, this post isn’t really about “can you do unorthodox things with Revenant?” It’s about “can you do more than one thing in high end content?”
The answer to the latter question is no, sadly.
To me, build diversity means META build diversity. Because in meta, only Glint is acceptable (I’m talking about pve). Core legends aren’t good enough to be meta. They need to be buffed. If all core legends were good enough, you’d see tank, condi or healer heralds.
My demand is not that they change how skills are related to legends and you can choose only two, but that they work some trait lines (salvation i’m looking at you) and weapon skills, buff core legends or even revamp a legend’s design (like they changed Mallyx after beta, but now performs poorly) to create a variety in meta builds for any game mode.
I don’t see how that would work, irregardless of class because in that sense, Meta is just the optimal build for the situation. I mean, Meta build diversity … what does that even look like? Is there any class in this game where Meta build diversity exists?
As far as i know, each class has an optimal setup and rotation for whatever content you want to do. It’s not like I can choose one of a few builds, get whatever kind of gameplay I want AND be the optimal performance … that’s a fallacy in this game, just by the way it’s designed.
I think what is meant here, is that there ought to be a build that can be used in any given situation without herald, and not be trash.
Going pvp? Herald, and Shiro or Mallyx depending on wetter of not your using conditions.
Going wvw? Herald and Shiro or Mallyx. Potentially Jalis, if you front line, and want to spam it’s elite skill.
Going Fractals? Herald, Shiro.
Going Raid? Herald, Jalis. And even here, Jalis is only taken because the hammers add a small (very very small) dps boost, and the Chrono is giving you quickenss, so no Shiro needed.
So what we want out of Rev are just a few bullet points.
-Pve, (open world, fractal, and raid) viable conditions specs that can make use of mallyx.
-Pvp, viable bruiser and bunker builds that use Jalis.
-WvW Rev isn’t really in a bad state, but the changes needed in the other two game modes, would seriously benifit build diversity here in unpredictable ways.
-Core Rev builds at all. I understand that the class was released at the same time as herald. And that’s a shame.
What needs to be done?
Glint stance needs a minor nerf. (What exactly I don’t know, but it would be useful if only to encourage the community to make core Rev builds for a few months.)
Jalis needs and overhaul. I proposed how to do this in the ‘Jalis in SPvP’ thread.
Ventari, cool as it is, is completely one dimensional. A simple solution here: make the utilities do some other effect when the tablet is not spawned. Give a non-dedicated healer a reason to take this legend. Falure to do so, means only raid healer revs (which we don’t even want in their current state.) Or WvW backliners (which are uncommon) will ever use it. Give spvpers, and non-raiding pvers, a reason to use it.
Create cross legend synergy in traits inside core rev.
It’s a laundry list to be sure. But all of it is needed. This is not a list of buffs. It’s a list of development changes needed to get the class out of beta.
A few thoughts on fixing it to be more useful in SPvP
My question here is, would these changes break Jalis is PvE, or WvW?
Heal- reduce cast time by 33%, cleanse condis during cast in three very fast pulses, allowing counterplay. If it was interrupted on the 2nd pulse, you would still clear 2 condis, but miss out on the 3rd, and the heal.
Road- AoE places faster, it should expand to its full length 33% faster. Apply 2 stacks of stab per pulse, and destroy projectiles. Reduce energy cost by 5.
(Also, pulsing protection, as one of the previous posters mentioned may be the better approach than projectile destruction.)
Hammers- increase the self healing component. Rather than being projectiles, make the effect pulsing, and unblockable. Also, when ending the hammer effect, they should fly out from you as projectiles, dealing a 1sec slow to enemies and a 2sec protection to allies they strike each bouncing once
Chain- reduce the energy cost by 5. Using this move in PvP tends to kill your energy, and takes away your other resources…
Elite- Reduce energy cost to 30, remove area affect unless cast on the road. Increase self duration to 8sec. If cast on the road, AoE for 5 sec.
I don’t think these proposed changes are too strong. But what do you folks think?
(edited by BrokenGlass.9356)
So a Google search for ‘Revenant hammer pvp build’ or ‘Revenant Jalis pvp build’ turns up nothing other than outdated beta weekend stuff.
I’ve used a Jalis/Glint “bunker” build with some success in tiers up to sapphire. It does, however, lack some of the burst, and gap closing ability of Shiro. And using Jalis/Shiro never seems to have enough survivability. So much so, that the popular meta power build fails to ever even use to use it, despite it being our only real reliable condi clear. (The heal clears 3, and the elite can give you, if traited, 50% damage reduction. The hammers a further 20%.) Instead we go with invocation to drop 1 every few sec, and leadership runes, to drop 2 every 45 sec.
Yet, Mallyx/Jalis is unviable as a condi build. And Shiro/Jalis is unviable as power. Glint/Jalis isn’t bad, but looses a lot of damage output and utility.
I guess, what I want to know boils down to a few questions…
Is there a situation in SPvP, where you would use it?
If not, what makes it unviable?
Is it, ‘fine like it is, but not for SPvP’?
What could be changed about Jalis to make it more viable?
Has anyone had good luck using it?
If so, what build was it… and how did you apply it?
I checked the wiki on the confuse on blind trait.
It has no icd for that part. There is a 10sec icd on “blind a foe you evade or block”
As for generosity: if you are constantly critting, then you are constantly transfering. The icd is 9 sec. So, that might make them a lot less good. I honestly am not sure, haven’t tried it.
Also, I haven’t tried the inspiration trait line in game yet. Been theory crafting at work today.
I just can’t imagine loosing, ‘sharper images’, blind on shatter, and confuse on interrupt from dueling.
I may try it tonight tho.
Would the chrono’s healing well (wich removes 3 condis) and sigils of generosity do the trick? (60% chance to transfer a condi on crit)
Inspiration looks cool and all, but I’m having trouble dropping dueling, that blind on shatter… confuse on blind synergy tho….
OP, I love your original suggestion. A few small tweaks that would make it more functional.
Phantasms gain durations while this spec is active. Using the f5 anti-shatter cuts duration and damage by 1/3rd.
Shatters only ever shatter 3 illusions at a time. Shattering puts a 3 sec global cd on other shatters.
Both the new weapon phantasm… a “3/4 size risen giant with a big cleave” takes up 2 illusion slots.
The “giant dragon with huge aoe cone breath attack” takes up 3 illusion slots.
Both apply additional effects when shattered.
The new weapon does high damage and applies both condis and does direct. (Think… similar to the revnants spear).
As for the poster who mentioned phantasm being a source of too high a precent of our damage…
The original design is to have either a phantasm build where you don’t shatter… or a shatter build where you don’t care about keeping phantasms up. Chronomancer allowed for a ‘phantasm shatter’ build with chronophantasma. There’s no need to rebalance things generally, we just need phantasm to change targets once their target has gone down. When they die our dps gets locked behind cooldowns. Or perhaps, targeted enemy deaths reduce phantasm cooldowns some. I don’t think a total rebalance is in order.
If that’s the case, you should just ask yourself a few crucial questions.
“How often does the shield block save my bacon?”
Never-pistol
Often- next question
“Could I use ‘magic bullet’, blurred frenzy, or distort to save it in those cases instead?”
Yes- pistol
No- next question.
“Do I leave enough time for the pistol phantasm to unload before shattering?”
Yes- use pistol.
No-shield.
Jus’ sayin.
Looking at a chronomancer based shatter mesmer build. Metabattle says I want inspiration after the obvious chrono/illusions.
Is the inspiration line just for the cleanse?
Why not dueling?
For that matter, why not chaos?
Help?
So basically… it’s not worth the trouble without taking Mallyx. Or at least, not worth it without condi damage on your ammy. Gotcha. And it competes for burning on elite… so if you have a condi damage ammy, and are using Mallyx, you ought to use the burn on elite trait.
Is there any circumstances under which you should take PP?
Just wanted to get so feedback here…. is this a good way to deal with the heavy condi meta at the moment?
I know the corruption line isn’t all that great generally unless your using Mallyx. But, could we take this line just to help deal with condi pressure?
I’m asking in the context of a power build generally…
I know the Glint Shiro build is the bee’s knees at the moment… and loosing devistation, or invocation for this trait line is probably a bad idea… but, is it worth it to bring corruption for PP, and a destroyer ammy?
you can use a “demolisher” ammy. although the loss of crit damage is very noticeable.
It seems like you are passionate about this build… And that’s good! You should play what you like and let the haters hate…!
But can I give two quick suggestions? You should really drop Death Magic for, I dunno, I guess Blood? The thing is, your death magic traits are not giving you very much of a boost. Deadly Strength and other such abilities scale off your base stat, so it doesn’t factor in any toughness that you’re getting from other skills or allies, and you’re not running any base toughness aside from the base base. Unholy Sanctuary’s healing is abysmal (Blood would fulfill this gap even when yer not in shroud) and the auto-shroud will definitely get you killed at least as often as it saves you. I guess the cleansing your getting from Shrouded Removal is really all your utilizing from the whole trait line. I dunno, prolly worth swapping to Blood for the movement speed alone.
Second, you should try out Valkyrie’s Amulet… You say that you like to spend as much time in shroud as you can, and the hp on Valk will let you stay in shroud a lot longer and since you’re already getting 50% crit from Death Perception, it’s not a super huge loss by losing the Precision.
First, I would like to take blood here, honestly. Having the movement speed on dagger makes my second weapon set into a mobility set, which is very nice. However the tier 2 traits are worthless for what I’m doing. Warhorn cool down is nice… but I use that weapon set for downed players, and having an extra interrupt ready sooner is really nice, no doubt… but I have to be way up close to do it, and this build is all about range and kiting (unless I’m eating some fools corpse for life force.). Tier 3 blood, can provide some nice healing for team fights, or life force to stay in shroud for longer, although that draws conditions onto you, and thus forces you to use your heal on exiting to dump conditions.
Death is a linchpin of the build. Shrouded removal is a reliable way to deal with condi pressure, without having to blow the big clear. Deadly strength is 70 power out of shroud, and 140 in shroud… that’s nearly a signet of spite. The other two traits just aren’t worth it, so yes… this trait is a filler. But it does more damage… so why not? The third tier, Unholy Sanctuary never gets you killed, you have to change how you think of shroud. (…and yes the self heal from this trait is abysmal…) instead of dropping into shroud to save yourself, you let folk kill you. Often they will drop a killing blow, and turn their attention immediately, because they know they just ended you… then your in shroud with a full LF bar, healing just enough to cover your kitten . Then BAM BAM BAM, they die. Unholy Sanctuary is the reason to take death magic… it allows you to compensate for using a berserker ammy. (honestly if there were any other with that much precision and ferocity… I’d be thinking much harder about ammy choice)
As for Valkyrie, I’m willing to test it, but 50% crit in shroud vs 97% crit in shroud… is pretty huge. guaranteed 5k’s are a lot better than 2k’s possibly 5’ks… with as slow as the shroud auto is, you need to know that the next hit will hit as hard as it can. If it doesn’t, then with how glassy the build is, you can die because you can’t out sustain.
See… I understand the point of the previous posters saying the build is too glassy. The idea is that you do SO MUCH sustained burst damage, that your lack of survivalability is irrelevant, they just die to fast. You can’t underestimate the power of showing up to a team fight, hitting blood is power, then immediately popping lich form. Using your 2 to apply a huge vuln stack to all of them, then hand out 11k damage to each fool. 1 shot, next target… 1 shot next target. Let your teammates clean it up… and I can hear all of you now… “but lich form is a huge ‘KILL ME’ sign” and it is… you let them and drop from lich into shroud, and hit them for a string of 5k’s… they will be pushed onto the defensive and usually you can burst through everything… including warriors and revenants.
But hey, all this aside. I never said its “the best build ever” I said, “I love this build” its really fun. And it’s not reaper… which means its not another anime-scythe-swinging silly melee necro.
I have restructured the utilities a bit, after playing the past two nights.
Now I’m using,
Blood is power,
Spectral walk,
Spectral armor.
This gives me an extra stunbreak. Also, a huge might burst… which is especially nice to pop just before going into shroud, or lich form.
I don’t miss the stability. I just kill downed state players rather than worry about the stomp.
As for simply saying that berserker amulet with death magic is bad… I just don’t buy it. I lean on that trait alot. And I find myself showing up to team fights, bring down multiple fools before I’m noticed, and once I am… my life force bar saves my kitten , kills the enemy, and gives me the time to heal back up. But hey, that’s just my firsthand experiance.
As for “you should just play condo necro” I do. I have two necromancers. I played old scool terrormancer at launch, and loved it. When reaper came out, I dug right into it and I do play conditions reaper. Honestly I have more success in this power build than I do as conditi reaper.
And before you just assert that “you must be bad at conditions necro then.” I’m not. Other than this power necro build, it’s easily my best class/build in spvp.
Why is corrupting boons so superior to stripping them? Without condition damage, those condis are useless. As for cc condis, I have them on my bar, and can apply them myself.
If I can strip your defenses, then apply a huge stack of vulnerability (which they won’t waste their cleanse on) then I have a big 25 might stack… and I can multi-critical you at 1200 range…
What’s bad again?
I can kite around, or survive through cc, the vast majority of the time.
Is my experience here a fluke?
It feels like we ought to have more elite specs. If that the goal, we need more choices. I know they are coming. But what are the odds we will get them in a random patch.
That would be a start. Tho, we still have no synergy between legends for condis. And no condition traits in any other line besides corruption. And our corruption traits, have an imbalance in duration that fails to synergize with itself. And we have some clearly weak traits.
The legend itself is not bad, if the rest were fixed.
If could even be targeted, and not a projectile at all.
I follow your point.
I just fail to understand how a player of that skill level would require the builds off metabattle.
I’m not saying my build is the best. Perhaps it’s not. But I doubt that everything is so unbelievably narrowed to an elegant game of rock paper scissors.
Is it really so narrow at that level of play, that a single trait choice can be the difference? A single utility choice? Is it really so limited that the only necro is conditi reaper?
Why is that?
Bad balance?
Or does the community only trust the builds of tournament winners?
Are you saying it is impossible to counter a meta build?
Or that those counters are only available on patch day before they become meta.
You’ll have to pardon my ignorance then, what exactly is different beyond other player’s twitch reaction speed at high level pvp? I’ve watched endless hours of youtube of top end players, and much of the time I find myself thinking… “why did he do that? wouldn’t that moment have been better served doing X or Y?” or “why that trait choice?” and while I admit that I’m by no means at that level of twitch reactions… when watching the video’s I’ve got all the time in the world to analyze… and it feels like its just ‘faster’ than what I do on a daily basis.
I called this anti-meta, because the top end players tend to use the same 9 (or perhaps 11 if were being generous) builds. Just about 1 per class… and when you see X class, you know it has Y build on it… the counters are all fresh in your mind. If you were good enough to take your build into high end pvp, and do what they are not expecting… they will melt before they have any idea how to deal with it.. because they haven’t spend endless hours saying to themselves “now when i see them pop this move, interrupted with that skill..” and so on. Its a wrench in the works, so to speak.
Isn’t the attitude that no other build is viable just perpetuating an unnecessary stereotype?
Why assume my heal WILL get interrupted? Isn’t it possible that I lock down an enemy with fear to create a window… or start the cast while they are in a dodge-roll?
Some of the reasons that you listed as to why its bad, don’t hold water in my mind.
Can you explain why they do?
Again, I admit that I’m not some legendary pvper with my own youtube channel, but I have been playing since launch, and have more time spent playing necro than any other class… and I have every class leveled and geared.. multiples of my three favorites, just so I don’t have to swap builds. Perhaps that means little… but as a guitar player I can tell you, its not about how fast you hit the same notes as everyone else, but how elegantly you use them.
Help me out here, what am I not seeing?
Or is it just that the community overlords with youtube channels have spoken, and now everyone that visits metabattle have decided power necro is no good?
Signet of the Lich:
Passive: increase toughness and vitality by 300.
Active: gain 50% life force, and gain 3 stacks of stability for 10 sec.
Well of the Vampire.
Large AoE (time warp sized) pulses a large life siphon, and weakness. Deals long AoE chill on ending.
Really, it just needs to be much faster. Or, if it must be a slow projectile… then instant cast. But the life force generation is the staple. You take it to build a huge quantity of LF very quickly. The pull is mostly designed to combo with spectral wall.
So, I stumbled into SPvP last night as I often do. I decided, as I’m having so much fun with power necro in pve, I’d try it in pvp. At first I just clicked in my raid dps build. And it rocked supprisingly hard. So I tweaked a few traits, juggled utility skills to make more sense in pvp… and I found that it really rocks hard. It can blow off the big condition spikes, and it can provide big power spikes to drop an opponent very quickly. Very, very quickly.
I’m sorry condi Rev… was that your burst? 4k, 5k, 5.5k, 6k. Now I’m going to slice your body to bits for life force. Thanks for the battery man! Oh, hello daredevil, knocked all my health out… what’s this? Feared, drop out of shroud, consume conditions, lich form. 11k, 11k. Have a nice day son. Ahhhhh, hello DH trap spammer…. spectral wall, spectral grasp through it, DS, fear back through the wall… 5k, 5k, 5.5k, 6k. Have a nice day.
This build feels powerful, and has a seriously supra sing amount of survivability for a zerker build. It has tons of boon stripping, focus 5, axe and dagger 3. It can soak lethal hits from death magic, and refills life force extremely fast due to spectral skills, and the weapon combos it uses.
A small point I need to make about the axe. If your complaint about the axe is “it does crap damage” you are using it wrong. Axe isn’t for builds that do direct damage with weapons. It’s for filling life force and boon stripping. And same deal with focus.
On your axe/focus weapon set, you use a simple LF building rotation. 4,2,5, auto to build vuln, NOT to do damage. If they have boons, 5,3,4,2, auto.
On the dagger/warhorn weapon set, it’s far more simple. 5, auto. That’s it. Use 2 as an extra heal should you need it. 3 as a boon strip and imob. 4 is an interrupt. Usually I only use this set to 5, auto a downed player to death to refill life force. Also, as the builds only stability is from lich form… don’t bother stomping unless your the second one to the party.
DEATH SHROUD! Your bread and butter. Get in DS. Fear them, auto them to death. Most folk only take a few hits to completely obliterate. The damage numbers are just silly. 3 is your big combo setup. 4 can be used to clear minions and weapon summons, or in large team fights. 2 is only to close range on someone you have just downed to dagger and refill life force. Ignore your 5.
LICH FORM! Better death shroud. 2, for vuln, if they’re not already at 25 stacks… then auto. The damage here is so sick, at 25 might and vuln (which will probably be the case) you can critical for the entire health pool of thieves and guardians… if they didn’t stack vit.
Basically… I love this build.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQRBHbhG2IHN0bjF3grNwhjjfhCm0BwHIfhnudpZxYEsA-TJRBwAUOJAAeCA02fgcZAA
This would allow torment users to be more effective against stationary bosses in pve, simply by maintaining a debuff.
But less effective against moving bosses (as well as mobs). Swings and roundabouts really is it not? I think it’d be silly to have the same condition doing two opposite things over two different game modes.
How would this idea be any less effective against moving bosses? You could still apply debuff condis to them, thus they could still take double damage.
Also, in pvp/wvw… if torment is designed to punish those that ignore condis, making its damage bonus contingent on debuffs (more conditions) accomplishes this rather well.
If I doll out a 20 stack of torment on a stationary target, then chill them… it’s as though they were moving. This would work in both pvp and pve.
I don’t know if this would be a nerf to torment in pvp or not… but I believe it would still be extremely functional.
Also, to the poster who mentioned HoT maps, trash mobs moving in open world content has rarely been the issue… the issue is in group content where you can just “stack and whack” a boss to death… as in, nearly every boss in nearly every dungeon. The vast majority of fractals… and at least a few raid bosses.
Could we normalize torment damage in pve, by removing the double damage while moving concept, and changing it to double damage while the enemy has a slow applied? This allowing cripple, chill, imobalize, and slow to be the triggers for the damage bonus?
This would allow torment users to be more effective against stationary bosses in pve, simply by maintaining a debuff. Also it allows better party synergy… see a big torment stack? Toss debuffs, even if the bar is broken.
Just make torment do full damage moving or not in PvE and everybody, not only revs, will be happier.
While this is a good idea mechanically, it destroys the flavor of torment. Do you have any ideas on how to do this, but make torment different from bleeding? Or would it just be the “medium” damage condition? If so, what about that cant be done mechanically with only bleeds and burns?
I wonder if removing the ICD is too much, as we can drop a nice big 30 stack of torment… and I got that high with only 78% duration on… that would mean a nearly equal set of poison stacks would it not? Now… that big load of poison would be short lived.
But… even a 1sec ICD would be a huge buff, that wouldn’t break things., this way Mace three and Axe 5 would only do 1 stack each, and not 3. but it would still line up with the pulses from the Mallyx elite.
My only other thought here, is that while it would make Venom Enhancement really solid, it doesn’t address the big issue on Condi Rev… which is, NO condis when out of mace/axe, or when out of Mallyx…. two things we are always forced to do sooner or later. (torment on crit counts as bout as much as sigil of earth, which is to say, not much.)
is there a way we could change Venom Enhancemnet that gives condi’s when not in mallyx, and regardless of weapon set? i dont nessecarily have a good way to do this in mind, and perhaps this trait isnt the place to adress tht problem. im jus’ sayin.
Add fear sigil to the list, please.
agreed
You have to ask this about spear or polarm what roll will it fill that is not already filled? Most of the time weapons like these will be melee but a bit longer ranged so say 300 with some leap mobility and or throwing effects. For the most part GS fills this roll already for a lot of classes.
What the game is missing for weapon class is say a physical dmg close ranged fast melee. Daggers are close to this but often are more magic weapons and maces are slow. So i say weapons like 2h2 and or fist weapons or 1h club weapon would fit.
There a lack of a magic mid ranged weapon (maybe spears can fit this but i do not think polarms would).The trick is to sit down and make a list of weapons and the rolls they fill and see what is missing when coming up with a new weapon type for gw2.
I disagree with this assessment. The weapons in gw2 rarely feel like how one would use that weapon on land. Perhaps the 1skill is on that track… but lots of weapons skills are just “spells” that fit.
Nero dagger 2, and axe… and greatsword.
Guardian sword 2,
Ravnant sword 3, and 5
Engineer hammer 2, and 4.
There are more examples, but we wouldn’t be breaking some kind of thematic feel.
However, spears and be thrown, which gives us a niche that doesn’t exist, except for rangers MH axe. Which is a melee weapon you can also throw.
Also, tridents are the ‘thrusting’ 2 hander. Hammers are the ‘swinging’ and greatsword becomes the ‘hybrid’.
This could be revnants ranged conditions weapon. Also could be 1 handed on some classes, like guardian having a hard hitting 1 hander to pair with shield, for pure thematics.
What would be really cool is, if every class got either spear, or trident depending on what they can use underwater (btw, we would need some work around for engineer here, as it gets neither) then, have each class handle it diffrently. For example. Elementalist might use trident as a two handed melee weapon. Necro may get main hand spear, or two handed trident. Guardian having 1 handed trident, or 2 handed spear.
Also, it ought to be added to the base class, rather than as an elite weapon. Otherwise we’ll wait forever for them to design elite specs, then everyone and their kid sister would suddenly be wielding spears and tridents exclusively.
As for the revnants idea above… I love it. That should be a base revnants legand. And honestly, giving the revnant a new trait line that is base class would be totally fine. They can still only use 3 at a time, and the Rev needs work. A new legend and trait line would make up for having 12,(17 after the change) utility skills to everyone else’s 20 something.
Ahhh, true. There should be that too.
Thanks, can’t believe I missed that.
If you can already get confuse up to 100% with expertise stat… as you can with torment or any other condition, traits or no…
Then not having the option simply makes gearing a character based on those conditions harder to do, and requires a greater lean on Sigil of Malice, Giver’s weapons, 4 Runes of Nightmare and 2 Trapper. Doing this sacrifices a whole lot of damage.
Neither Torment, or Confuse are OP. If any condition is OP it’s Burning…. and it’s just not. Burning has this option… and it gets a (nearly, some vipers needed) full set of Sinister to go along with capped duration on all classes with a burn duration trait.
There isn’t one. Why not? It could benefit Mesmer, Necro, and Revenant. It’s the only condi duration sigil, that does not exist. Any chance on us getting access to it anytime soon?
This is the closest I’ve gotten to a workable condi duration layout…. and it overcaps torment by 3%, poison by 10% and leaves burning at 90%
…and sacrifices a lot of condition damage to do it.
Yes, yes I know, I could use Sinister for better damage. Not a change that is relevant to the topic if I do.
Venom Enhancement provides a 50% duration buff to poison, which we only get from the third swing on mace, and once every 20 sec from this trait.
Yearning Empowerment provides 33% duration buff to Torment.
Burning is our second most frequently applied condition… and we have no burning duration trait.
There is no Torment duration weapon sigil.
How are we supposed to stack duration from items without overcapping something?
Is it worth it to overcap?
Are we supposed to raise duration close(ish) for everything?
Is it only worth it to cap torment? Doing so only requires food, and runes of tormenting. and that… overcaps by 8%
Focus on burning, requires runes of Balthazar, but that leaves torment severely lacking.
If we use viper’s, giver’s, and sigils of malice to cap burning, poison is massively overcapped, and torment is slightly.
Is there a solution, or is this bad design?
Shouldn’t the amount of torment duration from Yearning Empowerment, and Venom Enhancement be either buffed, OR nerfed to an even number for synergistic build reasons?
Shouldn’t we have more sources of poison application?
Shouldn’t we have access to a torment duration weapon sigil to even out these numbers, to work with runes of Balthazar?
I know I’m asking a lot of questions here… but it seems we need to.
Why does no other class have this issue? (they all at least have their primary two conditions with their own duration traits, or those traits break the stack cap… like Necro’s scepter trait… or, a weapon sigil can even out the traits and allow for even stacking.)
The problem with condi rev is that Mallyx had just a half rework. They changed the legend skills but didn’t change the traitlines.
Original condi Mallyx was amazing. Pretty strong, with a higher risk but also a higher reward. Then they changed it because for them the mechanic of giving conditions to youself to make you stronger was a necro thing. So they rushed and slapped a half rework and called it done. And what we have now is this…thing.Just bring the old Mallyx back and give rev a ranged condi weapon option and you’ll see that they could be as good as any other class.
I was assuming that we are keeping the new Mallyx rework in my assessment, but that could be cool… but I agree with the developers here… self condi’s is a necro thing.
I’ve played a condi build on every class in one way or another, and condi Rev is severely lacking.
Lets talk about the good things first.
It has torment. A serious boatload of torment. Its got the most torment out of anything except… condi shatter-spam Mesmer. . Rev has some sweet and unique moves to apply condi’s. And the Mallyx stance is cool as hell… And look, that’s a great idea, but its got to be the only condi class with NO bleed access… not that bleeds are so overwhelmingly good that I miss them on Rev, mind you… but it has none. Lets look at what exactly makes condi rev lacking.
-NO trait synergy: You can do some cool things with the corruption line, but none of the other traits make those traits feel worth taking.
-NO weapon synergy: If you use anything other than mace/axe you loose out on… virtually all your dps. Staff, Hammer, MH sword, OH sword, and shield just don’t do any condis. This is a problem that no other class has… basically every class that can swap has 2 condi quick bars… even Elementalist has fire and earth.
-NO ranged option: Beyond Mallyx’s Banish Enchantment… and, really… like anyone is gonna spam that standing at range while doing nothing else? Your raid, fractal group, or whatever… might as well have brought anyone else.
-NO Legend synergy: Swapping out of Mallyx just kills condi output, unless you’ve got your mace out. But, due to the above points… What do i do when I’m out of energy, and at range? Just go AFK, grab a soda from the fridge?
So… a few simple solutions that come to me right off the top of my head.
Herald:
-Replace Harmonize Continuity with “Shattered Facets: releasing a facet apply 2 stacks of bleed for 8 sec.” (AoE stun break is cool, but everyone brings their own stun break in content where that is relevant)
-Elder’s Force: also increases Condition damage by 3% per boon on you.
Invocation:
-Fierce Infusion: also does 1 stack of 10sec torment in AoE at 300 radius
-Ferocious Aggression passive trait: Also gives a 10% condition damage bonus while you have fury.
-Replace ‘Incensed Response’ with “Perpetual Narrative: For each second you remain in a legend beyond the first 5 sec, apply 1 stack of 3 sec poison to your current target.”
Rolling Mists: Also grants “+50% condition duration while under the effects of fury” (This effect would stack with the gear cap, like the Necro’s scepter trait does)
Corruption:
-Venom Enhancement: internal cool down reduced to 5 sec poison stack duration decreased to 5 sec.
-Frigid Precision: also adds 50% chance to apply poison for 5 sec on chill. (This allows the sword, Condi Pressure, allowing swap options beyond my edited hammer below… which becomes more condi focused with this trait)
-Replace Maniacal Persistence (not that this is bad, but please… show me one power build where this is needed… especially with that 40% fury in invocation…) “Daemonic Rebellion: for every second not in Mallyx, apply a stack of ‘vile pestilence’ to yourself.”
————-“Vile Pestilence: for each stack on yourself apply 1 stack of poison for 3 sec. when invoking Mallyx. max 10 stacks”
Devastation:
-Targeted Destruction minor trait: also increases Condition damage to targets with vulnerability
-Jade Echo: also increases condition damage while downed by 25%
Hammer:
-Hammer Bolt: make this a 2 attack chain skill. second attack applies 1 stack of 2 sec burning.
-Coalescence of Ruin: Reduce damage by 10% first impact applies 1 burn for 5sec. Second impact applies 2 burns for 7sec. Third impact applies 3 burns for 10 sec.
-Drop The Hammer: Reduce damage by 5%, applies 3 stacks of burn for 5 sec.
I freely admit that these may not be perfect solutions, but they at least address all of the issues without kicking power, tank, spvp, and wvw builds in the nuts.
Anyone have any thoughts? Or better ideas? I hope to grab the attention of the Rev developer, so if anyone has a better way to implement these ideas, or if I’ve gotten durations or whatnot wrong. Please help me find the right balance.
After all, considering the current state of condi Rev, we’re almost certainly not going to see anyone say, “condi rev is good enough.”
(edited by BrokenGlass.9356)
I agree, all the condition would be nice.
Plague 4- transfer 2 conditions in aoe, like improved suffer, apply confuse for each conditions transferred.
Plague 5- aoe slow and taunt+1 stack of torment per condition on them. Like an aoe scepter 3.
(edited by BrokenGlass.9356)
ahhhh i see, decimate defenses… the crit on vulnerability trait… not interested in critting out of shroud honestly. if in not in shroud, im building life force, then getting back in shroud. also, RS isnt great for direct, if it had life blast, you bet id take that traitline. but i cant take it and keep original DS. if i could…. this thread wouldn’t exist.
The elite trait corruptor’s fervor is goes off on your vulnerability stacks, proving more toughness to be converted to power.
Like many similar traits, the additional toughness from Corruptor’s Fervor doesn’t actually count towards the Deadly Strength power conversion.
i appreciate that actually. didnt know. ill have to reevaluate that a bit.
as for decimate defenses…. checking the build calc now, mayhaps it can be improved.
but kitten ed if im not having fun without reaper on power necro.
definitely using reaper on my condi necro. but that’s not what this post was about.
I’ve got 2 necros, I run one in full zero top to bottom, and he was my main long before HoT, all the way back to launch. The other condition, much newer (thanks 80 boost) I was so excited about the reaper spec. The new shouts looked awesome, and so did the greatsword. I was a bit iffy on the design of Reaper Shroud. But the traits looked so kitten sweet that I had figured out several sweet builds before the livestream ended. I’ve played every permutation of power necro, minions, shouts, vampire and every strange hybrid I could come up with. Even the few things that have been on MetaBattle as the patches have evolved. Tonight I dropped reaper, to try my refined pre Hot build. Spite/Soul Reaping/Death. And it rocks. My dps puts my reaper build to shame. I have my eye watering big critical numbers again. I have a reason to use main hand dagger again. I have survivability again. Lich form feels like an elite again, and not just an excessive cool down on a minion sunmon. I ran fractals, and I could watch my big gnarly crits chopping of chunks of health bar left and right. It finally felt like I was the reason mobs were going down again. I actually got to use my focus offhand again. It was amazing. Reaper just doesn’t do that.
So for folk wanting to do something other than the viper horror build, I thought I’d share my build here in more detail. Because it’s fun, the rotation is smoother than any reaper build I’ve messed with, and well… I missed hitting for 15k on axe 2. I missed hitting for 13k on dagger 2. I missed hitting for 10k in shroud, and I really really missed hitting for 12k lich form 1 spam with quickness from a friendly chrono.
The whys, use axe focus as your man damage set. Open with 4, 2 to build life force. Then drop blood is power for the might, then well of suffering for the huge damage and vulnerability. If @ 100% life force Shroud and autospam until you reach 50%, of not use dagger warhorn 5, auto. Rinse and repeat. The rest of your kit can be used situationaly. Break bar attention on warhorn 4 dagger 3, and shroud 3 and dagger 5. Dagger 2 makes a great self heal, and can be used at range while closing to melee range for LF building. The auto on axe sucks, but when on axe, get into shroud asap.
The big critical numbers are silly.
Death magic traits are only for exploiting as much power as possible. Drop condi in shroud give you a reliable cleanse, so you never have to worry about Blood is Power’s self bleed. Power from toughness and doubled in DS, is just a nice solid boost to damage. The elite trait corruptor’s fervor is goes off on your vulnerability stacks, proving more toughness to be converted to power.
I missed this build. I’m both glad to have it back and using it again. And I’m also bumbed that reaper doesn’t hold a candle to it.
(edited by BrokenGlass.9356)
Simple fix. Deathly Chill applies 8sec of bleed and 5sec of torment on chill.
First icd are tool like any other but just like any other tool you need to apply it in the right context icd’s have ruined traits as much as balanced them. In this case an icd on chill application seems like a very inapropriate move. You put an icd on a very specific trigger itself which I consider overkill. The only excessive case of chill application lie within the shroud on very specific and obvious skills/combos all on a cooldown of 30 seconds.
For plague, there is an easy solution for that: just remove the stupid self application condis. In fact remove them from all the corruption skills and MoC (which is the most backwards designed trait ever) a good buff for condi AND power.
Also stack intensity for chill is again not a good idea in my opinion because chill is not designed to be stacked.
The self conditions on corruption skills are a staple, as the necro has so many transfers. So if the plague form is a corruption skill, it has to stay. I like being able to punish folk for trying to condi-bomb me. Plague signet, suffer, dagger 4. Eat that plus everything I can put on myself in the meantime. It can be vicious.
As for the ICD on deathly chill, that is combined with another change. If you just added it to the exiting trait, it would suck so bad nobody should ever take it. If, however it applied say… 4 torment stacks for 5 sec… then making it ICD at 5 sec, would prevent RS5,4, from putting up a 40 stack. This way, if you invest in duration, that trait could maintain an 8 stack at 100%. Without duration, it would maintain a 4 stack. Which I would argue, is a lot stronger than say… 4 bleeds most of the time, and a sudden 10 stack off of RS54. It would make it less of an “oh by the way” trait, and make it a mechanic that a proper rotation could keep going.
However if the ICD or that many torment stacks is still unworkable…. a simple way to fix it, would be add a single torment stack of matching duration to that trait. So each chill does 1, 8sec bleed and 1 8sec torment.
That single bleed stack is just not enough damage, especially when we bleed so much already. If you don’t take it, and take reaper’s onslaught to add more bring from dhumfire, you end up with more damage than you do from deathly chill. Assuming you took soul reaping. And it seems to me, that taking a non condi damage trait line, for one condi related trait, should not be better if you drop the big bad elite condi trait from reaper, to take the obviously power based a tack speed trait.
Yeah, after reading these posts the duhmfire idea was trash. I didn’t think it through.
So far as a minion dealing condis… the torment on auto would probably be better served on bone minions. Or shadow fiend.
Spectral grasp definitely needs a buff… but I may not have suggested the right buff.
I disagree about ICD’so making traits worthless. A trait with an ICD can apply more than 1 stack of condis, allowing for bursts, rather than one long stack.
As for fear being the burst condi… I like it alot, love it even. But if your using it for damage, then you don’t have it for break bars when you need it… also, the damage on fear trait competes for the corruption skill trait… which makes you have to weigh them against eachother. If they moved it to a different tier so we could have both traits, it would go a long way.
I do really like my proposed solution for plague for however. But if not that solution, then we need SOME solution for applying 2 long duration powerful condis to yourself, with no way to drop them in a long duration transform. Also, if your using corruption skills, you will have already used your transfers, and they will be on CD when you get out of plague.
Basically, the only time to use plague is in wvw zerg v zerg, and then only to secure a stomp and blind spam.
Although I like the idea of drawing condis to yourself then having a pulsing condi aplication… the idea of “condi dump/transfer in plague form” is needed, in some form or other.
Another way to fix deathly chill… is to allow chill to stack intensity. Then it can get a damage component base for everyone, scaling on power (like sigil of hydromancy does…. dmg only on application) then have deathly chill make its damage scale on condition damage, and add a damage over time component. Then it’s damage output would be more like that of confuse, medium burst on application, followed by a weak damage tick over time. This would allow the 5,4, RS combo to “overstay chill” and do a big burst, making RS work as I assume it was intended.
Not gonna happen.
Yes your probably right… but before I posted the odds were 0. Now they are greater than 0… because now it’s possible a developer may actually read them and bring it up in a design meeting… unlikely? Yes. Impossible? No.
No reason not to discuss if the community likes the concepts.
A few notes on my intended implementation.
Deathly chill, ought to have a 5 sec internal CD. With 3 stacks of torment for 5 sec. So a person with no duration investment can add 3 torment stacks… but a person with capped duration investment can have 6.
Dumfries applying to the 2 also gives a condition reaper a reason (other than a gap closer) to press it. Although the duration on the burn may have to be reduced to balance this.
Spectral grasp… is underused and we need a reason to use it… it feels like a natural fit with reaper, especially if my other changes are considered. Chill, torment, and yet more torment and pull? Sign me up.
Rise! Would get a permanent place in the viper horror build.
And plague form, taking conditions, but not transferring them is the balance to being able to hand out huge stacks. Doing it, will almost kill you, unless you drop back out and cleanse yourself… which works beautifully withe consume conditions… another corruption skill.
Synergy, synergy, synergy