Guild Wars 2

Anet I’d like you to disregard everyones opinion about said stability changes. That’s what I’d like to say, of course this isn’t realistic. Neither is people giving feedback without looking at the greater scope of it all.

Even though stability has stacks now as opposed to the non-stacking-stability we once had, with the recent change to only remove a stack with a cool down of 0.75 seconds combined with all the boon duration that is currently in the game, stability is at its strongest right now. For example, with a combination of various sources of boon duration – i.e. Durability Runes (20%), Facet of Nature (50%), Concentration stats (x%) and Sigil of Concentration (33%) – you can stack well over 100% of boon duration (I’m not sure if it is intended that we are able to stack over 100%). This mechanic enables us to run more than double of the duration of Stand your Ground (=6 sec duration base, 24 seconds cooldown with current meta build due to Pure of Voice), which means theoretically a normal melee party with 2 Guardians can have a 100% uptime (2x >12 seconds) of stability by just rotating Stand your Ground. Since we cannot remove these stacks with an organized ‘CC-bomb’ anymore due to the recent changes, the only counter to this is random boon conversion, which is not very strong due to it being random. On top of that target limits were introduced to hard CC that was previously uncapped, for example Static or Line of Warding/Unsteady Ground. It’s clear all of these changes were meant to make stability harder to strip, but due to it’s only hard counter being random (!) boon conversion and combined with the current abundance of boon duration, which you don’t even have to sacrifice a lot for to get, stability is just too strong.

I’d like to shortly expand on the new CC target limits. I believe there was a consensus in the community the (organized) smaller groups could do little versus bigger (unorganized) groups, with this change on top of the stability change said smaller groups are even weaker against bigger groups, I honestly don’t know what to say about that; it’s disappointing. In my opinion a strong mechanic versus bigger groups was coordinated CC, which, as discussed in the last paragraph, is useless right now. Another mechanic was well-timed CC, which due to stability being unforgiving because of the 100% uptime (i.e. you are less likely to kitten up a party’s rotation with an early-ish Static, etc..). Lastly, well-placed CC (i.e. a Static on the enemy ranged as their melee pushes, so that their damage is delayed) is weaker right now, due to a silly target limit. In short, all the changes made bigger (unorganized) groups stronger versus smaller (organized) groups, which is in total conflict with what I believe the community wanted.

When I read the leaked patch notes, I was almost 100% sure they were fake, simply because of the mentioned stability changes, which seemed preposterous. Thank you for taking your time to read this.

I only play WvW. I have only waypoints for dungeons since WvW wasn’t self-sustaining. I have 9 mains, little to none hero points on any them. I have to do a lot of grind, if it’s not PvE then a karma-train, which no one (except national servers x.x) can be bothered to do after 3 years of playing WvW, and that’s extremely discouraging. I’m out of words, really.

Either make WvW ranks retroactive, meaning that you can convert the excess of WvW ranks we veterans have into HP (at a good rate, like 1 rank=1 HP) . This would still discourage new WvW-players though and that wouldn’t help this almost dead gamemode. OR give us access to our specialisations in WvW, like you did for the PvP-gamemode.

Misguided.5139:

Cruens.1640:

I welcome your attitude to my suggestion. I agree there are certain specs that can provide party-wide permanent Fury other than Revenant, I think of Ele’s with the Fire trait-line.

I do appreciate that you’re engaging in a reasonable conversation here. If I came across as defensive/hostile, my apologies. There have been more than a few “nerf Revenant” posts this weekend.

On topic, I agree you’ve got a point with respect to out-of combat. I think slight tweaks to duration would have a much larger impact than one might think (because of F2 duration boost and pulse frequency) and can address the issue. But I reiterate that increasing the cost on the upkeep skills would gut the profession and is not the way to go.

• “slight tweaks to duration would have a much larger impact than one might think.”

I agree.

• “I reiterate that increasing the cost on the upkeep skills would gut the profession and is not the way to go.”

I agree.

• “If I came across as defensive/hostile, my apologies.”

You did, however, it quickly made me realize the idiocy of increasing the cost on upkeep skills, so in that regard your hostility served its purpose. I feel a certain amount of reasonable skepticism is healthy, but sometimes isn’t efficient. The hostile approach you provided me with (A) made me realize something important and (B) got me to write a more elaborate response. In a way your response was more effective than a more timid response, however, depending on the receiving end, in this case: myself, it could have disrupted the discussion.

Kodiak.3281:

I would agree with you out of combat if we were up to 100 energy that +5 would be too much out of combat but by limiting us to 50 that ultimately hard caps how much regen we have in combat once combat is engaged. If you’re running Nature/Light/Darkness and engage you basically got 50 energy before you are either forced to disengage or run out of energy and are sitting there wondering why your skills won’t work (it happened to me last night once haha).

I hate typing coalescence haha! The CORuin question actually can be broken down because the amount of time you add to Boons ultimately should add to performance. For example the -2 regen on Fury giving permanent Fury has a net effect of increasing X DPS. If that DPS number is vastly lower than the damage of CORuin you’re better spamming CORuin than keeping Fury up for your team. The thing is almost no one is going to bother calculating what that DPS increase (certainly not me!) is but it does exist.

That said, we should bring up the cast time! The cast time is important because you regen for the 3/4 of a second it ticks which means the real energy/second of CORuin is 1.81 which means you would have to have -4 Energy to notice energy go down because the cast time allows for that extra smidge of time to regen. The point here really, however, was to show that skills do have an effect energy cost to keep spamming no different than Facets (just generally lower). While it won’t be impossible to conservatively use weapon skills with Facets going, the impact will be felt when you don’t have a full pool of energy due to a lack of energy regen.

CORuin also doesn’t hit as many times over a large area and doesn’t do the 24 impacts of AOE that Ice Storm (Ice Bow 4) does which is what makes it so broken. In fact your average target will get hit once with it. That said the “wave” skills that pulse multiple AOE hits appear to be all the rage in HOT and many classes are getting them as well.

The argument regarding the limitations of the skill was not meant to invalidate how strong it is but simply to show there are times, as you say with most skills, it is incredibly situational. There are many Z axis bumps in WvW. Even a clear ramp can be enough to block how far CORuin goes depending on where you’re at with the ramp. The point here was to show that it isn’t all powerful and does have limitations, especially in WvW. Is catching the dream CORuin 15 hits amazing? Sure, got a few myself. But it’s hardly an every use scenario due to these limiting factors.

• “If you’re running Nature/Light/Darkness and engage you basically got 50 energy before you are either forced to disengage or run out of energy” and “The thing is almost no one is going to bother calculating what that DPS increase (certainly not me!) is but it does exist.”

When engaging into combat I would turn both Elements ( in your case Light ) and Darkness off. I didn’t feel the active part of these upkeeps were of great value - sure Facet of Darkness made provide some counter-stealth play in GvG/Scrim settings, but then again we’re not talking about this setting – so I don’t see me being forced to do something really punishing when running these Facets in the situation you mentioned.

However, Facet of Light is a different story. The active part of this skill, Infuse Light is indeed very useful. So is running Facet of light, out-of-combat and in-combat, worth using, considering that it will force your hand into wasting Infuse Light ( unless you swap Legends, that is ). I don’t think so, I don’t think the regeneration ( ticked 130 for me ) is worth it. With current meta being so burst-y, as in damage and as in healing - think: water->blast.

In your Signature I read you play on NA so maybe the meta is different. This also factors in to how you think about DPS, as I said my current meta is about burst – in my opinion – and thus not about DPS, yours might differ. It is about the highest damage output, as opposed to damage per second, in certain moments. This also explains why I find COruin has too insane damage, since the bursts ( and it even being a huge 1200 range burst ) it provides is spammable. I acknowledge this relation you describe, so Energy to DPS, but it provides little usefulness to my problem with COruin, which I described.

I would like to briefly touch upon a seemingly far-fetched issue. It is nothing new to stack Fury for Melee parties. For example: Warriors used to use, or still do, FGJ, they would amplify the burst of the Melee train and Necro’s – not limited to Necro’s though – will run Rune of the Pack to amplify their damage out of DS/Wells. So what if there would be a spec that provides an easy way to stack 40 seconds of fury and marginally keep it up during the fight? It would negate opting for Rune of the Pack, other than Swiftness during fight ( which, hypothetically, could also be provided by the Revenant ), and would leave them able to pick options that would serve them better otherwise.

Generally, this how this role-system works and why we use it to provide us with optimal performances. My concern is that by replacing this role other classes were collectively exercising with a single class the meta would be even more stale. However, maybe this concern is unwarranted. In order for it to be viable, optimally, it would have to replace one of those roles, but right now I feel it would perform that role too good and leave less ways to diversify different setups people might run.

• “While it won’t be impossible to conservatively use weapon skills with Facets going, the impact will be felt when you don’t have a full pool of energy due to a lack of energy regen.”

I agree. It will be felt and this will be the fun of playing Revenant, constantly micro-managing skills. It will be challenging and hopefully encourage various creative ways to use the class. COruin makes me worry to the extent of how creative the Revenant will be used if this skill is so rewarding and, in my opinion, still not that punishing to use. Yes, it will leave my Energy-pool almost empty, but do realize that [u]when you swap Legends you are at the 50-Energy-threshold again{/u].

• “CORuin also doesn’t hit as many times over a large area and doesn’t do the 24 impacts of AOE that Ice Storm (Ice Bow 4) does which is what makes it so broken.”

I agree. Let’s not forget: you’re not stationary when using COruin, it doesn’t take up one of your utility skills when using COruin and it doesn’t have a 20 sec cool down ( 60 sec effectively, in fights u rarely get to use it twice on the same Ice Bow ). I don’t think we should compare these skills any longer. The point was the similarities it had with it, but obviously it’s not as strong as Ice Bow 4.

• The point here was to show that it isn’t all powerful and does have limitations, especially in WvW.

It does have limitations and you illustrated that well.

Rym.1469:

Hammer #2 strikes in straight line. That means in PvP it often misses. Yes, it does a ton of damage in zerg vs. zerg because I think it’s meant to. Oh and #2 damage after CruelRep proc demands a montage with “Here comes the Boom” song or mlg noscope one. We’re the true snipers with it…but using hammer.

I have a question for you, OP. Let’s put Herald aside for a while.

• How did you find Jalis Legend?

We may all have a minute of silence for Taunt’s cost, but how useful was Inspiring Reinforcement this beta? Wasn’t the Stability too short?

What about new Vengeful Hammers? Have you used them?

And finally – did you use Rite of the Great Dwarf? How was it?

I may not agree with your points about Herald and Hammer, but I’m still interested in feedback on Jalis as this beta nobody seems to talk about it.

I did not play Jalis’ Legend. I decided the Legends that I was going to use on the following question: “Will this be more effective than, and thus replace or coincide with, a role in the current party-setup’s?” I decided that it could only offer something with the Legendary Dragon Stance and Dwarf. I won’t go, unless specifically asked, into great detail regarding that choice, since it’s time-consuming.

I didn’t find myself in a place to use the Taunt ( Forced Engagement ). As u said the Energy cost is really high. I either spammed COruin when I deemed it effective or disrupted enemy ranged with Drop the Hammer and Phase Smash, while maintaining party-wide buffs and using certain skills at the right time, like Rite of the Great Dwarf. ( more on this rotation later on )

Inspiring Reinforcements has been discussed earlier in this post, mentioned as Tenacity Road, I added a comment reflecting we were talking about Inspiring Reinforcements. Now that you do mention it, the stability duration felt short, but I can’t really make a conclusion. As mentioned in my experience the stability didn’t apply on cast, which negated the purpose I had in mind when I used the skill – think: casting it for your ranged at the right time, etc..

Vengeful Hammers, I will explain my general rotation roughly so you can understand why I didn’t use this skill. I pre-buffed my party out of combat, on encounter I switched off several facets, except F2, to allow me to use Hammer skills and have decent Energy-regen. On melee engages, where I expected my party to eat a considerable amount of damage, I pre-casted Rite of the Great Dwarf. I would spam COruin during this engage – thus <50 Energy – and switch to Legendary Dragon Stance when that Engage was over.

In this rotation I switch quite early to Dwarf Stance so that I can provide the Elite Dwarf buff to my allies and so that the cool down of the Legendary Dragon Stance will be up as soon as possible so that, when in need, I could switch to that stance and use Infuse Light. Effectively, my play revolved around Facet’s, COruin ( and Drop the Hammer/Phase Smash, Rite of the Great Dwarf and Infuse Light. Staff is also worth mentioning, in particular: Warding Rift, Renewing Wave and Surge of the Mists.

So in my rotation, which may or may not be as effective as it can be, I had little room to use this skill. I feel that in some cases I had the room to use it and the -20% damage/condi-damage would have offered something, but I didn’t recognize that at the time. If there is a misconception of there being the opportunity to use the skill after or during Rite of the Great Dwarf, one must realize the amount of Energy u have after swapping Legends and using the elite ( = 55-50 ) and the Energy required for casting COruin .

In the context of my rotation you might have realized that Rite of the Great was an important part of the rotation. I feel the party-wide effect warrants the 50 Energy it costs and the casting time is not that much of an issue, in the setting I used it, that is. However, in other settings the casting time might be negating usefulness of this skill - i.e. PvP, small-scale WvW. I found when using this skill prematurely and canceling the cast it did not return the Energy, so using it and getting interrupted would probably work likewise.

“Yes, it does a ton of damage in zerg vs. zerg because I think it’s meant to.” In my opinion COruin greatly benefits line-fighting, if that is ‘meant to’ then I’m greatly disappointed, however, keeping in mind it is designed with all game modes, this might be a fallacious assumption to make.

Eremoo.2785:

As for the dwarf stance, inspiring reinforcement (tenacity road) takes too long to finish the animation and start ticking. For example if you’re running forward and cast it, you only get one stack at the very end of it and it only lasts 1,25 s anyway. I think an increase in animation speed to atleast tick twice would be a good change.

I agree that the Tenacity Road ( Inspiring Reinforcements ) takes too long to pulse stability. Using it as it is now relies on predicting how fights might progress, which is, in most cases, troublesome. I would like to see a stability-pulse on creation. I don’t feel like the speed of animation itself lacks, though.

Misguided.5139:

Absolutely not. Facets do not need a higher upkeep. As it is you can keep a couple running and still have very low energy gain, which feels great. Any more than it is now and it wouldn’t be worth using them.

You want to lower their ability to generate fury, when there are other professions that can provide permanent fury as well? No thanks. Revenant is useful in groups. Let’s keep it that way.

I welcome your attitude to my suggestion. I agree there are certain specs that can provide party-wide permanent Fury other than Revenant, I think of Ele’s with the Fire trait-line.

To use such a spec as an example, consider it in a out-of-combat situation: I feel Elementalists have to do a considerable amount of effort, like working with the blast radius, to keep it’s party-wide Fury up, whereas with Revenant uses one/two upkeep passive that pulse Fury in a 600 radius.

In-combat both of these specs would struggle to perform this niche role significantly more than out-of-combat, I feel that especially the upkeep mechanics way heavy on the Revenant in this situations – you also swap legends, which does not allow you to keep it up, the Ele has some major practical issues in combat – think: ‘proximity’ – in my opinion.

To conclude I think the Facet mechanic works well while you are in combat, but when you are not in combat it only punishes you slightly when you pulse 40 seconds of Fury and about the same amount of Swiftness to your entire party. ( as mentioned somewhere later in the post: it punishes you by less passive Energy regen and it would put your active skills on cool down if u want to turn it off – I don’t consider those skills that useful in these situations – or you swap legends and they don’t get put on cool down )

Kodiak.3281:

I’ve also spent majority of BWE fighting in 50v50 blob setting in WvW as well as some smaller scale WvW as well.

Facets are definitely strong, but there’s already a heft cost. The biggest cost is the energy regen which can be devastating if not managed properly. Even sitting with Nature and Darkness on you’re left with 1 energy regen. Some of the more costly moves, such as Surge of the Mists take huge chunks of that 50 energy you got and it’s very slow to replenish at 1 regen.

Every bit of Energy has to be viewed as potential DPS output. For example you brought up the damage of CORuin. Yea it’s great, but it’s also 2.5 energy a second to keep chain casting it. Is the 2.5 energy a second on CORuin greater than the net benefit of +50% boon duration for your party? Even if the answer is “No” then you’ve had to make a choice between {u]the ability to use your weapon skills and energy upkeep[/u].

Now as for CORuin…it does do a lot of damage, and even more if you were on a more offensive build. The main reason it does so much damage is because it’s a triple hit “wave” skill where it does 3 AOE’s of damage each capable of hitting 5 people. This is similar to current effects like Ice Bow 4 (where each bolt can hit 5), Meteor Shower and otherwise. I actually nearly one shot a guy with it myself this weekend cause he was on the line and running away and ate 2 hits of a single Ruin.

That said, there’s a number of disadvantages. As it travels along the ground, it is very broken with Z axis shifts in the terrain. It also suffers from a mis-sized hit box which it can visibly look like it hits but it won’t actually hit (which happens at the end of the effect). Both of these can make it very difficult to land outside of “shot gun” style scenarios where you’re riding on the front and using it right into an enemy as you engage them.

I never really thought the damage was out of line before they buffed it but it has been abundantly clear that most of the changes they’ve been making have been with SPvP and PvE in mind and not WvW. Things like the Inspiring Reinforcements (which Enhanced Bulwark saved for us, but made useless for everyone else) being so ineffective was clearly done for those areas where standing in the field was 100% viable.

I will briefly discuss certain statements/observations you made ( highlighted in quote, mentioned in order of appearance and I underline where I expand on ):

• “Facets are definitely strong, but there’s already a heft cost.”

In combat the cost is heavy, I agree; out of combat I don’t feel it’s punishing enough ( besides putting the active on CD when turning it off – you can negate this by swapping legends ). Out of combat your Energy remains steady at 50 – unless you use a skill – and you don’t need the +5 passive, which allows you to use Facet of Nature/Darkness/Elements simultaneously.

• “Is the 2.5 energy a second on CORuin greater than the net benefit of +50% boon duration for your party?”

Since this question is arbitrary I won’t provide a direct answer. How do you measure the net benefit from +50% boon duration? My point was that COruin – I like the abbreviation – is relatively cheap to use, both cool down- and energy-cost wise.

Consider that during this fight u switch from Legendary Dragon Stance to the Dwarf Stance, leaving you with +3 passive regen – if you keep Facet of Nature enabled – and the 2 second cool down, let’s nullify the cast-time for argument’s sake, of COruin + 5 Energy cost ( =-2.5/sec). It still regens your energy positively, whilst u spam a really high-damaging cone-Aoe skill

I would think the answer to how punishing this is also arbitrary.

• “This is similar to current effects like Ice Bow 4”

I would consider the general consensus in the community is that this ‘Ice Bow 4’ is borderline, if not, broken. Since that’s more a matter of opinion, let’s say it’s a really strong skill, again, for argument’s sake. Even Ice bow 4 roots you to the ground , thus punishing you for using it, and has a 20 seconds cool down, whereas using COruin doesn’t root you to the ground and has a 2 second cool down, albeit combined with Energy management.

• “there’s a number of disadvantages [of COruin]”

I agree with it being broken in certain terrain situation. I also agree with it being difficult to land in ‘non-shotgun-style’ situations, but I would like to argue that there is always this moment to use a skill and a moment to not use it. That there are certain moment where you shouldn’t use a skill doesn’t invalidate the argument made about it, COruin, being spammable and too damaging.

Hi Roy,

I have been playing around with Revenant in a WvW blob-setting ( = 50 v 50 or more ) this weekend. Mostly in a party with 2 Guardians, 1 Warrior, 1 Necro and 1 Revenant.
I found some issues that are really worth looking over:

• the Facets allow you to stack 40 seconds of Fury ( combined with Roiling Mists provides an almost permanent 40% critical chance increase ) and 1 minute of Swiftness for your entire party pre-fight/out of combat; the low upkeep of Facet of Nature allows you to keep it up during the entirety of the fights, which leads to the insane boon stacking out of- and during fights, not only for the boons you apply, but also for the boons your allies apply

• I felt Coalescence of Ruin dealt way too much damage for the the build! I played with. As showcased in these clips ( I suggest looking at the following timestamps: 0.25-0.30; 0.35-0.43; 1.38-1.43; 2.00-2.08; 2.20-2.43 ) , the skill does insane damage ( 2k-4k->4k-6k->6k-8k in three intervals respectively, combined with various damage modifiers ) and it has a short cool down + costs only 5 energy, resulting in it becoming ‘spammable’ or not punishing to use

I would suggest giving Facets a higher upkeep and/or some sort of different mechanic when out of combat. Adjusting the amount of extra boon duration it provides might also be something to consider.

Regarding Coalescence of Ruin, I would increase both energy cost and cool down. Scaling the damage differently could also be an option.

! the build has a generic stat spread applicable to Heavy Melee, same goes for Sigils

Greetings Règi – Team Terrorist [TT]

EDIT: after reading some of the reactions I concur that the upkeep ( Facets ) is okay – from what I have been able to experience – when in-combat

Règi here. I play on SFR and have been playing there for a long time. During that time SFR has always had a strong presence in the EotM. I used to lead regularly ( starting 1 pm or 11 pm ), but recently decided to stop doing so, because there is no point in leading anymore, if you’re on SFR’s color, that is.

Mostly when I tag and /supplyinfo on the second sentry, because most of us reached the tag by then, I have 80-89 players on me. Usually I would start of with a gank on Frostreach, since I know most enemy commanders ( or they know me ), I usually asked for a number count, most of the times they would’ve around 50-60 ppl on tag, of course with 80-89 players, and some SFR lvl 80 pugs who come to farm kills, it is an easy wipe. After that I would move around the map to find Badlands somewhere and kill them. Usually I would find they couldn’t even make orange swords.

So for me EotM is 90v50-60v20-30. This would be the unbalanced part of EotM where OP is talking about. Of course, like others mentioned, when SFR would not be green, there would be a huge change in population, but that’s besides the point, because in my opinion what happened here has something to do with several mechanics of the game, of which I will only name two.

The first and foremost mechanic is the commander. I strongly believe EotM has been dominated, because of one single dedicated commander. Someone who developed and ran efficient paths and has really good map-awareness, making him/her able to predict enemies easily and killing them as a result. The part of this mechanic that failed is that there isn’t/wasn’t really a counterpart to this commander. At least not someone who could beat him/her at a daily basis, this maybe because nobody played as frequent as him/her. In effect to this a lot of people would frequently follow this commander and people that weren’t on SFR’ side would do something else that week. Why there is no real counter-part is debatable, might be because of strong SFR lvl 80 guardian presence that would render any other commander incapable of repelling, or because no other commander took the time and the effort to learn the countless mechanics of this map and get some force to follow him like a support group, so to say.

The other mechanic is the server population imbalance. Like most know SFR has a lot of bandwagonners and they just keep adding, apparently everyone is tired of getting stomped and decide to join the winning party, I guess nobody likes a challenge anymore (or they do, I heard some SFR pug commanders moved to FSP so that they could’ve interesting fights again).

I read now that people want Anet to fix this issue, while it’s actually an issue that could be resolved by the community, but it would require effort, time and will. In my opinion FR and BL should start getting organised, there should be a, or several, commander(s) that try and organise their side with a support group regularly. If people can’t be bothered to do so then this game-mode will be reserved for the mindless k-train people argue it to be.

To respond to some arguments people made:

- I do not think EotM is still a map that serves purely as an overflow, since WvW is so queue-less nowadays it’s purpose has changed, it was once intended to be an overflow, but the community changed it to something else.

- I agree with Junkpile on the notion that a lot of players just ragequit after they wipe at start. It’s mostly their commanders fault, but they should know there is most likely an aggressive enemy force coming most of the time out of experiences they had before and question their commander’s decision, but this mostly ties back on commander’s just not being competent.

- NA has made EotM an entirely different thing (from what I have heard groups get their own overflow and such) and thus the issue OP is talking about is more an EU-related thing, it does prove however that the community indeed has the capability to fix this issue on its own.

Final note, I will most likely make some edits after some good sleep x)

Had a blast tonight! Thanks guys! Seems WSR had a blast karma-training everything from us Vabbi too

Keep ’em coming – the more the merrier!

Sounds good, let’s do this!

I see, thanks for the replies. Hope I can survive another week of this:P

I mean vabbi is 24th now, but still in tier 9, which bores us to death