Guild Wars 2

Thief changes – I primarily come at this from a PvE perspective, but I have played thief as my main for over three years. It was nice to see thief get some attention, but now we are in a situation dangerously close to Revenant before this patch where pressing 1 and only 1 is top DPS or awfully close to it. The attention to auto attack is very helpful, but ultimately the lack of attention to Heartseeker, Cloak and Dagger, and Backstab on the D/D weapon set is disappointing. Daggers cleave less targets and have less range than staff, and they remain an inferior damage option. Thief also continues to be a second tier DPS class when compared with elementalist despite bringing less utility and AoE capability.

Ultimately having balance patches quarterly is a positive, but the transparency seen with class changes in the developer lead specialization threads prior to the release of HoT was amazing. The community was told in detail what would occur and why. A return to this would be a great help to those of us that are very interested and invested in class changes and balance going forward.

My party and I are crashing immediately upon entering fractals from the fractal hub. We all ready up and then crash before reaching the fractal island itself. This only started happening since the 3rd patch this evening (11/4). I was able to get into the fractal island one try out of six, but at no point could the entire party get into the same fractal island at the same time.

Is anyone else experiencing this issue?

Is there any damage change to Brutal Blade as a part of removing the projectile?

Changes look good. Thanks, Roy!

I’ll have to try out the new Mallyx to see how it feels. Making a reduction in upkeep for EtD would certainly be a welcome change now along with the increase in non-moving torment damage.

I still have some concerns about Chaotic Release. It does a lot of things, but it doesn’t seem to do any of them particularly well (in PvE anyway). I didn’t really get a whole lot of use out of it especially when compared with something like Jade Winds.

I just wanted to post come observations from my time as a PvE revenant in roughly 10 full fractal runs, Arah, CoE, CoF, SE, and TA Aetherpath. I played as a power based berserker build with Devastation, Invocation and Herald.

• All in all revenant is a lot of fun to use in PvE, but the damage could probably use a small boost. Almost all of the revenant DPS comes form auto attack chains which is good, but a few more buttons to press might make the rotation a bit more fun and involving. The utility and healing were tremendous and a welcome change from how other classes feel. I feel like I had a pretty expansive toolkit with a lot of ways to help my group clear content.

• A couple of trait swaps in Devastation such as moving Ferocious Strikes to adept, Assassin’s Presence to master, Rapid Lacerations to grandmaster minor, and Focused Siphoning to adept would be helpful for a small damage increase.

• Mutilate Defenses feels a little bit weak compared to other similar traits. A duration increase would really help prevent PvE players from accidentally overwriting longer lasting vulnerability stacks that are already on a target.

• Elemental Burst and Burst of Strength feel a bit light on the damage in PvE at least as a power based revenant. The vulnerability generation of Burst of Strength is fantastic even if it only lasts 6 seconds.

• Chaotic Release is fun but mostly ineffective in PvE. It is worse than Jade Winds with a larger cooldown in most cases.

• Sword main hand is great, but perhaps increasing the damage on the two ability (Precision Strike) could add a bit to the damage rotation that is currently use a bunch of utilities and auto attack.

• Unrelenting Assault feels awesome to use, but it does weird things near walls and ledges that cause the skill to end early. It also does a good bit less DPS than auto-attack. I feel like a small damage increase could be helpful for PvE, but I’m not sure how that would affect PvP as I don’t PvP at all really.

• Herald is great, but it feels a bit passive (out of combat especially!). Anything that could be done to have similar boon production while using more player skill (especially with might and fury) might be a positive. Perhaps Facet of Darkness and Strength would only work in combat? I’m not sure what to do here. I love the boons, but I feel that the production of these boons out of combat is a bit too good.