Guild Wars 2

So I don’t get to squeeze out a free set of Celestial is what you’re telling me? :P

Does the level 80 gear pack from the boost have selectable stats? If so, which are available? I’m trying to decide whether to use it on a new character or an existing lvl 80 that doesn’t have full exotic yet.

Your skill and trait are very similar to the DD Venom Share build I’ve been running. I prefer Channeled Vigor for heal (with Brawler’s Tenacity traited to match), but SoM is good too.

The issue is with stats…you’re just not going to get much out of a Zerker build with venoms. I totally get sticking to the thematic aspect, but I think you’re going to have a terrible time in the jungle. Viper is a nasty grind (which I’m still working on myself), but Sinister gear is a considerably easier farm. When I switched to condi, I started with a Sinister build (which I farmed up in only a week or so of sporadic play). This is completely viable so far. As I get gold and black diamonds, I’m converting Sinister pieces to Viper, optimizing the build.

I tried to run a Ventari/Herald cleric build a while back and ran into the same thing Verazenem mentioned: self-healing is VERY lacking. Assuming you could stay safe in the back lines and only focus on healing, your damage output is miniscule. I was really excited for a healing rev build, but I just couldn’t make it work.

Infusion.7149:

You do know you can make a cheaper set of armor & then mystic forge it to he stats you want, right?

This is the way to go. You can save a LOT of resources by forging a different stat to Viper (I’m doing Rampager’s since I’m up to my elbows in venom sacs).

I usually take staff/SB because the SB utility is just phenomenal. If you’re going through HoT maps though, I’d keep a set of pistols in your inventory for single-target damage in chak infested areas…there’s nothing like bouncing an arrow into three chak that just happen to enable their damage reflect at the exact same time.

Thanks all for the info! I’ve started building out my condi gear.

My one big concern was the potential aoe loss of vault/bound/wc. Do you still do okay against big groups with lotus/db?

I’m considering moving my more or less meta zerker thief to viper/sinister condi instead. Does anyone with experience making this change have suggestions for or against? I probably do 60% open world and 40% fractals/dungeons, but I’d like to get into raids eventually too.

Taunted foes deal less damage to you. Taunt has an increased duration when applied to nonplayer characters.
Damage Damage Reduced: 20%
Radius.png Duration Increase: 100%

Does anyone know if you still receive the damage reduction when the target is immune to taunt because of breakbar?

PopeUrban.2578:

Condi D/D Daredevil with signet of malice and mad king runes already fulfills your criteria of area attack, damage mitigation and sustained recovery from wounds.

I can absolutely engage 15+ mobs at a time using the build, and do it frequently.

Sorry to go off topic, but would you please link the full build if you have time? I’ve been considering a condi DD for pve and I’d like to see how people are doing it before I go down that road.

Artaz.3819:

@Frop
Also the point you are trying to make is related to my point. The ANet devs don’t read the players opinions (generally speaking) on the forums. They go into their silo and do things. What’s more troublesome is that silo wall is right next to another ANet dev silo wall and neither talk to one another…at least that is how it all appears.

ANet devs welcome to respond the goal of not just one class improvements but balance against other classes with extremely similar mechanics.

I agree on both points. There are pages and pages on every class forum with suggestions by players that are using the classes every day, but there seems to be little acknowledgement of this resource…and little collaboration been dev groups, both class-to-class and mode-to-mode (pve,wvw,pvp, etc.)

PopeUrban.2578:

Reflects. We should dust projectile attacks like water, preferably with one spammable reflect on every weapon set. This is valuable support, and if they were all relatively low effect range reflects, it would require a lot of mobility and be very thematic for the theif.

I envision support thief builds that are just jumping all over the place, intercepting arrows and bullets for their party, and redirecting them back to the enemy. Reflect is kind of a boring mechanic in its current implementations, what with guardian fields and mesmer bubbles. it’s powerful, but easy to use, and has long cooldowns.

I think thieves with lots of easily accessibly but harder to use reflects would halp our support, survivability, and overall be in theme with the class.

I really like this idea (Acrobatics overhaul plz)! Gives us two things we desperately need: survivability and team contribution. Reminds me of The Clone Wars series where you see a Jedi in front of a trooper squad batting back blaster bolts. edited for 100% more dweeb

Artaz.3819:

Burtnik.5218:

Kinda funny how they want to nerf rev auto and buff thief auto at same time rofl.

^ This. Thief dev sees Revs autoattacks and wants Thief more like that. Rev devs runs analytics and sees that autoattacks (+1 or +2 abilities) is the maximum damage. Legend Swap covers immediate defensive needs. No one talks big picture balance – round and round we go.

Thief probably ends up with a high-powered autoattack + free-form utility choices and skips away in glee. If Pistol thief gets its bounce trait back, look out.

I’m “main” thief and am working rev, so I read a lot on both forums. I don’t remember any thieves ever asking for more auto attack damage (maybe on pistol 1). I think we were as surprised as anyone that this was the direction anet is trying to buff thief.

I use it with the dodges from Daredevil for perma-swiftness when ore/lumber farming, but that’s about it. I used to take it for better survivability (“moar evadez”), but I’ve gotten a lot more sustain out of Invigorating Precision than I ever did from Acro.

Orion Templar.4589:

2. Even if the hammers are blocked by a wall or something this shouldn’t cause the skill to shut off

This is the big one. Losing the hammer damage is mildly annoying , but losing the damage reduction can be fatal.

I can’t speak for the condi thief side, but depending on the missing fingers you might look at an mmo gaming mouse. I use the Utech Venus – you can have all your skills mapped to the thumb buttons, freeing your keyboard hand to only run the arrow keys.

YOU MUST CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL MISTS

I’d prefer bug fixes to aesthetics any day.

Aphrodite.6950:

Yes revenant is a viable tanking class. I have a tanking herald. One of my guilds initially tried telling me to make a chrono tank or guard tank, simply because they can achieve a few extra toughness points over the revenant(AI aggros on toughness rating). The survivability on the rev tank is unmatched.

I run with a sword/shield and staff combo. between them I have 3 evades and the invuln on the shield skill.

I tank mostly in dragon stance. The heal on dragon gives health depending on the damage that would be dealt. On a boss fight that is a LOT of healing. I have “hardening persistence” active that grants toughness on my active buffs. I also took “crystal hibernation” for an extra shield when health is low.

My second stance is dwarf. Taunting only works on small mobs, not bosses so the taunt is a minor skill to tanking, BUT if a healer is getting hammered you can easily grab the mob off them. Also if there is a lot of group damage you can pop your legendary skill and give the group damage reduction with “rite of the great dwarf”.

For my other talent trees I used “close quarters” “eye for an eye” and “jade winds”.

So yes it is a good tanking class.

What gear stats, runes, and sigils are you using?

I was thinking something like this maybe? (PVE)
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vlEQNAW8un3gWNSuQrJRbo/ksP0gS4I6QJ4EdrklZlRNgDaYNjPOxe6q7G-TRxLABRo+zOK/4e/hxUCCguDA-e

I’d also like to see the option to just mirror one-sided armor across to the other side.

Burtnik.5218:

• 6. Soothing bastion doesnt increase duration of boons by using shield skills

I just started a Revenant and this one really shocked me, considering how popular Herald seems to be. I main Thief and I thought our missing 10% buff to withdraw was bad…this reminds me of the old NWN2 bugs where feats would just flat-out not work

Daredevil staff Asura has a sort of Yoda lightsaber feel that’s pretty satisfying. However, the proportions of some of the armor can be a little weird (ascended armor comes to mind)

Thanks! We appreciate the quick fix!

Ah I missed the handy blast on mace…probably better to go apothecary rather than cleric for armor and minstrel on weapons.

I’m looking to run my Revenant as a pure healer (mostly open-world PVE) with Minstrel/Cleric gear. I am well aware that this is NOT a meta build and I only want to do this for fun in casual settings.

The plan is for staff and x/shield – with no offensive stats, is it smarter to use sword or mace for main hand?

Edit: Will be using Ventari and Herald legends

I normally don’t even play with sound, but I too was blown away by the music!

Clairenix.2780:

I personally think that you shouldn’t have tied down TRAITS and SKILLS in one single line. I think the point requirement is fine, but it feels so deep getting these traits and skills because they’re in one single route. The old system did this, and it’s perfectly fine!

This has been stated a couple times in this thread, and I really think it’s the fastest and fairest fix. HP cost can still stay at a total of 400, keeping the devs’ intended difficulty, but players can get to the heart of the elites, the traits, a bit faster. AND, it maintains consistency with the existing character mechanics.

Surely even the hardcore anti-change camp could see this as a reasonable compromise.

Like a lot of people have posted, I too am really disappointed that the elite specs are so hard to get to.

It’s been mentioned previously in this thread, but I think a fair compromise with the devs would be to keep the total cost at 400 HP, but split the skill and trait tracks apart. This would not only bring the elite specs inline with the existing character unlock mechanics, but also make it a bit easier for us to get to GM traits and still have plenty of content to go through for the skills.

(Edited for poor grammar)

Thanks for the responses, I’ll start working on my map familiarity.

Recently came back to my thief after several months away. I’m using SB more than I had previously and I’m a little confused: everyone talks about the vertical mobility #5 provides, but I always get the “path to target” error when I try to use it to change elevation. What am I missing?

Ravoku.1852:

Body Shot – Remove the vulnerability stacks, they’re laughable anyways. Add a short distance (shorter than SB #3) backwards evade that also counts as a leap finisher. Congratulations, P/P made infinitely more viable along with something new to P/D as well. If you feel that the one second of immob is too much with this change, remove it too. Honestly though, it would only give you time to get most of a sneak attack off as long as you used it immediately after stealthing via black powder + body shot leap

EDIT: Wishful thinking, but an awesome new animation for this evasive body shot would be the mid-air spin shot from the Deadpool trailer. Just super saiyan.

Could there please be some John Woo-style doves that come flying out every time you do this evade?

Wow thanks everyone for the responses! Looks like I have a lot of layouts to try.

Pepsi.8907:

with a utechsmart venus mouse (lovely thing really)

Movement: wasd (with strafe)
Dodge: e
Heal: r
turn about : q
air attunment: c
earth attunment: v
water attunment: shift
fire attunment: middle mouse click
Utility skills : maj, mouse button 1 & 2 (next to thumb)
look behind : g
Select enemy: mouse button 3
Draw/stow weapons: mouse button 10
elite: mouse button 4
swap weapons: mouse button 11

I’m just using a regular 5-button mouse now, but I was looking into the Venus. Looks to have nice functionality for the price.

I’ve started playing an Ele and really enjoy it, but I have a lot of trouble managing the attunement buttons and skills with the default layout. Any recommendations on a more efficient key mapping?

Bair.8240:

Take this with a grain of salt as I am only level 56.

As a power necro I can say in this game so far even among all my other characters I have not felt as kitten as with my necro. Nothing kills you. Nothing. Between my conventional heals and my abilities that replenish Death Shroud the sheer amount of punishment I can withstand is astounding. I solo champs, run into groups that makes others hold back, and I fear no mob yet because I know if I play smart I can take on most content solo.

Would you be willing to post your build? I’ve been bouncing back and forth between a condition build and a “bruiser” build like you’re describing – I’d be interested to see your approach.