Guild Wars 2

It’s fun to play. If you don’t find it fun, there is no reason, unless you are masochistic and enjoy being nerfed every patch

narcx.3570:

Absconditus.6804:

Ohoni.6057:

I’d like to be able to be Kalla/Glint spec, because the Revenant requires Glint to be playable.

I personally disagree with this. In no way does Revenant require Glint to be playable. I like the upkeeps, but I can create perma-Swiftness that spans minutes by running Jalis and using Inspiring Reinforcement followed by Echoing Eruption. I can create 25 stacks of Might (over a couple repeated cycles) from Searing Fissure followed by, again, Echoing Eruption. What Glint is, is a fun Elite Specialization that creates lazy Revenants that just want to run around with a switch to turn on and off for boon sharing and permanent Swiftness requiring no input. You won’t even need that much Swiftness come PoF, since mounts will move you about faster when outside of dungeons and such where I will assume they are disabled.

It’s fun to bash Herald as a lazy spec by only focusing on the upkeep boons, but it’s easy to forget how many useful tools are in it. Play a few games without Facet of Light and see how even more unforgiving Rev is since you won’t be able to eat a single condi bomb. And you especially won’t be able to rez anyone.

Even something as simple as trying to stomp somebody without Gaze of Darkness is a freakin’ nightmare. And don’t say just use Jalis’s stability, because by picking Jalis there will be nobody to stomp in the first place. :P Without GoD, you will literally have to Impossible Odds cleave every single downed (or i guess searing fissure spam them if you’re condi)… I mean, you should probably still be doing this anyways, but sometimes it just feels great to troll someone with your finisher.

Idk you can play with out glint. Herald is iffy but glint isn’t. If you run a condi build it’s not hard to bait stability out for the stomp and resistance stops condi bombs better than facet of light. That said I can’t see running Revenant without the revive trait in PvP because you won’t revive anyone ever.

Let me be the millionth person to say that “Renegade needs a fix.” Not a buff, a fix. This is the most minimal, plausible fix I could think of. I doubt any of this will be seen by anyone that needs to see it, but hey why not?

Kalla’s Fervor
Kalla’s Fervor is the closest thing Renegade has to a mechanic so I’m using this as the driving focus of the rework. It’s currently generated by critically hitting and flanking, which isn’t total crap so we’ll use that as the guide. I would like a UI for it like Malice has though. Potentially add a 1s ICD to accommodate it’s new use.

Citadel Orders
These abilities are… bad. Just scaling them up wouldn’t be fun to play and they’d still cost precious energy and basically work as more utility skills right now.

• All – instead of costing energy they cost Fervor instead. They would cost all your Fervor and be stronger the more Fervor you spend.
• Heroic Command – Give boons and remove conditions based off of each stack spent. (Boons are 1 might (8s), fury(1s) and vigor(1s) per stack to match Renegade’s theme. Complete rework)
• Citadel Bombardment – Fires 5 plus 1 per stack spent. Larger hit box on the missles.
• Orders From Above – Give AoE 0.5s of stealth for each stack spent, to all nearby allies. (This is to make it an Ash legion skill and make it more of an Ambush Commander feel)

Shortbow
Shortbow is a condition weapon, so critical hits aren’t a guaranteed way to get Fervor. Flanking should be the focus of the weapon and considering that it’s already quite weak, adding effects on flank won’t make the weapon overpowered.

• Shattershot – No longer AoE. Flanking now also inflicts 0.5s of burning.
• Bloodbane Shot – Each shot that flanks gives a bonus stack of fervor.
• Sevenshot – Now also blocks attacks in front. Flanking shots now also chill (to scale with the corruption line). Increase cooldown by 4s to compensate for the massive buff.
• Spiritcrush – No change (can’t flank with AoE and its the one good skill)
• Scorchrazor – Flanking strikes also inflict 1s of immobilization.

Kalla

• All – All summons have increased health in PvE. Remove cooldowns, except for heal skill.
• Breakrazor’s Bastion – No longer is a stunbreaker. Cannot be controlled.
• Razorclaw’s Rage – Increased bleed duration. Cannot be controlled.
• Darkrazor’s Daring – Now breaks stuns. Increased damage.
• Icerazor’s Ire – Chills instead of cripples. Increased damage. Now is target based casting (It cannot be AoE cast, you won’t be able to control it)
• Soulcleave’s Summit – Cannot be controlled or killed. Why can it die if its upkeep?

Traits
Minimal change, except for GM traits. GM traits now effect Fervor and one of the orders.

• Ashen Demeanor – Chills instead of cripples.
• Endless Enmity- Now also procs on flanking hits on enemies below 50% health.
• All for One – Kalla skills also have 10 stacks of stability and give Fervor on cast.
• Brutal Momentum – Also increases duration of Kalla’s Fervor, number of stacks increased to 10. (Lasting Legacy made baseline)
• Vindication – Kalla’s Fervor increases critical hit chance by 2%. Orders From Above has increased duration by 20%.
• Lasting Legacy – Kalla’s Fervor now also increases condition duration by 2%. Citadel Bombardment fires more shots per Fervor spent (1 more).
• Righteous Rebel – Kalla’s Fervor reduces condition damage by 2%. Heroic Command now gives retaliation and heals based off conditions removed.

TL;DR -Dear Anet – https://youtu.be/jl17CYYSzUw?t=1m34s

DiogoSilva.7089:

This was one of the last elite specs to be done (implied by leaks and confirmed by devs), it was rushed out, and it completely shows.

Oh? Where’s the source? I’m not in anyway doubting it. It looks like the whole thing was thrown together during a coffee break.

Nothing works together. Not the traits, the utility skills, the weapon nor the profession mechanic work in tandem. This alone is bad but it’s not why Renegade is bad, it’s a symptom of the bigger problem.

Renegade doesn’t have a design philosophy. There isn’t a core design philosophy to guide its development. The closest thing you can say is “Charr” and Charr isn’t a gameplay design, it’s a lore design.

With other elite specs you can see the gameplay design immediately. I can not think of another elite spec that has this problem. Even herald has boons. Scrapper is tanky. Spellbreaker is gw1 Mesmer.

If I were to design renegade I’d have started with the profession mechanic, which doesn’t exist. What is the profession mechanic? Kallas fervor is just a buff and could be replaced with a trait that lets rev have more might. The f abilities are just more skills and don’t change gameplay at all, especially since theyre basically just utility skills. The bow is just an underpowered condi weapon and the new utility skills are just underpowered summon skills.

If a single one of these ideas took precedence in the design section, then the Renegade wouldn’t be such a mess. I’ll theory craft each of the possible renegade depending on the design:

• Kallas Fervor – the bow would benefit from flanking and make it easier. The utility abilities would be mobility based and help share Fervor to allied. The f abilities would scale with Fervor or cost fervor to use. Kallas Fervor would also be able to improve sustain.
• Citadel Orders (f2-4) – the abilities would not cost conventional energy but instead have charges, like firebrand. The traits and Kallas Fervor would promote using the more often. The bow would be area control oriented and the utility abilities would be as well.
• Bow – Kallas Fervor/traits would be more condition oriented, the orders would be more selfish and condi damage oriented, and the utility abilities would be focused on lock down and condition damage.
• Summons -Kallas Fervor would be gained based off summoned allies and traits would make summons more powerful, the orders would be summons and the bow would be a control/defensive weapon.

Is renegade any of these? No it’s not. It’s none of these and yet it’s all of them. It’s a mess of an elite spec. Buffing any single aspect isn’t going to fix Renegade. At best it will make it Renegade broken but only because of <insert buffed thing here>. The only way to fix Renegade would be a rework unfortunately, otherwise you just end up taking renegade for one thing only, like the bow or the traits.

Dall.9752:

Don’t you think the name is a bit redundant? Revenants are mistwalkers by default, a bunch of their skills already involve dashing through the mists for a while… to me it feels sort of like a thief elite spec named “burglar” or something.

I like the skills, the legend (always wanted to know more about Razah), the ranged dagger style, but the elite spec name bugs me.

I agree, I’m bad at names

LucianDK.8615:

Pretty interesting take on the revenant, id play that. You have 4 skills in the AA chain, theres only 3 normally.

Though having offhand open would allow for axe, which already have a shadowstep. With the elite as well, revs would stick -very- well to enemies, especially since they focus on energy regen.

Usually autoattack chains do but daggers have 4 or at least I’m pretty sure they do

Since Renegades boring, I thought of a whole new elite spec idea. The thought was to make it the opposite of Herald in a sense: completely selfish Revenant style that focuses on energy generation rather than upkeep.

Introduction
A Mistwalker is a Revenant who was spent the majority of their life in the Mists and as a result, can phase between the two planes of existence at an instant. They can invoke the power of a being born of the mists, Razah, and wield a dagger as a weapon.

Specialization Mechanic
The main mechanic of the Mistwalker is Mist Walking. Mist walking is a rapid dash between the two planes that replaces your dodge but costs energy instead of endurance. Since endurance isn’t needed anymore, vigor now increases energy generation by 50%. Functionally, mist walking is just a 300 teleport and 1/2s evade (shorter than normal since you’ll be able to dodge a lot more than normal).

The next mechanic is that energy cap is no longer 50 but 100. Switching legends no longer resets your energy, as a result, but adds a set amount to the energy you have.

Dagger Skills
The dagger will be along the lines of the other Revenant weapons and be different. It will be a ranged weapon.

Auto Attack chain

• Ghostly Haste: throw your dagger at your enemy with lightning speed and gain swiftness
• Gaze of Fury: throw another dagger at your enemy and gain fury (can gain might with the invocation trait)
• Renewing Surge: throw two daggers in quick succession and gain regeneration then protection
• Spirit Boon Strike: throw a final dagger and gain vigor and might

Skill Two
Chain

• Essence Strike: Stick a rift dagger to your enemy that also applies vulnerability.
• Spirit Rift:Detonate the dagger, creating a rift to the mists, causing burning, torment and blind. (I want it to be like axe for ranger where it can be used for both power and condi, so the first hit is high power, then high condi).

Skill Three

• Channeled Strike: Channel for a controlled amount of time and then throw a lightning infused dagger; the longer channeled, the harder the skill hits.

Razah Skills
Razah’s skills are thematically based off GW1 ritualist abilities, but not spirit summoning abilities because that’s what Renegade has. The actual abilities are designed around what revenant needs.

Mend Body and Soul

• Upkeep 8: lose a condition every second and heal when you do.
• Release: heal yourself (30s cd, auto casts on energy depletion)

Binding Chains
Call chains from the mists and lock down your enemy, damaging them. (Immobilize and damage, 30 energy)

Soul Twisting
Convert conditions into boons (20 energy)

Rupture Soul
Rupture your opponents being, stunning them and causing debilitating condtions (weakness, cripple, poison, and blind. Costs 35 energy)

Spirit Siphon (Elite)
Teleport to your enemy and grab them, stealing a large amount of health and boons. (Costs 50 energy, 600 range)

Traits
There are 3 main themes: Mist walking, inner spirit, weapon ability. They are unlike other themes, but are minor, major and grand-master so you must have one but you can only have one. Other than that its might, sustain and control.

Minor

• Wanderlust: Mist walking gives might.
• Displacement: Mist walking costs less energy
• Shadow song: Mist walking blinds enemies

Major

• Spirit’s Strength: Gain might when you steal boons
• Union: Send a condition when you steal a boon
• Sight Beyond Sight: Blind and chill your enemy when you steal a boon

Grandmaster

• Weapon of Aggression: Weapon skills grant might based off their energy cost
• Spirit Light Weapon: Weapon skills remove conditions based off their energy cost
• Warmonger’s Weapon: Weapon skills deal debilitating conditions based off their energy cost.

Most of the CDs arent as big as other classes but you make good questions that we all don’t understand. Maintaining it well does put you on a higher playing ground than most other professions.

This would be awesome. The utils would be amazing on their own but adding owl form would be even cooler

Crevox.5806:

Hooglese.4860:

Herald was nerfed because you can give everyone every buff all the time by doing nothing. It has an incredible good reward/mastery ratio simply because there really isn’t much to master and in raids it was/is preferred to not use skills ever just to maximize the facet uptime which is incredibly boring to play. I won’t deny that it was nerfed too hard and is pretty much useless now and id only ever bring it for the f2 activation or sustain in brings with shield/traits.

Herald is sort of a jack of all trades support, and can do almost every boon (no quickness ever and only one of resistance, stability or alacrity at once) at once to everyone and that strong on its own.

As for Herald falling to the way side for Renegade, I highly doubt it. Renegade is stupidly weak in comparison to Herald in every aspect other than maybe your own damage.

You say it does “almost every boon”, but what really? Ideally you’d only be maintaining Fury, Might, and Resonance; you don’t have the upkeep to do anything else. The Protection facet is pretty good, I’ll admit, but you simply don’t have the upkeep. You cripple your ability to do anything else by using it, and it doesn’t help against conditions. You could probably come up with some neato rotation to maintain Fury, Protection, Swiftness, and Regeneration, but either way your Might stacks are gonna be crippled. Regeneration seems almost pointless unless you have the healing power to back it up; maybe I’m wrong in that regard. Swiftness is a minor convenience in most fights and provided by tons of professions.

It provides no unique buffs like banners/other auras, and the amount of Might stacks is just way too low. If it at least provided a lot of hard CC or vulnerability it could have that going for it, but it doesn’t. No quickness, a poor generation of alacrity at high cost (rip all other boons and hard to maintain)… and a huge heavy ball and chain to do the little things that class DOES do.

What I mean by every boon at once is that you have access you every boon in the game at any time and can share, which again, no one else has. The might stacks are “low” as a result of this, and since every other profession can share might it doesn’t need to be a big thing. It isn’t going to get an effect like a banner because banners already exist and having two classes do the exact same thing is asinine. Self stacking might is pretty easy on rev if you trait for it even without herald (charged mists).

As for Herald not having a lot of hard cc or vulnerability… What? The devestation line gives at least 15 stacks of vulnerability and Burst of Strength gives 20. The staff may be the hardest cc in the game, hammer has a hefty knockdown, axe has an aoe pull and sword OH has a bad but existent pull. That’s weapons alone, almost every legend brings a hard cc skill, and the one that doesn’t makes up for it with the unending resistance you get from it.

The alacrity may deny you access to your other boons (if you don’t think to use f2 when you’re in ventari) but you’re also healing the area which is really strong in WvW.

Herald was nerfed because you can give everyone every buff all the time by doing nothing. It has an incredible good reward/mastery ratio simply because there really isn’t much to master and in raids it was/is preferred to not use skills ever just to maximize the facet uptime which is incredibly boring to play. I won’t deny that it was nerfed too hard and is pretty much useless now and id only ever bring it for the f2 activation or sustain in brings with shield/traits.

Herald is sort of a jack of all trades support, and can do almost every boon (no quickness ever and only one of resistance, stability or alacrity at once) at once to everyone and that strong on its own.

As for Herald falling to the way side for Renegade, I highly doubt it. Renegade is stupidly weak in comparison to Herald in every aspect other than maybe your own damage.

Very few bugs!!! None of the bugs made the skills/traits 100% unusable like how revenant had been for a year

Idk why there are so many people saying things along the lines of “Mirage is bad cause it’s not Chrono.” It doesn’t have shield, it doesn’t have f5 and it doesn’t do support but that’s the point, if it was just Chrono it would be boring.

The more fair complaint is that it plays a lot like base mesmer and I like that. Chrono plays drastically different to base mesmer; it’s a bruiser/support mesmer. Mesmer traditionally doesn’t do that, just burst damage, and mirage does more of that. Playing mirage like a Chrono is going to be a bad time.

Another thing: mirage cloak doesn’t mean you can’t get out of circles – it gives you super speed which makes you go a little further than a dodge roll (315 units in 0.75s vs dodge rolls 300). It’s only not the case if your going backwards but hey, there’s also Jaunt/blink/sword ambush/blurred frenzy/distortion…

I like Mirage, and I didn’t like what Chrono ended up being. Chrono is still good in its own way, and now there’s Mirage that’s good in a different way. It needs work though, especially in the traits.

I think the elite specs should’ve been available for demo characters in the last weekend for people to test them out or at least re-open the PvE area because as people have said, they needed to know how they worked in PvE.

On the plus side I would say they were really promising: way fewer bugs than HoT’s demo weekends that showed a ton of bugs and no improvement on them from demo to demo.

Renegade’s weak, without question. A lot of the suggestions I use are both based off gameplay (as and against) and potential numbers/theory crafting.

Profession Mechanics
These are cool but kind of expensive to use with energy and cd times.

• Heroic Command: is a worthless skill. It provides an AoE of 5-10 stacks of might for 8s for 20 energy and 10s cd. That’s a steep cost for something Herald does better for much less energy. Sure it refreshes Kalla’s Fervor but that’s not something that’s hard to build. It could be made way more powerful by sharing the Fervor, or if thats not the case, cut the energy cut off or the cooldown off.
• Citadel Bombardment: the ability is extremely inconsistent. You’ll maybe hit 3 shots and they don’t do much in PvP. A split where it’s stronger in PvP would be appreciated. Also doesn’t need a cooldown time for that high of an energy cost.
• Orders from Above: the radius is too small to help more than 1 person at a time and Alacrity is useless for a Revenant so there’s no point to use it for yourself.

Traits
There really aren’t many issues with the traits but it’s not perfect.

• Ashen Demeanor: it does not need a 3s ICD, it probably needs one because of Surge of the Mists but 3s is high. The traits also useless in PvE (break bars) but that can be fixed by changing it to disabling abilities triggering it. In all it feels like the weakest of the 3 options.

Shortbow
Shortbow is kinda weak in comparison to taking herald and popping on a sword/shield or just having a staff as a Renegade. It has no defensive abilities and doesn’t do a lot of damage.

• Scattershot: increased power or condi damage
• Bloodbane Path: increased projectile speed. Against mobile targets you aren’t going to hit any of your shots.
• Sevenshot: longer torment duration and larger projectiles. Even on stationary targets you’ll likely only hit 3 shots, it’s truely worthless.
• Spiritcrush decrease the energy cost to 10 and allow it to hit behind too.

Kalla
Kalla is weak and not very fun to play (that’s coming from a guy that ). This is probably because all her skills cost a lot of energy, have long cooldowns and can be ccd/killed. I can’t see bringing her to any situation in her current state.

• Breakrazor’s Bastion: it’s the stunbreaker so if you get stunned while casting it or cancel it, you lose it for 30s. Giving it 1 stack of stability for 1s or decreasing the cast time would go a long way in increasing surviveability.
• Razorclaw’s Rage: played perfectly (5 players hitting 10 times) you’ll get 50 stacks of bleed that last 2s a pop. That may sound high but that’s only ~12k damage over 10s. For comparison Sharpening Stone does 10 stacks that last 10s, which is the same damage but doesn’t require the massive coordination Razorclaw’s Rage does nor does it require you to keep a spirit alive. Realistically, you are only going to get maybe 6 stacks of bleed from it before its killed or you have to move out of the radius. The idea of the skill is fine but the numbers are very low. Either increasing the duration or decreasing the interval would go a long way.
• Soulcleave’s Summit: the upkeep system for the spirit is not good since she can both be killed and cc’ed. Making her invulnerable (or kitten close) or not making it an upkeep skill would fix this. For -9 energy a second I don’t think that’s too much to ask for.
• All utility skills: all 3 utility skills cost both energy and cd time and they’re not better than other legend skills. No other energy has higher costs, not even Shiro. Removing or drastically reducing the cd time (around 5s) would make Kalla much stronger. If having multiple of the same spirit is too powerful, then dropping the energy cost almost entirely then it would be fair. To note, if there was no cooldown on any of the utilities you couldn’t spawn more than 3 of any spirit at a time and if there was no/little energy cost the command abilities would be much more accessible.

TL:DR – Renegade needs to not have cds and energy costs. SB needs to be buffed.

Trying to be as objective as possible, all info from sPvP. None of the specs need a rework just a renumbering.

Deadeye
The traits are great, but the new skills are overtuned. A single hit from death’s judgement can one shot a warrior that doesn’t notice you. With the thieves ability to teleport easily they can kite and shoot to a frustrating level, but ironically I don’t think it will be good in PvP due to the scrapper. I haven’t seen any but with all of the reflects from scrapper, deadeye isn’t going to be as strong as it seems. In PvE however, it’s going to have unmatchable dps on bosses, so it’s going to be a must pick with it’s current damage.

Firebrand
Not perfect. The axe feels wonky to use and the mantras do too. The tome skills however don’t. They’re strong and fun to use with a lot of diverse usage of it. The traits have two viable paths, tomes and quickness; the other line sucks. Tomes are also hard to use in the sense that when you need them you do not have them, but this is probably more me not being used to it. I’ve seen firebrands dominate but I can’t.

Holosmith
I love the idea but I can’t get a read on the balance of it. It’s a risk/reward class, unlike scrapper, and most holosmiths I see haven’t been able to walk that line. The new utilities don’t seem that good if you’re under 50% heat and when you’re above it, they’re still not that good. I fear that this won’t be taken over scrapper but that may be more of a problem with scrapper than holosmith.

Mirage
Without question it is strong. The new dodge mechanic makes mesmer a nightmare to deal with, especially with the stunbreak trait. The deception skills (most notably Mirage Advance) are incredibly strong and the new elite is almost a must pick. The sword ambush is also stupid powerful with the daze, but the greatsword’s is almost useless. Also there are no strong ambush skills for PvE which is where mesmer needs the buff the most. It may need to be toned down in PvP since being able to reliably res/stomp with mirage cloak is something a bit too strong especially when you play mirage as a tank. Also the heal skill is still weaker than Ether feast but they all are.

Renegade
Renegade is underpowered. I don’t think there’s anyone on the other side of this. The shortbow skills are all pretty low on condi damage, even when you take the range into factor, and doubly so without a defensive skill (only mace lacks a defensive ability). On top of low damage, the skills are also unreliable and miss easily when the target is moving slowly. Any other weapon is stronger. Kalla is also a weak legend. First of all the heal is a stunbreaker so if it gets interrupted it goes on a full cooldown which is awful. Razorclaw’s Rage is also extremely weak even if you get 5 people in the radius for 10s (50 stacks of 2s of bleed = 15k at very high condition damage for all 5 player). The other skills are okay but the elite has a long cast time and feels off that it can be killed or canceled. All of Kalla’s problems are linked to the old energy/cd issue. The skills require a lot of both (12-15s cds and 20-35 energy) and I do not see why the cooldowns need to exist at that degree. The f skills are almost impossible to manage if you run kalla as you’ll never have the energy for them but other than that they’re good. Traits are awesome though.

Scourge
I don’t think anyone thinks this is good in PvP at the moment. I can see it being a Raid meta for the insane condi dmg output but it’s so squishy and easy to avoid in PvP there’s little chance it will be used at high levels. At low levels its a hoot though, because the damage is so friggen high.

Soubeast
I don’t think soulbeast is as bad as people have been saying but it’s definitely weaker than druid. The damage is amazing in beast most from weapon skills but the beast skills are just not up to snuff. Skills that pets do ~5k will only net 1.5k when you use them and some pets are just useless due to the insane difference (like birds f1 does 600dmg). Using soulbeast as a tank with bears is fairly good though, but it’s weak to condis and how can you be bunkery in pvp if you can’t sustain conditions? Also the dagger is kinda weak to use without a lot of condis or power dmg…

Spellbreaker
I love spellbreaker, but dagger is not balanced. A dagger warrior is basically like a mobile hundred blades with an interrupt. Lowering the damage is a must do because it feels like it can out damage a zerker…

Weaver
I don’t know how to do base ele so weaver isn’t something I can even attempt but from those I’ve seen with those talents, it has unmatched condi defense and might be the strongest duelist since d/d ele. I can’t say whether or not it’s op or not but it’s really good. Unravel Hexes is the only thing I would tone down.

you can get a lot damage and survive out of it. It’s hard to use but it’s not bad

think of it more like your dodge is replaced with Distortion and all the sudden it feels a hell of a lot more powerful

Just a heads up that I and someone else (better at editing the wiki than I am) updated the wiki page for Renegade listing the skills given in the video Aurora Peachy uploaded. Well what I could get.

Quick synopsis of what it does:

• Has a unique stackable buff called “Kalla’s Ferver,” that gives fury and condition damage (30 and 2%).
• Short bow is a condi weapon with bleed and burning emphasis, some torment.
• Kalla’s stance is like Gw1 Ritualist as it summons spirits with varying abilities
• Gives access to an f2,f3 and f4 ability that give might and Kalla’s Ferver, blow up an area, and give AoE alacrity. These have hefty costs attatched.

Just have some questions about the new elite specs that the video did not give. Good presentation but left me with a lot of confusion about aspects of the new elite specs.

All

• Do we get new utility skills as well like with the previous elite specs? (Revenant not included)
• Do any elite specs force the player to give up something?

Deadeye

• Is the mark or “contract” an f2 ability?

Firebrand

• do the books replace weapon skills?
• What is the book of courage going to do?
• Is the axe main or offhand?

Holosmith

• Is there a new weapon for engineer?
• What does holo mode do?
• Does overheating hurt you or just enemies?

Mirage

• Is the camouflage an f5 shatter? What is it?
• Is the axe main or offhand?
• What is the new dodge mechanic? Invulnerability instead of dodge?

Renegade

• Shortbow or longbow?
• Is there a new mechanic attached?
• Are the new abilities summons?

Scourge

• Are the shroud abilities f1-f5 or is it a kit?
• Do they use shroud % or drain it gradually?

Soulbeast

• Does merging give stat bonuses based off pet?
• If you go down merged does your pet go down as well?

Spellbreaker

• Is there a new burst mechanic attatched?
• Can you wield one dagger or do you need both?

Weaver

• Can you stack 2 of the same element
• Does order matter (is fire+water different to water+fire)?
• Are the skills your 1-5 or are they entirely seperate?
• Do you need to use sword with the elite spec to use it or can you run staff with it?

Map was amazing again.

Story gameplay had great instances but outside of that it was “talk to this person”

Story, lore wise, was bad. Making the elder dragons nap at the end made everything we did feel moot. The Balthazar twist was stupid because if he showed up as Balthazar, we would trust him completely, as he is an ally of humanity, and the betrayal would’ve been surprising.

I’m focusing on this episode but I’m talking about this entire Season, really. Also there are spoilers I’m not hiding, because this is feedback and if you haven’t played the current episode or the previous ones, do that and make your own informed opinions.

MAP DESIGN
Holy crap I like Lake Doric. It’s fun, has great world events, cool secrets, silly things and it’s beautiful. The watchtower was super cool because it was so hard to ascend it that it felt like a reward for those that made it to the top (and the mastery point was a sweet bonus too). I’m not going to continue on with talking about the region because I found it extremely enjoyable and have no criticism for it. Keep it up!

THE STORY
This has been really good until the most current episode.

What the actual hell is going on? It feels like Lost, and that’s not good. The creators of Lost didn’t have a goal, kept making more mysteries that had no answers, and it became a mess and everyone hates it. Every episode adds more mystery without answers or ends, and there it’s self defeating. The plot holes being created are big enough to fit a whole game in them. Like Justicar Bauer has contradicting statements so there’s no way to know anything about the Mursaat story.

The retconning needs to stop. It started with Glint and her “freeing herself,” totally ignoring Arah p2, telling us that she was freed by an Orrian ritual that unbound her from Kralk’s energy. Now with Dorian not being dead. Why do this? There obviously wasn’t any plan for this back in 2005 since there wasn’t any hint he wasn’t dead, but here he is. Back alive due to the power of Deus Ex Machina! Lazerus is a different since he was hinted at being alive all the way back in GW1. I do not like this direction that the story is going, and should be considered carefully where it’s going.

THE MISSIONS
They are not going well. LS:S1-2 were really good, what happened? There were new game mechanics in them, new enemies, bonuses and no arbitrary grinding. I am so sick of the arbitrary tasks to get from instance 1 to instance 2. I don’t mind exploring the area and doing all the things, because I’m going to do it anyway. I really like exploring and that’s GW2’s strongest trait; it requires no incentive to do.

The bosses are boring too. Most can be summed up as “needs to be broken to take damage” and rarely pose a threat. I loved the Asura in the Caithe story because there was a lot going on and you needed to figure him out to beat him. I could give reasons why I loved all the bosses in season 1 and 2 but for 3 I can’t give one.

As far as gameplay goes I can only give one part of a mission I really liked, which was in the Beetlestone Manor before getting to Cadecus. The tunnel part was executed brilliantly with both the stealth options and utilizing the environment to wipe out the bandits that have given everyone stress at least once in their CM explorable runs.

ALL THE TALKING
There is way too much talking in this living story season. Not just this one, actually the most recent one has the least, but they all have way too much talking and waiting. I cringe every time Taimi is referenced because I fear it’s going to be a literal 15 minute monologue of Taimi saying things I already know during episode 2. The writing isn’t bad and there are some good quips here and there, but this is a game. I just wanna play the game and not get told by another by another character whats going on. I want to see it. I want to experience it. I feel really bad for the VAs too. They’re good and they aren’t half assing their jobs but there is so much talking for every three months. There is as much talking in each story as in a friggen full release! The devs know this too, I remember a post by Mike (I believe) saying there was something like 1500 lines of voiced dialogue in a single episode, and wow that is too much. I don’t know why this is, but it’s too much. I resent so many characters now, because of the hours of dialogue that doesn’t need to exist. Again, it’s not bad dialogue, but there’s too much, and it needs to be edited down to eliminate any superfluous dialogue that interupts gameplay.

GOING FORWARD
Can we please get some info on this? I haven’t heard anything about what’s going on for 2017, and we’ve gotten info for every year prior. Here’s some questions I would like an answer to:

• Will there be another expansion and if so 2017 or 2018 or even 2019?
• Will there be more elite specializations?
• Will PvP continue to have new maps?
• Will Stronghold get a needed overhaul?
• What’s going on with WvW?
• Any non-raid, challenging content coming out?
• ETA for legendary armor?
• Will there be future balance changes to prevent the game from getting stale?
• Pretty much anything that doesn’t have to do with the gemstore?

I love the game but it feels like no one knows what’s going to happen next with it, and that’s worrisome.

sephiroth.4217:

I make useless builds useful.

This, exactly this. I can’t play meta builds because I am bored playing them and seeing them. Every time I play a condi mesmer I am in danger of falling asleep because they don’t apply enough (or any) burst pressure to feel satisfying and you don’t die quickly so your never really threatened unless there’s 3-4 of them on you and that’s not fun either. You just have to escape or get flattened. It’s boring, like really, really boring. But if I play something like a power wells mesmer then I have a lot more fun. It’s worse, but at least it’s fun.

JordanJD.3209:

4. Actually punish people that are getting constantly reported for throwing games. If you need help analyzing all of this data I would love to help (fellow dev here)

Community:
1. We are awful humans. No one is welcoming to new players. People throw matches, people argue within teams. No one wants to join our community, and if that is the case then the devs can’t help us anyways.

These two points to me are pretty crucial. I have at least a hundred people blocked for throwing kitten and throwing matches.

Here’s an example. For several games in a row, either my team or the enemy team got the same guy, who refused to play for arbitrary reasons. We all know what these are, things like “I don’t like our comp, we only have a two cap, we lost a beast so were gunna lose.” The majority of us reported him, for each game. I ended up blocking him as did most people in the games. I had a game with him two days ago. He threw the match again, just camping out in home and from what I can see from the others whom I haven’t blocked, he was berating players on our team the whole time.

I looked up how they determine banning and found they use a report/time function, which won’t ever cause a ban in a pvp match due to their system to determine it, source is here . If all nine other players submit a report to a player there likely won’t be any action taken as thats a 9/10min intervals maximum, which doesn’t seem to be enough. I’d also assume they use machine learning to determine the abnormal numbers, which will be heavily skewed by gold sellers as they tend to be in areas of high population density and get reported by everyone in the map nearly simultaneously. (I am assuming all report functions share a common system). If my assumptions are correct then a fix is needed badly.

Sunshine.5014:

Hooglese.4860:

Because the game is not designed for duels, it’s designed for 5v5s. If it was designed around dueling we wouldn’t have conquest. We’d have team death match.

This myth about “it’s designed for 5v5” still persists.

95% of all the fights in this game are 3v3, 2v2, and 1v1. Back cap and 1v1 on point happens a lot more frequently than 10 noobs clashing in mid disregarding the other 2 points and map objectives.

Please stop repeating that myth.

I’m not referring to that, no one ever is referring to that, they’re referring to the fact you have 4 other teammates and you’re trying to win via caps (not kills). What I and probably everyone else thats said this is that dueling is not the deciding factor for balance. There’s a lot more than that

Because the game is not designed for duels, it’s designed for 5v5s. If it was designed around dueling we wouldn’t have conquest. We’d have team death match.

This season’s been pretty well balanced. Stale, but balanced. Well except for ele, but duh.

Here’s a summary of what I feel needs a fine tuning (outside elite specs)

Elementalist
I don’t play ele but there needs to be some love here. I also really don’t want the resurrection of the bunker tempest. Here’s some ideas:

• Signet of Restoration: increase healing on skill activation
• Ring of Fire: Increase pass through burning duration to 4s.
• Lava font: reduce cd back to 6s
• Weapon Skill reduction traits: revert back to 33%
• put Latent Stamina in arcane. put Arcane Resurrection in tempest. These two are all mixed up. Arcane isn’t the auracentric support line, and Tempest isn’t the dodge focused attunement line…
• Just don’t rebuff Elemental Bastion, anything else is fine by me.

Engineer
Engi needs both a hit and some love I feel. It’s a weird one. It’s main issue is that it’s capable of resing/stomping very well, provides reflects very reliably, and can passively manage cc very easily while dishing it out just as easily.

• Slick Shoes: Allow to hit players multiple times, but with a 1s icd. Not a pure trap like before but not useless like now.
• Electro-whirl: No longer reflects projectiles, instead just blocks them. Increase damage by 10-20%
• Defense Field: should have a cast time.
• Gyro self destructions: should scale with the engi’s stats.
• Perfectly Weighted: increase icd to 15s, but provides 2 stacks.
• Final Salvo: add a small ICD (like 5s) to prevent rapid reapplication of stability.
• Function Gyro: this thing’s the main thing making scrapper strong. Reducing its health would be the easiest fix I can see.
• Move Shrapnel to Firearms, move Skilled Marksman to Explosives GM and change it’s functionality to give explosive functionality to the rifle.

Guardian
Okay, but somethings can be worked on

• Symbol of blades: should deal 10% less dmg
• Whirling Wrath: should deal 10-15% more damage
• Fragments of Faith: reduce the number of stacks of stability to one.
• Purification: lower healing from the trap
• Piercing Light: shouldn’t daze. It should blind.
• Radiant Retaliation: should be anything other than what it is.

Mesmer
Mostly fine.

• Well of Precognition: change function to giving an Unblockable buff at the end rather than 30 endurance. Something like its original function.
• Continuum Split: should not work with elite skills, especially when elite skills already have longer cool downs than the split.
• Restorative Mantras: merge with Harmonious Mantras.
• Phantasmal Fury: move to insperation to take the spot of Restorative Mantras
• Add new trait to dueling (Adept): remove condition on critical hit (5s icd minimum)
• Time Catches Up: Give swiftness not superspeed

Necromancer
It’s in a pretty good place I find. Just not perfect.

• Gravedigger: lower cooldown to 6s. Lower cast time to 1s
• Death Spiral: lower cast time to 3/4s
• Grasping Darkness: reduce cast time to 1/2s
• Should be a GM trait in Blood Magic (Unholy Martyr isn’t needed) that grants health/shroud when you corrupt a boon.
• Chilling Victory: either give might or shroud

Ranger
I’m bias against rangers or more precisely druids. Ancient seeds bewilderingly powerful.

• Solar Beam: lower the damage by 15%. It should not be as strong as a full range Long Range Shot.
• Astral Wisp: increase damage and healing. Allow casting on allies.
• Smoke Assault: create a max range of 2000
• Glyph of Unity: double the damage it deals.
• Druidic Clarity: reduce to only remove 5 conditions
• Natural Stride: reduce to only 25% movement increase
• Celestial Shadow: should only apply to the druid/pet.
• Ancient Seeds: should have a longer cooldown to match Entangle.

Revenant
Mostly good.

• Unrelenting Assault: Add a max range of 2000.
• Surge of the Mists: should only remove one stack of stability.
• Debilitating Slam: Reduce cost to 10 energy.
• Enchanted Daggers: Should be unblockable
• Elemental Blast: Reduce damage by 10%
• Enhanced Bulwark: reduce stability duration to match unwavering avoidance

Thief
There’s too much wrong here for me to touch on. Here’s the basics:

• Hide in Shadows: lower cd to 25s
• Withdraw: lower cd to 15s
• Skelk Venom: lower cd to 30s.
• Channeled Vigor: increase cdto 25s
• Signet of Agility: dodge spamming
• Distracting Daggers: double the projectile speed
• Mug: should be made baseline
• Preparedness: needs to be made baseline
• Unhindered Combatant: needs a complete overhaul, it’s way stronger than the other two.

Warrior
Adrenal health was nerfed but that wasn’t the problem.

• Adrenal Health: increase healing
• Versatile Power and Smash Brawler should not stack
• Cleansing Ire should only remove one condition on Primal Bursts, and remove 3 on activation (to match the adrenaline spent)

Sigh, yeah, they really should. The worst offender is mesmer’s but they’re all pretty dumb and they could be fixed pretty easily using a similar matrix:

• Chronomancer’s don’t get distortion (shatter)
• Druid: Only get one pet
• Scrapper: can’t revive/stomp without the gyro
• Berserker: no access to non-primal bursts, buff to non-primals or nerf to primals to even them out.
• Herald: add a cost to using facet of nature; reduce energy to max out at 50%

I do think these two have the right idea just some imbalances you’ve mentioned.

• Guard: buff normal virtues (Justice gives 1 unblockable attack, Valor has a lowered CD and heals for as much as the wings, courage blocks the next 3 attacks)
• Necro: buff to normal shroud

I will say Daredevil needs a whole rework along with some improvements to theif. It’s so dumb, Dash is clearly the strongest dodge as it makes you immune to immobilization and is pretty much the whole acrobatics line in a single trait. Not to mention it gives an additional dodge AND makes your dodges better. Not taking it is a huge handicap.

That sounds terrifying, seeing super op birds everywhere that were once just harmless robots

It is odd anet tries so hard to make AIs scale off nothing, I think gyros should be different because they’re not conventional AIs. They’re pretty much mobile banners, so why shouldn’t they scale? Especially since the blast function is unrelated to the gyros core functionality and is an active skill? At the very least it should show the correct damage output.

Playing a game of pvp I noticed gyro damage to be high. Nothing too strange or broken I found, but then I wanted to make a gyro detonation build and noticed something staggeringly wrong. Gyro’s self destruct damage is unrelated to character stats and is nothing near what is shown, which is odd because the stat shows that they scale from the power stat (which is does not) and they do not scale from ferocity if they critically hit, nor do they scale from precision (as they always have about a 50-60% critical hit chance).

I did some googling and learned the damage isn’t supposed to scale from engineer stats, which is typical but they should. While I don’t consider the damage in a dps build to be over powered I do think it’s a bit broken. It should scale to add some risk/reward, right now it’s just mediocre if you’re dps and stupidly high (for raw dmg) if you’re not.

The attached screen shots show the mentioned inconsistencies.

Josh Davis.6015:

We’ve been talking about personal score a bit. I’m personally of the opinion that it isn’t representative of a player’s effort in a given match, and it also can be incredibly misleading and potentially lead to bad gameplay habits (5-capping home).

If you were to redesign personal score, what would you do? Does it track different types of stats? Would you want your personal stats displayed to other players?

Step one would be to make “skirmisher” be rewarded for fighting on a neutral node rather than off point fighting. This has needed to change since launch.

I’d give +1 point per second holding a node against an enemy. So to promote defending rather than just offending

Spirit Watch (SW), Skyhammer (SH), and to a lesser extent Revenge of the Capricorn (RoC) are currently not in ranked. The first two have gone through some significant changes to improve them. RoC is brand new and not out of “beta” so it may be subject to change. I think it’s about time to look at whether or not they’re well enough designed to be in ranked queue. I’m not going to answer that but open it up to debate.

First of all SW. It has been my least favourite map pre-change. The mechanic of the orb was heavily influinced by stability, superspeed and movement skills, so naturally there was an orb runner imbalance. It’s been changed to lock your skills to inhibit such things from effecting it. SW’s layout is also a reason for why it should be questioned. There’s a large emphasis on verticality, which gives ranged weapons an advantage and creates falling damage for those sweet instant kills. Luckily all of those are off-point, but it would still give, say, a guardian an advantage over a low-health player trying to escape on the rafters. On the flip side the shorter distance from spawn to far allows for good sneaky back cap play and potentially quick counter play. With the orb placed off of the mid->side path, a team can out rotate a zerg fairly easily. The additional teleport path from orb to mid also makes this map a lot better for those that can take advantage of it. This map now feels a lot more like Temple with out the critical buffs, which I like.

Okay, who didn’t hate how SH worked before? Ambushed, pit, death. Chasing an enemy, pit, death. Dodge the hammer, pit, death. Knocked into a corner, fall through the world into water, have to dc and reconnect. It was extremely gimmicky and gave a huge advantage to classes that had a lot of access to CC, not to mention the hammer was very easy to hold for AI builds or trappers. The cherry on the cake were the RNG jump pads that would only slow you down and kitten you off. All of that has, by miracle, been fixed. No more death pits, the hammer has been changed, the jump pads work and just for QoL the mid’s balcony moved down so there’s much less “obstructed” for both those on and off of it. It’s still got points against it though. Far isn’t accessible from spawn unless your team is unaware, but for this we gotta assume top-level game is being done. This is because player’s headed mid can see if there’s someone coming for their home node and intercept quickly. The hammer now decaps all enemy nodes and hits the area twice with a lot of power, which is second in strength only to tranquility, yet happens more frequently. On top of that the mid node is the closest to the portal to the hammer, which really isn’t ideal for teams holding only their home node, but then again if they get it that flips the game. I’d rather it be in a location equidistant from all nodes and spawn, like stillness or the orb. That aside, the map design is good, since at each point you have limited visibility and with the multiple +hidden paths into each point, good rotation is essential and makes a bunker’s life miserable. It’s probably one of the funnest maps right now.

RoC is subject to change so I’ll keep it real short. For starters, a far rush is impossible since it’s both too far and can be intercepted by player on mid, since you can teleport through the gate. Each point has extremely long visibility with no hidden paths so if you’re holding you should never be surprised and sneaky decaps can be stopped by players fighting off point. The bell luckily shakes up rotations enough that it can cause a snowball for a team and is located in the center of the map, so comebacks are possible. I’d like to know what’s going to happen with this map, because it’s new and not frustrating. Well except when everyone selects it for two weeks straight.

I’d like to hear what people have to say about bringing these maps into ranked, like a yes/no with a reason why. Idk about tourney play because I’m a filthy casual and don’t really do those.

Agreed. I mean OPs specific reasons for why are misguided af but his hearts in the right place.

PvPs mechanics/style/strategy to win are fundamentally different then PvEs. pvps benefits deeply from moving quickly, sustaining against cc, conditions are extremely useful and being able to sustain/support teammates is what makes builds meta instead of just good. PvE is largely just maximising damage done to a nearly stationary target and maybe bringing one or two dedicated support chars; no enemies can do conditions to the extent players need to self cleanse for PvE, but PvP requires it because if you can’t youre dead. They couldn’t be more different. Giving the PvP team control over PvP skill balance would fix this. It makes no sense that they don’t because PvP team should be in control of PvP, but they aren’t.

Ain’t gunna happen kiddo.

If there’s a thread dedicated to it, then this should be merged, if not, whatever.

The new maps alright and show a lot of promise, but there are some issues though, and they should be addressed for it to be made ‘competitive’. I’ll put it in point form for simplicity.

• You can use a targeted teleport (like Phase Traversal) to get from mid<->bell.
• Load distance is an advantage, since the further you can see an enemy the better off you’ll be.
• You can see home/far from bell but mid is hard to read with the gate mesh. You can see them, but it’s a pain.
• Teleport pathing towards the bell from the lower area doesn’t work.
• Far is a huge risk to take/rush, putting a larger emphasis on 2-point strategy.

The above point is the longest and biggest,so I’m putting the reasons why below.

The limited number of paths into the home node (2 as apposed to the usual 3-4), distance to the enemy spawn(10,000), and the openness make it the easiest home node to defend. It also allows for someone to check if the enemy is sending some one to your home along the shortest path to mid, as well as stop them far before (5000 dist) they reach the point. More so than on any other map, you can see the enemy coming for home and scramble a defense in time, as you can see almost to point in both directions. It really doesn’t help with the mid situation being able to see if someone’s heading to home, do something about it, and head back with limited consequence.

This makes it really advantageous to have a dedicated point watcher (likely a mesmer for 1v1 strength, defensive capability, portal for bell, 25% move speed, etc…). It strangles potential for clutch plays that you see on the other maps, yet also slows matches down, so what you end up with is a slow but steady crawl; something the bell concept should in theory prevent but only enhances with the extra points per cap. Kylho’s the closest to this but the small, linear map design allows for rapid counter rotations, making it one of the funnest to play/watch.

There’s a “path” behind each home but it can only be accessed well before the enemy can sneak into it via the giant straight away and is used very rarely.

Ilias.8647:

Burtnik.5218:

I consider it as bug cause other similiar abilities doesnt proc it multiple times….

Wiki considers it to be a bug as well

For the same reasons I believe its a bug as well. Its just weird why its not on official bug list…

Cause anet put less than a quarter bugs on there.

This “Bug fixing patch” was embarassing. We got some and I like that but we need like 4x more bug fixes

also didn’t fix the confusion bug…

Aury.1367:

“Glints too powerful and easy to use yet also boring as hell.”

Dude, Buglist? more like a cry-list

Not a bug list, an issues list. Burtnik already has the bug list.

XxsdgxX.8109:

Idk dude, some of the suggestions were nice but I totally disagree with the complaints on Glint.

Glint is the easiest legend by a mile. It takes no energy management at all and is beneficial to all play styles. It’s also stronger than any other non-revenant boon support class with no consequence for activation other than almost negatable cooldowns. How do people not get that having AoE perma fury, 12 might, regen, protection and swiftness is bad design? Guardians have “Save yourselves!” which does like a sixth of that to the guard alone. The activation are also the best skills on revenant. It’s the best heal, stunbreak arguably, the two highest damage utils, and the second best ult (shiro wins that one). I don’t hate glint, I just think it’s clearly been made stronger than the other legends for reasons I don’t quite understand. Elite spec I suppose.

I totally forgot to mention that I want the CD removed/reduced at least. That’s my bad.

Facet of Nature has also turned us into the most boring class to play in raids. Hold it up and auto attack. Try not to fall asleep.

Malkav.4609:

This is some very well formatted but totally unfounded crying. The analysis appears to have come from being owned pvp. If anything for the most part Revenants are easy prey and they just got nerfed in most of the areas where they were strongest.

Revs fine in pvp, it’s just limited in options to take when it shouldn’t. I main revenant in pvp now, I don’t understand why you think this…

Let’s get this over with.

First off, if you remove Cleric amulet, you gotta remove Magi.

There are some issues with the new amulets, well Seeker Amulet. They don’t add vitality or toughness, sure, but they add boon duration. Is this useful for everyone? No. Is there an oversight with a certain dragon invoking profession? Yeah big time.

Seeker amulet, in tandem with a herald, is gunna cause problems. I tested it, and found it to far too strong for the current balance. Here’s why:

• Facet of Chaos gives 5.5s of protection every 3s giving up to a maximum of 46s (longer than the cool down of the activation).
• Near permanent quickness as impossible odds gives 1.83s of quickness per second so on legend swap you have just over 8s of quickness.
  So that’s 1.5x dmg and 33% less damage, which is about the sustain boost from the comparable Mercenary and Demolisher amulets but with extra damage.

On other professions I don’t know if this would be as big of an issue but on revenant it will likely make the meta.

Some bugs were fixed and while there still are a lot of bugs, it’s progress that I hope will continue. Now we should at least look at things that really need to be fixed with revenant.

Jalis
This legend has fairly useless since we’ve been able to play Revenant. It’s especially concerning because this was the first released legend.
What’s wrong:

• Extremely limited access to stun breaks + Inconsistent/limited access to stability
• Vengeful Hammers doesn’t work
• Rite of the Great Dwarf turns you into a giant target during cast time.
• It’s littered with cooldowns, which is against revenants core design.
  Here’s my fix suggestions:
• Inspiring Reinforcement (aka the yellow brick road): Stability on cast, should break stun.
• Vengeful Hammers: Fix the the self-canceling bug. If this is impossible, which it apparently is, change to not have spinning hammers but rather aoe pulsing damage with the same animation and the same functionality.
• Rite of the Great Dwarf: Remove stun-break. Add block during cast. Reduce cast to 1s.

Ventari
Ventari is a weird one since its a healer and the first one but was the only one balanced around pre-HoT gameplay. Why hasn’t it been fixed is beyond me. There’s the argument druid needs to be stronger as a healer but since Celestial Avatar is available every 15s for 15s (it’s pretty much guaranteed to get to full in 15s) it is comparable and should be treated as such.
What’s wrong:

• Moving the tablet is too expensive
• Unnecessary cooldown times
• Weakest healer
• No self-sustain
  How to fix:
• Project Tranquility: Increase energy cost to ten. Add a semi-decent self heal to the revenant (around 3-4k depending on healing power).
• Ventari’s Will: Lower energy cost to 5. Remove cooldown entirely.
• Natural Harmony: Remove cast delay. Reduce coolown to one second. This will normalize it with Druid’s healing capability or at least get it close. Not quite there.
• Purifying Essence: Reduce cooldown to 3s to normalize with druid’s Seeds of Life.
• Energy Expulsion: Add 240 AoE heal of 2,452 with a 1.1 healing coefficient to normalize it with Druid’s Lunar Impact.

Mallyx
Mallyx has been in a bad place since BWE3 because it’s core design got ripped apart and it’s yet to be fixed. It won’t be viable in PvE until torment is fixed in PvE and on that day it will be usable (but probably not optimal).
What’s Wrong:

• Resistance is too strong and as a result is extremely benifited by boon duration.
• Embrace the Darkness is useless
• Unyielding Anguish is very weak for its cost and currently does very little condi aoe pressure to the point no one uses it as a condition weapon
• Pain Absorption provides more resistance from Demonic Defiance, which in turn compensates for it’s inability to apply it without. It works but only because of two wrongs, and as a result is spammed every 5s to account for Demonic Defiance’s internal cool down.
• Torment is worthless in PvE
• The heal is the strongest revenant heal and it’s not supposed to be a bunker legend.
  How to Fix:
• Change how torment works in PvE
• Change Embrace the Darkness to copy conditions, remove the 10% bonus stats as it is useless if you are running a condition build.
• Unyielding Anguish: Increase torment stacks applied on pulse to 3 per, remove the damage on pulse/lower it significantly and remove the chill thus increasing aoe pressure.
• Pain Absorption: Lower the resistance gained by Demonic Defiance to be the same as other Mallyx skills and increase base resistance gain to make a minimal change as to prevent spamming it in order to make it work.
• Empowering Misery: Revert to heal more per condition.
• Lower the effectiveness of resistance. (I will address this further down).

Shiro
The PvP legend! Not seen in PvE, everywhere in PvP. I don’t see this changing but things can be done to improve it. I’m going to keep this one small.

• Enchanted Daggers: Increase base heal, lower damage/life steal on daggers and remove the ICD. Add Unblockable. It’s a super inconsistent heal and does way too much damage.
• Phase Traversal: Lower PvE energy cost to 20. It’s useless there

Glint and also F2
Glints too powerful and easy to use yet also boring as hell. You get free casts and boons for seemingly no reason,
What’s Wrong:

• The boon power creep is real
• Facet of Nature is incredibly powerful while also being incredibly cheep.
• No energy management needed
• Stronger than Jalis for no reason.
• People just spam facet of chaos’s active ability with rare exceptions.
  How to fix:
• lower all boon durations to 2.75s with the exception of Strength for obvious reasons. With Herald’s adept trait adding 15% boon duration you will still have permanent boons but only when the facet is active. (Unless you have F2 up or item buffs).
• add an energy cost to (almost) all activations of facets.
• Increase cooldown on the activation of Facet of nature (PvP only)
• Increase the upkeep for Facet of Nature to 5.
• Reduce cooldowns significantly.
• Facet of Darkness: add a cost of 5-10 energy. CD of 15s.
• Facet of Elements: add a cost of 15 energy. Increase upkeep to 2. Cooldown of 5s
• Facet of Strength: Lower might duration to 8s. Add a cost of 15 energy. Cooldown of 10s
• Facet of Chaos: Add a cost of 20 energy. Cool down of 10s.

The following are done more simplistically as the issues are more obvious.

Sword off hand
It’s useless.

• Fix the inconsistent block time on Duelist’s Preparation
• Either increase the distance on grasping shadow to 180 or change it to a pull.

Corruption
The traits have clear winners as to which is strongest.

• Replenishing Despair: Remove internal cooldown
• Demonic Defiance: Remove internal cooldown, reduce base duration of all skills to 1s.
• Frigid Precision: Add a small amount of damage on activation.
• Pulsating Pestilence: Copy conditions when Embrace the Darkness pulses.
• Diabolic Inferno: add increased burn duration of 15%.
• Maniacal Persistence: Increase critical damage along side critical chance by 5%.

Devestation
Dismantle Fortifications is pointless in PvE, some other traits are fairly useless as well.

• Vicious Lacerations: Sword critical hits steal a small amount of health, the same as Focused Siphoning. It does the same thing as Ferocious Strikes and that’s kinda lame.
• Jade Echo: lower cooldown to kitten . Why 90s…
• Dismantle Fortifications: Now also doubles defiance bar damage. Also when you CC a foe with 1 stack of stability, you cc them as well. Now it will be useful.

Retribution

• Improved Aggression: This is worthless in PvP. I’d suggest adding 3s retaliation when you apply taunt.
• Steadfast Rejuvenation: Increase health gained.

Salvation

• Eluding Nullification: Reduce ICD to 5s
• Invoking Harmony: Change to heal on legend swap.
• Natural Abundance: No longer heals. Now the tablet cripples enemies… It doesn’t make sense to have two healing GMs competing against each other.

Herald
Elite spec issues aside, there’s trait issues here.

• Swift Gale: Also gives regeneration and a small amount of protection.
• Shared Empowerment: Lower duration to 5s
• Enhanced Bulwark: No longer adds stab on stab. This makes no sense for Herald. Instead change it to something like “On stunbreak gain stability for 5s.” Something that makes sense for Herald and not Retribution.

Anywho drop your thoughts and despair in knowing the devs won’t ever listen to us again (unless we post to reddit).

So PP, as I will refer to it, was changed to copy 3 conditions at 240 range. The cast on EtD also was removed as a buff of sorts. I’m gunna talk about the change, how it used to be and how this all relates to Mallyx/condition revenants.

At the start of the development of rev it did this. It did almost exactly this but we could do this but better with Mallyx’s Embrace the Darkness. No one used it because it wasn’t good. It was changed to give a single stack of torment but that was worse because lets face it, one stack of torment every ten seconds isn’t even good enough to be a minor adept trait. I will acknowledge it spreads stacks now along with the duration thus making it a lot better. I still don’t like it, it’s super inconsistent to use with out the self corruption of the past Mallyx and I’m not saying it’s useless but there’s a problem now. Well its an old problem that only got worse.

PP and Diabolic Inferno are now the contenders for GM corruption trait and revs will/should change which one depending on whether or not they have to deal with a lot of conditions. DI is good but requires an elite activation, namely Embrace the Darkness whereas PP doesn’t. Have you figured it out? Do you get the issue?

Embrace the Darkness is kittening useless. It is. DI was literally the only purpose of EtD and you’d turn it off after. I’d also usually try to pop it with Jade Winds instead since that hurts way more. Now we have PP, which activates on legend swap thus removing the need to ever pop EtD. A rune could add a reason but let’s be fair, that’s not really worth bringing with Leadership runes existing.

I do not like how PP and copy conditions has been implemented along with how EtD is viewed by anet. For one, PP is very inconsistent to use since it only copies 3 and which ever 3 get chosen won’t be chosen by you so if you have immob, 8 burn stacks, cripple, chill and a stack of bleed you could easily (and likely) copy the bleed, chill and cripple. It’s frustrating. Secondly, we’ve killed EtD. The cast time doesn’t matter if the effect sucks. The torment on EtD is too small to be noticeable and a temporary +10% stats is insignificant for a condition class since it only applies to the conditions you apply during it’s activation and due to its cost won’t be many. Lastly, it discourages bringing invocation as the stunbreak + condi remove on legend swap nerfs it since you wont be able to copy fear/taunt and potentially one less condition.

I’m frustrated Arena Net. There’s a very easy fix to this. PP should, instead, activate on EtD on pulse, because of course it should. It keeps to it’s original design and gives an incentive to keeping EtD active over time. Could this be OP? Not if you limit it by one a pulse at one pulse per three seconds (thats the same rate as now). Come on guys, you could’ve saved the revenant but you just fixed it, mostly. There are still a lot of bugs.

I don’t hate having to craft. Having acct bound only stats is alright.

1200 flax isn’t. 1200 flax is never okay. Who can farm that on their own? Who could possibly in their right mind farm 1200 flax when you get 1-2 a node at one node at every 3s? That’s a minimum of 30min to an hour of pressing ‘f’ with out going from node to node nor taking into account the maximum number of flax nodes generated in the world at a time (which is actually really small).

Legendary weapons are the only comparable thing to this as you need an equally large number of wood/metal. Here’s the thing though, ancient wood and orichalcum give 3-5 a node and can be salvaged. The only plant mat needed for legends cap out at 250.

1200 flax for a set of armor is too much, WHEN ITS ONLY AN EXOTIC SET OF ARMOR.

I’d buy a keyring for like 10$. Better than a ton of crappy shared inv slots or using bank slots for them.

Agreed. Tbh it’s the most balanced elite spec. If core virtues are buffed slightly, guardian will be the only profession that doesn’t need to run its elite spec. Instead just nerf the 7 that add instead of change.

You don’t need to worry though. If anything it’ll get a buff which id hate to see happen.

I couldn’t care. I got to diamond for max reward. I can’t care about reaching legend. There’s no prestige to it and seeing the same builds over and over and over again gets boring. I think I played 92 matches this season and won 66 of them. Seeing every ele, mesmer, necromancer, engi, guard and rev running the same builds got incredibly boring and easy to predict.

Unless they nerf elite specs this won’t stop. This goes for my rev too. They just make kitten too easy and tempest is the worst of the bunch (it’s not unbalanced but every game has one and it’s boring in every aspect). If there was a reason to not take elite specs it would add a lot more of the needed enjoyment. Why? Rotations would be more important without tempests holding point and perma swiftness heralds moving between two at Mach 5, you would have to size up your opponent before fighting the to figure out their build, people having to learn how to play their clas in PvP before playing ranked to do well. We cant get rid of the grind but we can make it harder to climb the ladder by making it harder to win.

There’s also loss steak breaking. That needs to go. It makes climbing the ladder too easy and dropping in it nearly impossible.

The only issue I have with sword is precision strike. Making it a wave won’t work cause that would be too strong. I’d like it to be a leap that has a guaranteed crit chance or increased critical damage. Something that makes use of the word “precision.”

Right now it’s kitten. It’s not weak but it’s not fun to use.

If you’re doing hot join you could’ve been thrown in a server with a dedicated purpose like dueling or dailies. That’s not your fault that’s anets algorithm being dumb.

If you’re doing unranked queuing I haven’t the faintest clue. Running a non meta build can merit that but rarely. I’ve seen spirit weapon dragon hunters not get a single flame, so I can’t say.

There should be one, other wise stagnating gameplay. There was a post on the rev forums saying they would fix a lot of the rev bugs on the next balance patch so whether or not they fix them, there will be a balance patch.

It’s not great. It’s fun, but the energy upkeep is insane on Ventari. Facet of Nature hurts that, it’s not impossible but it’s not better than a druid or a tempest at the end of the day. The DPS build sustains it by not using skills outside precision strike and other upkeeps. It’s realllly boring to play.

Gellrock probably has the most supportive argument in favour.

It will probably get a buff in a future patch so if you’re optimistic that it will happen join us!