Guild Wars 2

Dragon.8762:

I’ve got 2000 plus hours on just Rev alone. Rev is my main class right now and I love it. I carry very hard in groups/ duo/ solo, and have almost perfected the play style.

One thing I like a lot is the very strong burst damage of the class and its very strong mobility. I mainly stick to using a power rev build utilizing shrio and herald. These two legends allow me to have a very aggressive play style where I can focus more on staying in the fight rather than retreating if I get too low.

I’ve found after lots of play time I deal very high damage as a rev in almost all encounters with almost no down time. All while being able to block, cc, blind, break stun, interrupt and dodge. If played at its highest level; Rev is a remarkable class in both pvp and pve. Although in pve I like to test myself by soloing group content or duoing them with a friend. PVP however is a different story. My advice; if you’re not playing Rev at its highest level, don’t play Rev in pvp. And if you are playing it at the highest level, then you should already know why this is true. At least in the current meta.

WvW is where Rev shines the most. In small groups or solo Rev has the full freedom to experiment with different builds and runes. Before they were taken out of Spvp, runes of durability were the go to runes for Rev and made them really powerful. These runes are fully useful in WvW. Their high damage weapons skills are also for the most part unnerfed in WvW compared to spvp, which means they have a better time at dealing very high damage while still surviving very well. In a zerg, Rev is meta. There hammer damage is insane high, and their aoe resistance buffs and boon uptime is amazing.

I’m curious what sort of builds you run Dragon. I’m considering going back to Revenant with the new expansion after abandoning it for a long time. Be very interested in seeing your builds for dungeons/fractals, PvE and WvW.

My experience has been that in an HOT map when I ask for help getting a Mastery point that requires a small group, I get a positive response about 50% of the time. That’s pretty good as far as I’m concerned.

I’m curious as to whether for general PvE (metas, world bosses, fractals) ppl are still using Power builds mainly or are switching to condi builds?

I’m back to my chrono after toying with an Ele for a while and have a straight power build Insp/Dom/Chrono, sw/sh + gs, zerker gear, and durability runes. Is condi stronger in PvE now and if so, what build?

Citadel of Flame for Zerker Exotic Armor and weapons. All the way. 0 gold and you can buy 1 weapon or piece of armor every 1-2days.

Ascended trinkets from Fractals, guild commendations, WVW and laurel merchant. You pay 0 gold.

You can easily outfit yourself in about a week paying 0 gold, except for the sigils and runes.

Its Nerfing Time.1495:

narcx.3570:

Oneira.7691:

Revenant was my first 80, but after the Fall 2016 nerf I shelved it and leveled a Mesmer. Now I’m lonesome for my Rev so I went back this week and tried to re-learn it for PvE, and it’s hard. I’m not sure if I’m just a bad Rev, but there is absolutely no comparison between the survivability of my Chrono and my Herald. Chrono wins by a country mile. So I’m asking myself, what am i doing wrong?

I’m running Shiro-Glint with zerker gear and will eventually put runes on strength on, Sword/Sh and Staff.

When solo I’ll usually go Facet of Darkness + Facet of Elements, then initiate with Elemental Blast followed by Unrelenting Strike and Precision Strike. IF the damage is coming hard I’ll activate Facet of Light and if I’m about to do down I’ll hit Infuse Light.

If I’m still getting the kitten kicked outta me and I’m still up I’ll use Crystal Hibernation as fast as possible followed by Envoy of Exuberance for a bit of healing.

I have to admit I don’t change legends much. I’ve experimented starting in Shiro, activating Enchanted Daggers and then switching to Glint, but I haven’t seen much benefit out of it.

Any tips on getting better? Zerker gear makes me pretty squishy and I’ve gone down way too fast sometimes against some mobs.

Not too sure what kind of PvE you’re doing, but here’s a few kinda broad general tips:

1) Lose the shield. Outside of PvP it’s pretty worthless… Axe is king in PvE for the mob bunching and breakbar damage. Even if you really want some more iframes, offhand sword is a better choice since it lets you block twice as often—which is way better in PvE since you’re generally wanting to avoid specific high damage attacks, not a long barrage.

2) If you’re playing solo, there’s not really a big need to camp Glint. Since you’ve been running around with Darkness pulsing, you’re going to have like 40 seconds of fury queued up going in to any fight. So, you should really just use your Elemental Blast, then double tap Facet of Strength for it’s burst, maybe double tap Chaos if you want the aoe blast, and then swap into Shiro to impossible odds cleave everything down. Then back to Glint for the energy refresh and repeat.

2.5) If you’re talking raids, or Fractals (with a Mesmer), both Jalis and Mallyx will out dps Shiro since you’re already getting quickness. (and channeling hammers or embrace the darkness still leaves enough upkeep for Facet of Nature—whereas Shiro does not.)

3) Not all mobs you should be going toe-to-toe with. Generally, while in Glint, you should be out of melee range while you’re unloading your 3 facets, staff 5, and sword 2/3. After the enemy is softened up from that you can swap stances and go into melee range to finish them off.

4) Hardening Persistence is great for solo play… Sometimes even fractals. While you lose the free Infused Light and faster resses, it gives you a lot more survivability (400 toughness during Impossible Odds lets you trade hits longer when you’re going for an all out burn.)

5) Full Zerk puts you over 100% crit chance, and while Marauder is a dps loss since you lose ferocity, you can swap a few of your accessories to “Berserker + Valkyrie,” that way you gain some health while only losing Precision, not Power or Ferocity.

I only have one nitpick here, and that’s the Staff 5 is king for breakbar rather than Axe 5. Shield isn’t worthless either, it can be great for solo’ing champs if you need a quick breather and can’t dodge or block out of the way.

The way I personally play Rev is pretty much camping Glint and treating the second legendary as a second health pool with additional benefits depending on the situation. But that’s more down to personal preference than play style.

If he traits for the Fury 40%, then he can use more Valkyrie than Zerk for more HP without a loss either.

Yeah, I was gonna say the same about Staff 5. Best break bar we have. I do trait for fury 40%, so more Valkyrie is probably a good idea.

Oh…the grind for ascended gear….

narcx.3570:

Not too sure what kind of PvE you’re doing, but here’s a few kinda broad general tips:

1) Lose the shield. Outside of PvP it’s pretty worthless… Axe is king in PvE for the mob bunching and breakbar damage. Even if you really want some more iframes, offhand sword is a better choice since it lets you block twice as often—which is way better in PvE since you’re generally wanting to avoid specific high damage attacks, not a long barrage.

2) If you’re playing solo, there’s not really a big need to camp Glint. Since you’ve been running around with Darkness pulsing, you’re going to have like 40 seconds of fury queued up going in to any fight. So, you should really just use your Elemental Blast, then double tap Facet of Strength for it’s burst, maybe double tap Chaos if you want the aoe blast, and then swap into Shiro to impossible odds cleave everything down. Then back to Glint for the energy refresh and repeat.

2.5) If you’re talking raids, or Fractals (with a Mesmer), both Jalis and Mallyx will out dps Shiro since you’re already getting quickness. (and channeling hammers or embrace the darkness still leaves enough upkeep for Facet of Nature—whereas Shiro does not.)

3) Not all mobs you should be going toe-to-toe with. Generally, while in Glint, you should be out of melee range while you’re unloading your 3 facets, staff 5, and sword 2/3. After the enemy is softened up from that you can swap stances and go into melee range to finish them off.

4) Hardening Persistence is great for solo play… Sometimes even fractals. While you lose the free Infused Light and faster resses, it gives you a lot more survivability (400 toughness during Impossible Odds lets you trade hits longer when you’re going for an all out burn.)

5) Full Zerk puts you over 100% crit chance, and while Marauder is a dps loss since you lose ferocity, you can swap a few of your accessories to “Berserker + Valkyrie,” that way you gain some health while only losing Precision, not Power or Ferocity.

Some great advice here Narc. The PvE I mean would be just regular ol’ solo PvE in HoT areas, doing the metas, and fractals.

1) looks like I’ll need to work to get an ascended axe.
2) So you do recommend Shiro as the other legend for the Impossible Odds.
3) Yes that is probably the main reason I go down…I close into melee too fast not realizing that sword 2 has a pretty decent range. (And I’m so busy pressing buttons I don’t dodge in time!)
4) I take it you have Facet of Nature going the whole time to make Impossible Odds last as long as possible?
5) Yes I often do switch out a couple of Zerker Accessories for Valkyrie. The extra health really does seem to make a difference.

Its Nerfing Time.1495:

I always run with Light, Element and F2 on. Soon as I get into a fight, I pop Might and Element for damage, then get Darkness up for Fury (I have 40% Fury traited so my build is 100% crit). This gives me regen at the start of the fight rather than trying to have it slowly build up during the fight, as well as reactively negate death-damage without the delay of activate > heal.

As you might’ve guessed, I spend most of the time in Glint, but tend to have a second legend dependent entirely on what content I’m doing or where I am. Mallynx if I need boon-strip on demand, Resistance, Blind or Condi-heavy heal. Jalis tends to be my most used secondary for heal + condi clear x2, his elite for damage reduction or the stability drop.
Ventari can be great for encounters where it’s slow moving and stable locations (molten core fractal for example, or VG raid). I can trait for regen + protection, and essentially spam heals, protect from ranged damage, condi clear and negate things so easily.

If you play Europe I’d be happy to show you sometime.

Rev is a great, flexible class – don’t be afraid to play around with it to suit your playstyle, rather than match yourself to the build.

Some interesting ideas here. I never thought of using Ventari as the second legend for PvE, but it does make sense for the survivability it brings. Also I didn’t use F2 unless I was in a party, but maybe I should consider using it solo too.

I do play in Europe so let me know how I can contact you.

Revenant was my first 80, but after the Fall 2016 nerf I shelved it and leveled a Mesmer. Now I’m lonesome for my Rev so I went back this week and tried to re-learn it for PvE, and it’s hard. I’m not sure if I’m just a bad Rev, but there is absolutely no comparison between the survivability of my Chrono and my Herald. Chrono wins by a country mile. So I’m asking myself, what am i doing wrong?

I’m running Shiro-Glint with zerker gear and will eventually put runes on strength on, Sword/Sh and Staff.

When solo I’ll usually go Facet of Darkness + Facet of Elements, then initiate with Elemental Blast followed by Unrelenting Strike and Precision Strike. IF the damage is coming hard I’ll activate Facet of Light and if I’m about to do down I’ll hit Infuse Light.

If I’m still getting the kitten kicked outta me and I’m still up I’ll use Crystal Hibernation as fast as possible followed by Envoy of Exuberance for a bit of healing.

I have to admit I don’t change legends much. I’ve experimented starting in Shiro, activating Enchanted Daggers and then switching to Glint, but I haven’t seen much benefit out of it.

Any tips on getting better? Zerker gear makes me pretty squishy and I’ve gone down way too fast sometimes against some mobs.

Kallsbo.8964:

I’m a fairly casual player and I mostly do solo PvE and fractals. How is revenant doing at the moment? I know every profession can be used but I’m a little bit obsessed with playing a profession that is useful. There seems to be a lot of complaints here and are they justified? Are there any buffs coming that we know of? How do they compare to the guardian?

Thanks for any help

I’ll let the more experienced players respond in detail, but any class is fine in PvE. Revenants are fine, they just aren’t as good as most other classes — rangers, warriors, guardians, necros are way better for open world PvE. But you’ll get by fine on a Rev. At least they look cool.

Buffs? /shrug Your guess is as good as anyone’s. Anet doesn’t give out info about buffs in advance.
Guardians? Guardians are better.

Paulytnz.7619:

Skritt nuff said, now we just wait for next expansion!

I would absolutely looooove to have a Skritt assassin. Hell, Skritt anything!

Well I returned to the game after a 2 year hiatus and I’m having lots of fun.

Legendary gear is supposed to be legendary. It should be very hard to get shouldn’t it?

I certainly agree that raids shouldn’t be the only way to get it, but there’s always spending a crap-ton to craft it.

In response to the OP, it would have been interesting if open world PvE had as an option something like a challenge mode, where a player could choose to make the mobs of their level a bit harder.

There would be 2 potential problems with that — first, that “harder” should not mean more health, more damage, more defense but that the AI plays the mobs smarter. That would take a bit of coding work. Second, it would create a problem for grouping. The whole group would have to be in challenge mode or not. you couldn’t have a mix.

A challenge mode would actually make leveling a new toon kind of interesting, but as many have pointed out, the decision by the devs in this game is that it starts at lev 80, and they’re pretty much committed to that it seems

Just a flesh wound.3589:

I don’t know what other people do but I give containers with gear inside to a level 53 char to open up. That way all containers have that level gear and you can play all content and not just certain areas.

You know I’ve tried this. I tried it just yesterday. I gave all the bags, rags and stuff that my lev 80 toon farmed in a lev 50 area to my lev 50 toon, and I got pretty much the same thing — a distribution of various levels of cloth -- silk (which a lev 50 toon is too low for), linen, cotton.

At least now there is a farm for leather in Lake Doric where you can farm all levels of leather except for the lowest. I wish there was a like farm for cloth somewhere. IT would make cloth farming a whole helluva lot easier

Fellow Players:

I know there are a bunch of youtube vids on this but I haven’t had much luck trying them. Any suggestions on the best places to farm these, especially linen?

Or is the best option to farm SW for crests, turn crests into keys and them farm chests and open the bags on lvl 50ish characters?

I think for those who are trying to convince us that everything is fine with leather here thanks to the leather farm, I would like to quote the original post which contains a point that apparently has been forgotten about:

“I Speak from experience: Leather wasn’t a problem but then Anet said “leather is too cheap” and instead of slightly tweaking salvage rates they 1) changed refinement ratios, 2) nerfed drop rates, 3) nerfed salvage rates, and 4) added leather to a ton of recipes. Instead of doing 1 or 2 of these, THEY DID ALL AT ONCE.”

One of the main reasons why leather is not dropping in price is that the demand has skyrocketed because of 1 and 4. I know that I do not sell any leather anymore because i need it all for crating ascended gear. I am constantly buying leather off the TP because I don’t have enough. And it costs.

No I understand why you’re upset. it was supposed to be a Chrono unique and it isn’t anymore. Plus who knows? One day they may make Revs viable again.

The Revenant is a dead class. I wouldn’t worry, really I wouldn’t.

OMG. When I look at the buffs they gave to several other classes and the scraps they threw to the Revenant, I am just shocked.

There is no reason to play a revenant anymore. Good God.

Amaranthe.3578:

ita not wanted in raids,still solid and strong everywhere else

It is ok everywhere else, but they are well below Guardians and Warriors in general.

I made my point to the OP. Get in a group as much as possible, a steady group. Hero points and Masteries will come so much easier.

As for the other comments made about my posts, particularly the one about needing my hand held. I’ll forego returning one insult with another. I went through the first game without having my hand held just fine, with several characters, yet HOT is a completely other story. Spare me your condescending crap. I am a decent enough gamer and not at all far from the norm.

People like you can always say, “oh, it’s so easy I just about slept-walked through it.” Well good for you. The point of HOT should not necessarily be to crush those who are not aspiring to be hardcore. Providing more of a challenge? Fine. I could give you plenty of examples of how often death and failure happens that it may take countless repetitions to “learn” from.

But i’m out of this thread and will not respond further, which will certainly not disappoint you I’m sure.

Ayrilana.1396:

Snipers only kill you if you’re not paying attention and stand in their AoE/line field.

Learning what skills? The ones from masteries are gotten fairly quickly as they’re the firs one in ea h of their mastery lines. Weapon skills and abilities are something I’d think players would know but of course many are still stuck with the mentality of all you have to do is autoattack to win.

Enemies all have mechanics which it helps to learn. Smokescales often give players trouble but they’re so incredibly easy to counter, for example. Like Orr, players will have difficulty if they try to simply run through mobs without being careful to minimize aggro. Quite often it’s easier to just kill things. Case in point, the noxious pod farm area on the west side of the map.

All of the events that are not labeled as “group event” can be done solo. Even then, some group events can be done solo too. That said, the maps are meta-centric so groups are usually better and more fun. Progress can still be done solo as I farmed up large amounts of ley-line crystals fairly quickly by myself.

What was that one thing that you were spending hours trying to do but failing? Dying is a result of making mistakes but that’s how you learn how to not repeat them. HoT is a step above core Tyria where you cannot spam #1 to win although that’s possible in some cases and if you’re in a large enough group.

I looked at mistward gear and all things that are not tied to group meta events (e.g. Modniir, Gerent) can be done solo. What piece(s) were you struggling with?

I’m so glad that everything for you turned out so easy and effortless. Since many groups are about 4 plus a sniper, “not paying attention to the sniper” when he ports, conceals and fires at you from somewhere totally different while you’re taking on 3 other mobs, why sure, it’s a breeze.

As far as spamming @1 to win, I won’t even reply to that caricature of how I try to play.

I’ll give you my experience of HOT. Don’t even try to solo it. It’s a massive death trap with complicated and non-intuitive ways of traveling from point A to point B that will frustrate you to no end unless you make full use of all the internet resources you want to waste your time on.

Solo? Haha! Snipers will kill you in seconds. Other 10-member mobs with kill you in the same time.

And you must spend a lot of time learning the skills to get around, and you will die, die, die, die and die.

So if you have a regular group, fine. A guild that helps you out lots. If you don’t, be prepared for extreme frustration unless you have great gaming peripherals.

I have spent literally hours trying to do just one thing, only to fail over and over again. Arena seems to think that just dying for your mistakes is the way to go.

I wanted to get the full set of mistward gear for my rev. What. a. mistake. It nearly ruined the game for me rather than just crafting exotic draconic armor and being done with it, then going after some ascended gear. I felt like Arena wanted to punish me for the slightest mistake at almost every turn.

Iain Ross.6903:

Huskyboy.1053:

Iain Ross.6903:

The first paragraph made no sense, I say rev is still good because it is, and I went here coz I knew the general stupidity would QQ about it anyways. I told him who I am because we’re acquintances/friends.

I never tried to imply it myself but I am top tier. And you “being in the same mmr” is a hilarious statement, since the system is broken, especially in off-season now, I get in matches with ppl who play full signet thieves and keyboard turn and afk on point, so gratz if you’re proud to be in those matches LUL.

It’s a fact that rev is still good and meta

Amber logic

Yeah lol it’s still meta because the meta hasn’t changed yet, idk what’s your point in saying that. I was in a match yesterday with Phantaram yesterday and he was testing condi rev, which he hasn’t played (on his stream) in over a year. I asked him after the match how it went and he said “yeah it still sucks.” I wonder why he’d be testing it when he plays power rev? The stunbreak on Mallyx hasn’t been added yet so he wasn’t testing out the changes, I think he was evaluating whether he’d want to play it in the next season. Not that he plays rev much anymore. Power rev is still good, but now it’s missing its burst from staff 5, and sword 2.

Lack of burst is also largely the issue with condi rev, which has high amounts of torment at low energy cost, but few cover condis to protect the “burst.” And ofc anybody can just stand still and smack the condi rev in the face to cut the torment damage in half. Rev probably has some big changes ahead but it’s unrealistic to act like power rev will be meta after Tuesday, as its biggest bursts have been toned down significantly. Boonbotting is now the only thing that makes rev a better choice than multiple other power builds that have high single-target damage, with the changes DH is a superior choice due to its better defensive utilities, AoE denial/damage, and control. Even without Piercing Light, Meditrapper still has 3 separate CCs with F1, shield 5 and LB 3.

As to your point about “insane” mobility, Phase Traversal is insanely good at chasing targets. It’s terrible for general mobility since it can only move towards an enemy. Because it’s the only high-mobility skill Rev has, it’s inferior to a Thief’s ability to decap. Rev ties thief for roaming between 2 owned points, but is no more useful for decapping than mesmer or even lightning flash ele. Not really what I’d call insane but you can go crazy about it if you want. Rev’s mobility does not offer it a special role on the battlefield, so I’m not feeling the insanity.

“Rev is still meta” = Rev will still be meta after the changes. “still”. You’re just intentionally misinterpreting to try and make your wrong point across, but it just makes you look stupid. You even urself said “Power rev is still good”. Gj.

The meta will still 90% sure be power rev unless something hidden is found.

The only big change is the cd increase to the staff block, and to some extrent sword 2. Staff 5? You’re just extremely spoiled, and can’t look past a raw number of change.

A rev doesn’t go for decap. Every time it moves it has a target. so it does have insane mobility.

I would just like to ask, how is it that you’re so kitten-sure that Revs will still be meta after these nerfs? Have you extensively tested the changes and do your observations match with other Rev players, from the not-so experienced to the highly experienced?

And please, do not continue with the L2P line. Every time a class gets nerfed that line gets repeated. It’s an insult to the players.

Take your time like the previous poster said, and do the My Story definitely. Do it as soon as it’s available at your level ( level 1,10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80).

Pick up a crafting profession that fits your class and level it as you go, but don’t spend too much cash on it.

Iain Ross.6903:

Correction: Since rev is the strongest class in the game right now, we’ll bring it down a bit to still be really strong, but not too dominant*

Oh yeah, the “slightly” line: 50% and 33% nerf to the 2 main attacks of the Rev is “slightly” and “down a bit”.

It’s funny looking back at the May 2016 nerf to SOTM of 15%. People were saying that ANET did the right thing by being conservative so as not to kill class viability. Then 6 months later they come down with a radical downgrade that looks like it will threaten class viability. 50% downgrade after a 15% downgrade means about at 43-44% downgrade in damage overall. Almost half. So much for taking things slow eh?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Surge-of-the-Mists-Nerfed-YES

I will not be playing my Rev in pvp.

Burtnik.5218:

Hirasaki.6208:

Only Hammer 2 was nerfed, its still a great Rev weapon. Couple it with a full zerker max Burst build and you can deal up to 5 digit dmg on a single CoR easy.

Plus it has a range of 1200, and can hit 5 targets. The only downside is it fire’s very slowly. So if you fighting enemies with shields, that’s when you switch to sword auto and sword 3.

Hammer is trash in spvp and the only thing it is useful for in WvW is CoR spam. In current desing its an unviable weapon spvp, pve and i dare to say even wvw if it wasnt for CoR. A ranged damage with poop damage at max out range, no damage at all at close and with 0 kiting option when its all about keeping distance to do max damage. Makes sense. Not.

Hammer wont become meta, rev is out of meta.

I agree about hammer. Very slow, can’t do enough damage to keep them from closing. It’s basically a weapon to soften up a mob so that when it closes you switch to sword + and pop the Shiro Elite skill. I almost never kill a mob with hammer alone, unless it’s a ranged mob and I just keep “hammering” away, which takes a while.

Exciton.8942:

Oneira.7691:

How depressing. I just returned to the game and just finished leveling a Revenant to 80 and now they get nerfed. Guess I should have been reading the forums.

Any suggestions on a alternative class for doing PvE, Fractals, and WvW in that order of priority?

The nerfs were all PvP related.
You are still as strong everywhere else.
Revenant is currently not optimal meta in raid but it is still a worthy member to take because it brings in a variety of utility to the group.

Hope you’re right. The hammer at range is pretty underwhelming though.

How depressing. I just returned to the game and just finished leveling a Revenant to 80 and now they get nerfed. Apparently the nerf of Oct 18 was bad enough and instead of compensating for what they did, they nerf Revs harder? Guess I should have been reading the forums.

I really liked my Rev too Died too easy in melee to things like Smokescales, but still fun.

Any suggestions on a alternative class for doing PvE, Fractals, and WvW in that order of priority?

I thought Hammer had already been nerfed in a previous patch?