Guild Wars 2

Roy Cronacher.1576:

Hey, everyone! Once again, I’m back to talk with you all about upcoming changes to the revenant which you’ll get to play in the upcoming BWE3. These were made from all the awesome feedback we received from BWE2 as well as our internal testing.

Similar to the other posts like this that I have made, I’ll be providing some of the thought behind these changes as to why we made them. Overall, revenant has been doing very well and is much closer to how we want it for HoT launch. As you all have seen, the profession has come a long way since the first time that it has been played and a lot of that is with the help of all the amazing feedback from you all. (Thanks!) There were a few lingering issues, tweaks, and polish which I’ll discuss below. So, let’s get into it.

General
Here we have some polish changes for the profession. It was brought up on the forum as a suggestion to have a custom dodge FX and that got added as a direct result.

• Added an effect to dodging.
• Added underwater versions of the downed skills.
• Added a hand glow when invoking legendary centaur stance.

Downed
Unfortunately, the displace mechanic was interacting poorly in the game as a whole. It was causing undesired behavior with NPCs and pathing, its strength varied by game mode, it was very disorienting to the receiving foe and other issues as well. We made the decision to remove displace and change the skills which had it on them. In this case we changed it to a knockback because it was similar functionality.

• Forceful Displacement: This skill no longer displaces foes, instead it will now knockback the foe 600 distance.

Sword
For sword, there were some minor tweaks. Precision Strike was made a whirl finisher because it made sense as your character is spinning around, plus the skill needed a bit of help. Unrelenting Assault was a bit strong after the last set of changes so I slightly increased the recharge to have a lower window between evade times.

• Precision Strike: This skill is now a whirl finisher.
• Unrelenting Assault: Increased the recharge from 10 seconds to 12 seconds. Fixed a bug so that this skill will more report damage as a multi-hit skill allowing it to stack up damage per target rather than displaying each instance of damage individually.

Staff
In staff the changes were mostly about the flow of play. It felt awkward to have to stand still to cast Renewing Wave so I changed out the animation to one that would work while moving to keep this weapon more mobile feeling. Debilitating Slam had a long cast time for a skill which is used for an interrupt so I went ahead and shortened that down to so it could be used as a more reactionary skill.

• Warding Rift: Fixed a bug where this skill could be cancel-casted to gain the benefit of the block without going on full recharge.
• Renewing Wave: Changed the animation on this skill so it can be used while moving. It retained the same 1 second cast time.
• Debilitating Slam: Decreased the cast time from 1 second to 0.25 seconds.

Shield
We were trying out defiance bars on player skills in a few places, but it didn’t really work out. Defiance bar is balanced around being on creatures which left some pieces of it feeling awkward for players. It also had essentially a duplicate functionality to stability. In the end we felt like it didn’t play well on player skills so we removed all player defiance bars.

• Envoy of Exuberance: Decreased the energy cost from 15 to 10. Fixed a bug so that this skill will properly heal at the target location instead of around you.
• Crystal Hibernation: Removed the defiance bar. This skill will now block attacks for the duration while regenerating health. Lowered recharge from 30 seconds to 20 seconds.

Legendary Assassin Stance
Jade Winds was a bit too strong being able to cast it back to back if you stored up the energy. This skill got a short recharge to limit being able to chain it back to back with itself. You may notice we have some this with a few skills so pressing one skill multiple times wouldn’t be encouraged and allow for a breathing room for your foes.

• Jade Winds: Added a 5 second recharge.

Legendary Centaur Stance
Here I made some changes to the cast time. Now all utility skills are instant, only the heal and the elite have a cast time. The elite has also been lowered in cast time as well as decreased energy cost.

• Naturalistic Harmony. Decreased the energy cost from 25 to 20.
• Purifying Essence: This skill is now instant cast. Decreased the energy cost from 35 to 30 and added a 5 second recharge.
• Energy Expulsion: This skill is now a blast finisher and reduced the cast time from 2 seconds to 1 second. Decreased the energy cost from 50 to 35.

Legendary Demon Stance
In this stance we had a bit of a bigger change happen. Demon Stance was in an awkward place because it was mechanically cool when you looked at it in a vacuum, but when you were put around other players there was this point of tension which was created. When using demon stance you wanted to manage your conditions and try to keep certain amounts on yourself to empower your skills.

Though, allies directly impacted this play style. While you were around allies, especially players running support, it created tension and frustration between the two players. You wouldn’t want to be near these other players that removed conditions from you as it weakened your skills. This isn’t a tension or frustration that we wanted to create between allies so I moved this stance away from focusing on scaling effectiveness based on your personal conditions. As such, the self-conditions didn’t make sense anymore as you had less reason to utilize these so they were removed. Similar to Forceful Displacement, the displace was removed on unyielding anguish and the skill was re-designed a bit.

• Empowering Misery: Removed the self-applied weakness. Increased the base heal by 40% and decreased the heal per condition by 40%.
• Pain Absorption. Removed the self-applied blind.
• Banish Enchantment: Removed the self-applied vulnerability. This skill now applies 3 stacks of confusion for 6 seconds instead of being dependent on the conditions you have on you.
• Unyielding Anguish: This skill has been re-worked. This skill will now leap to the target location creating a dark field which chills for 1 second and torments for 4 seconds per pulse. The field lasts for 4 seconds and pulses every 1 second. Added a 10 second recharge.
• Embrace the Darkness: Removed the self-applied torment. This skill no longer copies conditions to nearby foes. This skill will increase stats by 10% while active and pulse 6 seconds of torment every 1 second to nearby foes.

Legendary Dwarf Stance
A lot of you thought Forced Engagement was too high of a cost for a single target control skill, and I agree! But, I can’t allow you to use it back to back or else it creates bad chain controlling situations so there is an added recharge as well.

• Forced Engagement: Increased the recharge from 3 seconds to 5 seconds and lowered the energy cost from 50 to 35.

Herald
In herald overall I think it played out fairly well, but there was a few small tweaks I wanted to make. Shared Empowerment was slightly under-tuned compared to other similar traits. Gaze of Darkness bypassed defenses like dodging which wasn’t intended.

• Shared Empowerment: Increased the might duration from 5 seconds to 8 seconds.
• Facet of Nature: This is now useable underwater.
• Gaze of Darkness: Fixed a bug so that this can be properly avoiding using things such as your dodge.

Corruption
In the corruption specialization, there were a few traits which needed some tweaks in power to be competitive options. As an example revenant did not have many options to apply poison, but had the trait Venom Enhancement which increased poison duration so I thought it made sense to also apply poison itself.

• Pulsating Pestilence: Increased the trigger chance from 15% to 25%.
• Replenishing Despair: Increased the base heal by 300% and added a 1 second internal cool-down.
• Venom Enhancement: This trait will now apply poison for 5 seconds with a 20 second recharge when you apply torment as well as increasing poison duration.

Devastation
In this specialization, I addressed an issue a lot of you brought up in feedback which I thought made a lot of sense. Basically you all said the profession stat buffs like empower are generally in master tier and ferocious strikes was just a weaker trait. So I went ahead and switched the position of both of these traits.

• Assassin’s Presence: This trait has been moved to master tier replacing the place of Ferocious Strikes.
• Ferocious Strikes: This trait has been moved to adept tier replacing the place of Assassin’s Presence.

Retribution
In the master tier for this line there were two traits based around incoming control effects, which made little sense and ended up fighting with each other. I went ahead and merged these two traits together creating room for a new trait which I added as the master tier needed a trait to help support the tank feel of retribution.

• Eye for an Eye: The Redeeming Protection trait has been merged with this one. When Eye for an Eye triggers, you will also gain protection for 5 seconds.
• Redeeming Protection: This trait has been merged with Eye for an Eye.
• Dwarven Battle Training: This is a new master tier trait replacing redeeming protection. This trait provides a 25% chance on hit to weaken foes for 4 seconds with a 10 second recharge and decreases weakness’s effectiveness on you by 50%.

Thanks for informing us of these changes. I’m a little disappointed on several of these, but will trust the balancing reasons behind it.

I am very concerned about the amount of additional Cooldowns (CDs) and the increasing of CDs on skills though. As others have stated, it is beginning to feel like we are being double punished for skill use and losing the focus on Energy management. I’d like to kindly implore you to rethink some of the balancing to these skills and either reduce or remove the CDs and instead reduce the benefits to some skills. After all, Energy management is one of the core features to this class. CDs take away from that concept.

Thank you for your continue passion to the class.

Those skills are proof on some inconsistent decisions when ‘polishing’ (AKA rushing) the thief class for the game’s release.

Because if they were meant as a purely defensive skills, and not intended to be used offensively for closing gaps, or maneuvering, they simply should work like ‘disabling shot’, always moving you away from opponent.

But if you have the freedom to turn the camera to choose whatever direction you like, simply allow them to be used like regular dodges.

And please don’t try to convince me that twisting your wrist takes more ‘skill’ than pressing 2 keys at the same time. If you are playing under parkinson’s disease, it’s definitely your problem.

I’d consider the two skills usable if they could be aimed. They aren’t as is.

SoulSin.5682:

http://youtu.be/4Av81XhRu5c?t=1m49s

Though its common for thieves to tell other classes to L2P, I guess you guys should learn some of the thieves inside tricks as well.

We all know we can use it like that, it’s just a hassle (I’m currently using all the keys my hand can reach comfortably). It would be really nice when fighting certain bosses or classes to use withdraw forward instead of turning around first. I’d love to use it forward against mesmers when you see the shatters coming in without having to flip around and probably lose track of the original mesmer while doing so. When fighting Lupi I’d love to use it to dodge in like warrior ww.

A small change like that might make the skills a little to strong but it’d still be nice to have. The one change that NEEDS to happen before that though is fix withdraw so there’s no cast delay. If I’m auto attacking and I press withdraw, I want to use that evade NOW, 1/2 second later.

Valik Shin.9027:

Badges are still a poor way the get commanders as all it show is that you have a lot of kill and might not know much about attacking and defending. Plus it hinders those who run supper builds and don’t get badges. Regardless it would be better than 100g

You get badges through loot bags which means you simply have to tag an enemy and when they die you get a bag….if you never attack anything ever at all, then I feel bad for your server. Probably better to have people on the server to vote for you, IF the goal is to have the most qualified person be a commander. You’ll still have people get them because of their fanboys/girls, but that’s not much different from the current system, other than that the people who should be a commander but can’t afford it would actually be able to be a commander. No great way to fix this, just put up with it.

Is it possible you got hit by two Thieves?