Guild Wars 2

CandyHearts.6025:

@phokus ~

Next bwe I can imagine there wont be as much feedback. We really have nothing to test seeing as damage wasn’t the issue in the first place.

Not to be a downer but I’d rather focus on testing Warrior. It looks like it’s going to be a blast to test. Some of the concepts sound like soooo much fun!

Same! I haven’t used my Warrior much since the specialization patch, but Berserker sounds amazing. Sadly, I think Warrior got the design A team, and Guardian got the D team.

How it’s possible to completely misunderstand why instant cast Virtues are a staple of the class is completely beyond me.

Kidel.2057:

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

Kidel.2057:

TheFantasticGman.9451:

[…]my experience with the Rev so far is that Shiro is DPS, but only decent. Jalis, Mallyx, and Glint aren’t DPS legends, to boost that POV, Roy called Shiro the DPS legend.[…]

In the last beta Jalis upkeep actually did almost the same dps as Impossibe Odds. The damage on zerk build was insane, plus it was aoe.

Glint with perma Fury and 6-15 Might can boost up your damage a lot, expecially if you are alone.

Mallyx has a +10% in all stats upkeep + condi transfer. That alone is more then +20% damage increase on zerk builds, that actually stacks with external Might and Quickness. With a Mesmer/Guardian in the group, Mallyx and Jalis were the best dps legends in the last beta.

Each legend with a mh sword or hammer can do huge numbers. In a group Shiro is one of the weakest actually if you’re going in a meta group.

Why bother bringing up the previous beta at all?

He said “my experience with the Rev so far”, I was replying. Don’t remove posts from their context.

And actually IO is simply a waste of energy if you’re under an external source of quickness, while the other core upkeeps do stack with that.

Didn’t you just.. quote me out of context? Yeah, you did.

Don’t remove posts from their context.

Kidel.2057:

TheFantasticGman.9451:

[…]my experience with the Rev so far is that Shiro is DPS, but only decent. Jalis, Mallyx, and Glint aren’t DPS legends, to boost that POV, Roy called Shiro the DPS legend.[…]

In the last beta Jalis upkeep actually did almost the same dps as Impossibe Odds. The damage on zerk build was insane, plus it was aoe.

Glint with perma Fury and 6-15 Might can boost up your damage a lot, expecially if you are alone.

Mallyx has a +10% in all stats upkeep + condi transfer. That alone is more then +20% damage increase on zerk builds, that actually stacks with external Might and Quickness. With a Mesmer/Guardian in the group, Mallyx and Jalis were the best dps legends in the last beta.

Each legend with a mh sword or hammer can do huge numbers. In a group Shiro is one of the weakest actually if you’re going in a meta group.

Why bother bringing up the previous beta at all? If you include the changes, it’s not nearly as DPS-capable as it was before. Strictly speaking: being able to use IR less, VH receiving a 70% damage reduction. It’s slotting more into its defensive stance now which is probably where it should be.

That garbage elite has gotta go, though. And the 50 energy taunt is a waste of a skill slot. I’ll never use it with that energy cost.

I still think you don’t really understand what DPS means. Was the damage pretty good on IR and VH? Yeah, sure. It was okay. But it certainly wasn’t equal to the amount of pain you could deal with IO and JW.

And what on earth is your “meta group” in this example? What game mode? What meta? If you’re putting Rev into it, it’s no longer meta. No meta comp currently exists for Rev, and if it did you’re not really taking into account what spec the Rev is running, what specs the others are running, etc. Again, what meta?

Waar Kijk Je Naar.8713:

Purple Miku.7032:

Right now there is no circumstance in which condi builds are higher DPS than power builds for warrior in PvE so don’t freak out about it.

What’s the point of adding condition based stuff if it’s not going to be used anyway?

He said in PvE. PvE is not even 50% of the game. In competitive play, it’s a very big deal. Us PvP and WvW players are taking this announcement very seriously.

Zev.3407:

I love thats its a launch. don’t change it(unless u wanna make it a bigger launch)

plus we have jade wind to stun, would be too powerful if they both could.

A launch and a knockback are two different things. A launch is what happens when a Guardian Banishes someone, or you step on a Ranger Spike Trap. A knockback is what happens when you get tapped by a Point Blank Shot. Launches are way worse than a simple knockback.

Zev.3407:

Kidel.2057:

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

I think you have a bit of a distorted view on how Legends work, and Legendswap as a mechanic, but honestly I don’t feel like arguing with you on this. Ultimately, we’ll just end up agreeing to disagree.

So….. I disagree with you.

Regardless of agreement, I’d very much like to read another point of view.

Even if legendswapping often (but not necessarily on cd) gives more energy throughput (and this is not an opinion, it’s like that, period), it may not be the best or the only strategy.

I was simply replying to this thread with concerns about skill throughput with energy compared to energy-less classes, I wasn’t suggesting the best way to play Revenant.

I think its the people in the middle ground you’re not understanding. People who like to legendswap, just not purely for the energy regain. People wanna switch for the right situations, so they can be ready to counter.

But i didnt find much trouble maintaining energy, and when i was low i did just switch legends . . but that shouldn’t be your main reason to switch

Exactly this. It’s tiring to read every single thread where people have even the slightest concern about energy consumption, and to read the same response from the same person over and over. The “everything is fine, you’re just playing wrong” approach is defeatist. All of us want what’s best for the class.

Kidel.2057:

I think that Jalis elite is so expensive because you can stack that plus protection and get like 80% damage reduction.

Who cares? Plenty of classes have 3-8 second skills that offer complete invulnerability, or take 0 damage, or are immune to conditions, and most of them aren’t even elites. It doesn’t even do anything to conditions.

It’s garbage.

Since it’s the Rev’s only source of stability (read that again, only source of stability), I think the change is likely to kill off Jalis once and for all. With 2 skills that require 50 energy, the hammers now having been nerfed radius and damage-wise (70% less damage done, traded for a 20% damage reduction to yourself? I wouldn’t make that trade), 30 energy cost for Inspiring Reinforcement and a nerf to its overall utility, and a -7 energy degen for hammer upkeep on a legend that already has exorbitant energy costs, there is nothing left but the heal that would make me choose it.

The elite is also poor. If it was maybe 5 seconds of invul or an endure pain-alike, and didn’t take so long to cast (yes, I know about the cast time reduction — it’s still too long), the 50 energy might be worth it. But it’s not, and even then it would be only 2 out of 5 skills, and that’s not enough to warrant sacrificing an entire legend choice. I’d rather use Herald.

process execution.8014:

If shield isn’t helpful, then don’t equip shield? Unless you think that not taking a shield somehow weakens the Herald traits or One with Nature, I don’t understand the relevance of your post.

It’s not my job to make you understand the relevance of my post. Several people above commented on the use of shield as a bunker utility, I was offering my opinion on it.

draxynnic.3719:

@Ark Bladesteel: That’s pretty much my thinking at the moment – the key is to balance the energy costs so you can make good use of at least some of your stuff without the energy management being trivial. Mallyx, from last time I ran him, felt like his energy usage was a little too high: Mallyx seems based around using the various skills to complement one another, but you often can’t afford to actually use them that way. I’m a bit concerned about Jalis too, given that the road has been nerfed, the hammers have been repurposed, and the taunt has been overpriced for a while.

Wasn’t the taunt reduced to 40 energy? Still too much for a skill that’s going to almost decimate your reserves, IMO. I also think that putting an energy requirement on heal skills was done simply because there’s a pervasive “everything must cost energy” mantra going on in the design circle. Unless you’re precasting swiftness or regen or something like Ranger’s Resounding Timbre, or to an extent the Shiro heal, people generally use burst heals like Jalis or Mallyx as a panic button. I know it only takes a second to regen 5 energy, but why do they have energy costs at all? It doesn’t happen often, but 1 second when you really need that heal can mean the difference between life or death.

The Jalis road and heal were easily the best skills it had during last BWE. I rarely used any of the others. Hopefully this is being taken into consideration with the addition of the (very useful-looking) Herald.

edit: just read the changes, and no, Forced Engagement still retains its 50 energy cost. I guess I know what legend I won’t be using.

Shield, if you plan on using skill 5, is going to be really difficult to bunker a point with. The enemy can decap around you. It would have to be used very sparingly, as in only when you have allies with you. As it is now, good bunker guards generally don’t risk using RF; most don’t have to, and Feel My Wrath is far better for a quick Empower heal.

If you can maintain a duo on a point, though, then yes shield 5 would be very useful.

Hmm. Any reason we don’t have a red legend? o_O

You’re right about Herald only working if weapons have energy costs, and in fact is pretty much the best way to balance the cost of weapon use against signet degen. If there were no other energy costs besides degen, then yes, it just becomes another passive signet build. That doesn’t fit with the idea behind tying skills to energy. It likely means that most weapon energy costs won’t be changing, because if they’re too low Herald becomes too useful, etc. The only thing I hope for is that energy costs on other legends gets a solid look. I really hope they haven’t painted themselves into a corner with this one, because if it ends up being a problem that weapon cooldowns become too long with Herald, and they attempt to balance them against that (because, let’s face it, they can’t really change how Herald functions in terms of energy consumption now), it doesn’t become a problem with other legends. It’s certainly an interesting situation they’ve put themselves in.

Traditionally, utilities have been balanced against each other, because they can be changed at will. I certainly wouldn’t want to be a designer in charge of balancing Rev.

Griffith.7238:

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

Demented Yak.6105:

I think you should really replace one of those trait lines with Corruption. You have literally no counter to conditions other than Pain Absorption and extra resistence would go a long way. If you replaced hammer with mace/axe and the retribution traits with corruption, you’d ultimately gain more survivability and damage.

Alternatively, you could replace Mallyx with Jalis. Then you keep all your trait lines and hammer, gain a little bit of condition removal. Replace sigil of air with sigil of generosity. Jalis might not fit your theme of vampirism but Vengeful hammers sort of ‘Siphons’ health now and you’ve also got Rite of the Great Dwarf for survivability.

You could also add in Sigil of Leeching on your second weapon.

Agreed. Either go with Corruption or lose Mallyx entirely. If this were PvP, Rune of Scavenging would also be viable. Just curious, has anyone tried to swap weapons while Field of the Mists is up? Because, wow, with the attack speed of mace and sword, that would be fanastic for the vampire theme.

Not entirely sure what you are suggesting here. Field of The Mists is a “Dark” Field and requires a “Projectile” Finisher in order to steal life. Neither Mace or Sword provide such a Finisher as they are not ranged weapons but melee.

On a side note if you want an amazing combo use Field of The Mists then toggle on IO with Hammer AA to steal a ton of life very fast.

Yeah, it had occurred to me that it’s a projectile finisher after I posted it but decided not to edit it.

Elegie.3620:

Hello Ark,

Thank you for your interest

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

~11 gold is not that bad for a good rune. I like the sound of this build, but I might go Sinister instead so I can keep the direct damage on my GS and swap to hammer for the sweet, sweet perplexity. Or possibly even M+S or M+M/H if I was feeling really creative. Thanks for this! I’ve been looking for a new way to play my Warrior. Poor guy has barely been touched since the specialization change.

Don’t hesitate to share your findings! Going hybrid would make a lot of sense here, although I’m not sure about the best way to do it. That Body Blow competes with Forceful Greatsword and Distracting Strikes with Berserker’s Power looks a bit unfortunate in many scenarios.

This is not so much an issue for me, since I was a 0/2/6/0/6 BM Warrior before the specialization patch and had access to neither of those traits

I’m so glad I bought thousands of this stuff when I first realized it had no ICD. I use it on nearly all of my classes. So good.

Shala.8352:

A true warrior will never play condi, warrior is the fairest class in the game and doesnt need to go easy cheap condition damage, thats why i would never play bow warrior, i only want go DPS! So i hope that torch wont have any burning noob condition skill.

Condition damage is quite literally DPS. And in this game, “fair” is only defined by how well you play within the rules of the game. If you think it’s “unfair” to be beaten by someone that uses conditions, you are setting yourself up for a lot of disappointment.

~11 gold is not that bad for a good rune. I like the sound of this build, but I might go Sinister instead so I can keep the direct damage on my GS and swap to hammer for the sweet, sweet perplexity. Or possibly even M+S or M+M/H if I was feeling really creative. Thanks for this! I’ve been looking for a new way to play my Warrior. Poor guy has barely been touched since the specialization change.

Lyger.5429:

But isn’t condi just the same expect ferocity becomes condition. I hardly play condi out side of pvp but with the exception of certain utilities, traits and weapons it’s pretty much seems like the exact same play style. Sure you could go tanky condi but then you will probably be kicked for your damage output.

This is a very shallow way of looking at it. When you have the ability to apply conditions, it’s a completely different method of dealing damage. Yes, you’re changing one of your stats to another, but that’s as far as your analogy goes.

Tanky condi is what necros do. It’s what guards do. It’s what rangers do, etc. There are many viable condi tanks. Settler’s with shouts and X/LB is a very viable spec in PvP right now. I like using sword/axe, sword/sword, and GS. LB is a necessity.

A 10s duration would make it much more palatable.

We’ll just have to stay in disagreement, then. Don’t forget that Glint will be providing energy degen, so access to weapon skills will be even more limited.

Assuming that both of us put in an equal amount of time on Revenant, and we’re both talking about playing competitively, what you say about “being disciplined” to me, in my experience, means “avoid skills” which in turn means “autoattacking” or “doing nothing.”

You don’t see it as a problem. I do.

Kidel.2057:

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

Kidel.2057:

…while Shiro can heal every condition that stacks in duration.

Those are only 3 conditions, and none of them are damaging. If you go Shiro/Glint, you have no clears aside from the trait-on-swap. Might be worth going with runes of generosity or purification; I already use generosity on most of my classes as a counter to mesmers and burn guards.

As I said, it heals conditions that stack in duration. The context was that you also have Glint healing that basically nullifies every condition that stacks in intensity for 4 seconds, acting almost like a 4 seconds resistance for damaging conditions (except you absorb that damage as healing).

By those runes you actually mean Superior Sigil of Purity (1 condition, chance on hit) and Sigil of Generosity (1 condition transferred to one enemy, chance on critical hit), right?

I don’t like the fact that with those you have no control and that they also trigger when you have no conditions on you, forcing to wait 9-10 seconds when needed. I prefer Superior Sigil of Cleansing, also because it’s triggered by both weaponswap and legendswap on Revenant (basically 2 conditions on legendswap if you also have Cleansing Channel).

I don’t know if it’s going to be needed however (and I hope so, since they are a huge dps loss). I’ll try some dungeons in the next beta and give my review eventually.

Sorry, Purity. I haven’t used it in a while. Yeah, Cleansing is a much better rune, but not available in PvP yet. Generosity is way too expensive outside of PvP, but it’s a lot more useful. Those 15 stacks of burn some guard just applied to you? 1-2 hits and they’re sent right back. Pairs pretty well with Mallyx.

Kidel.2057:

…while Shiro can heal every condition that stacks in duration.

Those are only 3 conditions, and none of them are damaging. If you go Shiro/Glint, you have no clears aside from the trait-on-swap. Might be worth going with runes of generosity or purification; I already use generosity on most of my classes as a counter to mesmers and burn guards.

Demented Yak.6105:

I think you should really replace one of those trait lines with Corruption. You have literally no counter to conditions other than Pain Absorption and extra resistence would go a long way. If you replaced hammer with mace/axe and the retribution traits with corruption, you’d ultimately gain more survivability and damage.

Alternatively, you could replace Mallyx with Jalis. Then you keep all your trait lines and hammer, gain a little bit of condition removal. Replace sigil of air with sigil of generosity. Jalis might not fit your theme of vampirism but Vengeful hammers sort of ‘Siphons’ health now and you’ve also got Rite of the Great Dwarf for survivability.

You could also add in Sigil of Leeching on your second weapon.

Agreed. Either go with Corruption or lose Mallyx entirely. If this were PvP, Rune of Scavenging would also be viable. Just curious, has anyone tried to swap weapons while Field of the Mists is up? Because, wow, with the attack speed of mace and sword, that would be fanastic for the vampire theme.

“Skill floor” and “skill ceiling” are two terms that I consistently see being used when people argue that energy costs are fine, don’t need to be changed, everything is fine, I’m fine, how are you? …etc.

While I like classes that have high skill ceilings (one of my 3 mains is Ele, after all, the other two are melee Ranger and Guard), I think a distinction needs to be made between “requires a lot of skill to learn/master” and “exceedingly punishes the player to the extent that it loses viability.”

It gets a little tiring every time someone says “if you’re running out of energy, you just don’t have enough skill” or things like as another commenter said “just keep yourself above 40% energy” — without explaining how he or she is managing to do that without autoattacking all the time. If you continually use skills, yeah, you’re gonna run out of energy. There is no way around that.

What I’m trying to do is tweak things a bit so that energy doesn’t disappear as quickly as it currently does, as in 2 or 3 weapon skills and one utility = empty. With the addition of Glint and more upkeep skills, I foresee weapon skills becoming even more of a problem. I don’t want the echo chamber of “everything is fine, don’t change it” to be the only thing Roy or the other designers hear. I spent as much time as anyone on Revenant this past beta, at about 30+ hours across the entire weekend, so I take offense when claims are thrown around that it’s an issue of skill or taking the time to learn with the class. I played a dozen or so hours in duel arenas. Unranked matches. Ranked matches. WvW roaming.

No PvE. I don’t care about what happens to Rev in PvE, because your skill level is not competing against that of other players.

I guess the TL;DR version: I’m posting this for the devs to read. It really makes no difference what anyone else thinks.

For what it’s worth, I would totally kill Trahearne and take Caladbolg. In an instant.

wyther.8372:

Yes, people who lose who normally win on their super OP class build will do that. happens quite often. ANET won’t do anything, hell they don’t ban real cheaters/exploiters after they have been caught red handed for months to years doing it. So don’t worry.

Since someone mentioned this: I throw siege on anyone plying a FoTM or FoTY class/build when they lose.

Comes down to the whole “but I couldn’t lose” …. “wait, if I lost, he must be hacking!”

People threaten to report others (and actually do) for this all the time. Ignore it.

NapTooN.6283:

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

I would also be okay with traits that could help with energy generation. Passive generation is boring. Give us something more to play with, make it even more complex.

And what would those Traits be? For example, the idea that is thrown around that Weapon Skills give you Energy (Baseline, or under certain Circumstances) is basically just a cost reduction and nothing complex at all. There is no giant difference between:

• Phase Smash returns 5 Energy
  and
• We reduced the Energy Cost of Phase Smash by 5

The only one would be that you can use the second one at 5 Energy and the first only at 10 (in this example it has a Cost of 10).

I can not think of a fancy way for Active Energy Management that can not simply be trumped by a Cost Reduction. And asking for fancy stuff for the Revenant just for the sake of fancyness is silly. If the Weapon Skills are too expensive, Roy will reduce the cost, that is all that is needed. The Revenant has enough Swag already.

That idea is still boring. Nothing I have in mind is for the sake of existing. While I do think costs could be reduced on many skills, having skills that simply return energy as a baseline feature is… still boring. I’m more interested in if/then situations, like many traits and skills already in the game. This follows the logic of every other class that has traits to reduce the cooldown of skills.

Some ideas:

Corruption
- When you have a number of conditions on you, the energy cost of your next skill is reduced by 25% for each condition (Threshold: 3, ICD 10s)

Retribution
- Incoming disabling conditions (stun, knockdown, etc) generate 25 energy. (ICD 5s? 10s?)

Salvation
- While regeneration is active, gain +1 energy pip.

Devastation
- Gain 15 energy when you interrupt a foe. (No ICD?)

Invocation
- Gain 10 energy when removing a condition. (No ICD?)

Alternatively,
- Your next skill after swapping weapons has a 50% reduced energy cost. (ICD 9s)

Etc. I’m not saying that all of these traits should be a part of the class, or that they should go in the game as-is. I made them up based on similar traits that exist in other classes as well as attempted to synergize them with each trait line and style of play.

Recursivision.2367:

And your using hyperbole. Really? If I do anything other than auto attack I’m going to end up with 0 energy?

Since everything uses energy, yes!

Recursivision.2367:

Sure, you’re changes would make the class stronger. In fact, utility energy use would have to be retuned across the board. And it would also dumb the class down.

Or, you know, we could just balance damage and energy numbers as it is now.

See, I’m okay with that. I’m don’t think Rev is in a good enough place to compete in PvP, which to me is a deciding factor. If energy costs were retuned so that you didn’t end up at zero after just a few skills, that would be fine. Or, since the class is so highly focused on energy management, remove the cooldowns.

All I want is for design to take a closer look at how quickly energy dissipates. For example, on Jalis, if you use the taunt utility just once, your energy is gone. You quite literally cannot do anything but autoattack until it regenerates.

I would also be okay with traits that could help with energy generation. Passive generation is boring. Give us something more to play with, make it even more complex.

Shrubsy.9720:

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

If you want to eat my energy to burn weapon skills, fine. If you want to eat my energy to burn utility skills, fine. If you want to do both, you can’t make skills that completely shut the entirety of the class down, weapons and all.

That’s not objective. Why can’t you? If you get in a situation where you have no energy, and legend swap isn’t up, you’ve put yourself there by using too much energy. There’s no objective reason that that doesn’t work as a mechanic. Do you really think it’s impossible to balance the class otherwise?

I have yet to hear any real reason why people think weapon skills need both a cooldown and energy cost, or why they’re okay with the current energy cost. And I absolutely do think that it’s possible to balance the class without tying energy to everything. Why do you think it isn’t?

And, yes, it is entirely too easy to put yourself in a position where you can do nothing but autoattack. I’m merely advocating to make it less so. Currently, to avoid putting yourself in a position where you can do nothing but autoattack (i.e. to conserve energy), you need to… do nothing but autoattack. Because everything uses energy. Do you want to improve the class, or not?

Recursivision.2367:

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

Recursivision.2367:

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

Please explain why weapons have energy cost, again. When you were designing this class, did nobody say, not once, “hey Roy, you know if you use the Jalis taunt, elite, Shiro elite, etc, right after switching to the legend, you can do nothing but autoattack for several seconds?”

Y’know, maybe instead of blaming others for their mistakes they said “Hey, it might not be the best idea to use Jade Winds right when I switch to Shiro because then I’ll have no energy left!”

If I’m playing thief and I heartseeker 4 times in a row and then don’t have the initiative to stealth I’m not blaming the mechanic. That’s all on me.

Likewise, if I’m thoughtlessly burning all my weapon skills on cooldown or toggling upkeeps for several seconds and I then find my options limited, that’s on me.

It’s supposed to make you think, and add a layer of strategy where you’re forced to weigh the cost and benefit of each action. That’s the point.

I don’t disagree with what you said about balancing energy use, but you’re missing the point. Comparing it to Thief is unfair, because Thief utility skills don’t burn Initiative. If all Thief skills, weapon or otherwise, burned Initiative, it would be a valid comparison. Thief weapon skills also have no cooldowns. Initiative is their cooldown. In the case of Revenant, oftentimes you’re facing both cooldown and energy consumption across all skills — not just weapons or utilities. You can think of Thief this way: weapons consume Initiative. Utilities consume time. On the flipside, you can think of Revenant this way: weapons consume everything. Utilities consume everything. Heals, utilities, elites. All of them.

If you want to eat my energy to burn weapon skills, fine. If you want to eat my energy to burn utility skills, fine. If you want to do both, you can’t make skills that completely shut the entirety of the class down, weapons and all.

Is there a single thief skill that prevents every other skill on the bar from being used? And I don’t mean weapons. I mean everything. Nope. Aside from channels, which is completely different, there is not.

Yeah, it’s punishing. It has a high skill cap.

That’s not a problem, that’s just a fact of the class.

High skill cap? Garbage. It’s an analysis of the class as objectively as possible when compared to others. There is no “skill” involved in decimating every class ability when using another. Again, this is objective feedback in an attempt to improve the class so that it can stay competitive with others. If you have no desire to improve it, then you are doing nothing to help.

Recursivision.2367:

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

Please explain why weapons have energy cost, again. When you were designing this class, did nobody say, not once, “hey Roy, you know if you use the Jalis taunt, elite, Shiro elite, etc, right after switching to the legend, you can do nothing but autoattack for several seconds?”

Y’know, maybe instead of blaming others for their mistakes they said “Hey, it might not be the best idea to use Jade Winds right when I switch to Shiro because then I’ll have no energy left!”

If I’m playing thief and I heartseeker 4 times in a row and then don’t have the initiative to stealth I’m not blaming the mechanic. That’s all on me.

Likewise, if I’m thoughtlessly burning all my weapon skills on cooldown or toggling upkeeps for several seconds and I then find my options limited, that’s on me.

It’s supposed to make you think, and add a layer of strategy where you’re forced to weigh the cost and benefit of each action. That’s the point.

I don’t disagree with what you said about balancing energy use, but you’re missing the point. Comparing it to Thief is unfair, because Thief utility skills don’t burn Initiative. If all Thief skills, weapon or otherwise, burned Initiative, it would be a valid comparison. Thief weapon skills also have no cooldowns. Initiative is their cooldown. In the case of Revenant, oftentimes you’re facing both cooldown and energy consumption across all skills — not just weapons or utilities. You can think of Thief this way: weapons consume Initiative. Utilities consume time. On the flipside, you can think of Revenant this way: weapons consume everything. Utilities consume everything. Heals, utilities, elites. All of them.

If you want to eat my energy to burn weapon skills, fine. If you want to eat my energy to burn utility skills, fine. If you want to do both, you can’t make skills that completely shut the entirety of the class down, weapons and all.

Is there a single thief skill that prevents every other skill on the bar from being used? And I don’t mean weapons. I mean everything. Nope. Aside from channels, which is completely different, there is not.

babazhook.6805:

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

I suppose I have a little bit of a mixed opinion about condition damage. For power builds, it is entirely possible to trait and gear for absolutely zero condition condition damage.

For condi builds, they could go full into condition damage, well over 2000, and still maintain a solid 1000 power. Furthermore, conditions ignore armor. For someone to be a power build, they have to put points into power, precision, and ferocity. This means they’re going to have to sacrifice vit, toughness, or both.

Condition builds put points into condition damage. That’s it. They’re free to spend the rest on anything they want, and dire builds can have an amazing amount of resistance to power users with both a high amount of vitality and toughness, while that same power user has nothing to counter them. They’re required to sacrifice skills to mitigate condition damage.

While I often play hybrid power/condi for this very reason, I think it’s an incredibly imbalanced design.

TL;DR -
Power user? Better pump that power, precision and ferocity. 3 stats!
Condition user? Pump that condition damage. Put the rest into vit and toughness. Live forever.

When you look at it that way, there is little reason to spec into power anymore. The ferocity nerf didn’t help, either.

This not accurate. There are plenty of Power builds in WvW. You just see fewer roaming for a multitude of reasons. In larger groups the majority is power.

Further do that you do not HAVE to use ferocity precision and Power in gear. There a number of traits that add a whole lot of power/precision/ferocity through all classes . People just want ever bigger numbers from a damage perspective so stick with the Zerker mentality.

There a number of builds being used that use Knights or valkyrie or something other than Zerker in a power build.

Attributes no longer come from going into three seperate traitlines.

Perhaps you should read my post again. I said traits and gear.

My post was more or less a general post about condi. I rarely play WvW these days except for roaming.. most of my time is spent in PvP, where condi far outweighs the power. I only jumped on this thread because I wanted to point out how different the approach is when building a spec. To maximize power, yes, you do need all 3 stats. To maximize condi, you need only one.

Roy Cronacher.1576:

Mournilg.4870:

I guess upkeeps will be something like -3/-4, so you can activate 2 and still not be out of energy in 8 seconds.
Well at least i hope you can keep at least one permanently with still a low but positive energy regen

Some are cheap, some are expensive. You’ll be able to keep multiple up at the same time. A lot of the inspiration for the skills came from what you might find a bard style class doing in other games.

I’ll be showing it all off plus some extra things on the POI this Friday which will give a much better idea of how everything works.

Ok. I want to see how you’re going to make this work. Five skills that are all upkeep skills. With no way to gain energy other than passively, it means that even if you were able to maintain multiple signets at the same time, this will effectively ruin your ability to use weapon skills.

Please explain why weapons have energy cost, again. When you were designing this class, did nobody say, not once, “hey Roy, you know if you use the Jalis taunt, elite, Shiro elite, etc, right after switching to the legend, you can do nothing but autoattack for several seconds?”

Tell me, what other class has to sacrifice every single ability they have for multiple seconds just to use a single utility? How does that work? Where in your design process did you think this was a good idea?

And what about condition clear? Is this yet another legend that lacks it? I didn’t read anything about traits, so I’m hoping that all the condi clear we get hasn’t already been shown to us. If you haven’t noticed, conditions are dominating the game right now, and Revenant is severely lacking in condition clears that aren’t tied to a single legend.

At least if we had a shout legend we could use Trooper/Soldier runes.

I suppose I have a little bit of a mixed opinion about condition damage. For power builds, it is entirely possible to trait and gear for absolutely zero condition condition damage.

For condi builds, they could go full into condition damage, well over 2000, and still maintain a solid 1000 power. Furthermore, conditions ignore armor. For someone to be a power build, they have to put points into power, precision, and ferocity. This means they’re going to have to sacrifice vit, toughness, or both.

Condition builds put points into condition damage. That’s it. They’re free to spend the rest on anything they want, and dire builds can have an amazing amount of resistance to power users with both a high amount of vitality and toughness, while that same power user has nothing to counter them. They’re required to sacrifice skills to mitigate condition damage.

While I often play hybrid power/condi for this very reason, I think it’s an incredibly imbalanced design.

TL;DR -
Power user? Better pump that power, precision and ferocity. 3 stats!
Condition user? Pump that condition damage. Put the rest into vit and toughness. Live forever.

When you look at it that way, there is little reason to spec into power anymore. The ferocity nerf didn’t help, either.

Why are people upset about stunbreaks? You can stunbreak every 10 seconds on legend swap and there’s an extra one on Shiro. I won’t count the Jalis elite because it’s… well, it’s crap. There are many other classes and builds that can’t stunbreak that often, Medi guard being one that I play often that immediately springs to mind. Ranger can’t. Most Warrior builds can’t. Most Ele builds can’t. Necro? LOL.

Thief, engi, mesmer are exceptions, and even then it’s about on par.

Relshdan.6854:

does it work well in pve? i’ve loved power reaper w/ valk gear and blighters boon for sustain…

will give it a go…..just wish we had a burn duration rune to choose from….but maybe the undeads are good enough

Put the runes you want to use in your bank, create a new beta reaper, you’ll have access to them. It’s only stuff you put in your bank after character creation that you can’t access, I think.

Incorrect. I haven’t tried it in PvE, but it is a fanastic competitive class. If you don’t think so, you haven’t used it enough/found a build that fits you.

Crapgame.6519:

Wanted to try trapper runes with DH but alas they are not included I see some potential though after playing in the borderland maps and ruins. However, my trapper Ranger is still more effective.

Will be interesting with next beta rolls out based on feedback. Most of the skirmishes I’ve come out ahead on is more or less the surprise factor. I’m sure by tomorrow that will be gone and these issues will raise its ugly head.

Put 6 trapper runes in your bank on a non-beta character. Create a new dragonhunter. You’ll have access to them.

zorokai.1486:

I personally think the Revenant needs a skill that can help mobility out of combat – its soo slow – no escape capabilities at all.

I’m not entirely sure it needs any more mobility. Shiro has a stun, a gap closer, and one fairly decent disengage. Add staff 5 and, yeah, it’s pretty mobile.

On the other hand, why does Phase Traversal need a target? Adjust the skill tooltip and make it like Warrior’s Bull’s Charge. Hell, it already shares the animation. Sword 4 is also a good disengage, but doesn’t help people that don’t use sword. I do think it needs an invul, but that could be solved with Glint/shield elite spec.

I’ve gotten used to self-blasting swiftness using mace and Legendary Inspiration. I actually think it’s kinda fun.

zorokai.1486:

Unrelenting Assault needs to give user like evade, invun, or stab. Imo otherwise skill looks nice.

I think the Displacement needs to be looked at when in downed state – By this i mean many times i’ve displaced someone who was a foot of two infront of me and the displacement puts them basically more ontop of me. I think it should be displaced away from the downed player at a random location rather than a random location ontop.

The randomness can be a double-edged sword, and I’m warming up to it. I’ve displaced people onto terrain lower than me that makes them unable to get back up to me. I’ve also displaced them straight into their deaths on Skyhammer, and the middle of a nearby melee that doesn’t end well for them. But I’ve also displaced them right on top of me mid-stomp, which, yeah, doesn’t help.

One more suggestion:
- Make Jalis elite an invul (or endure pain-alike) while casting, then apply the 50% damage reduction. It would be a perfect disengage.

- Searing Fissure should be ground-targeted like Legendary Inspiration. It goes in the wrong place all the time, and should be where I want it not where the character is facing. The two skills are so similar it’s amazing it isn’t already.
- Energy. It is far too easy to burn all of your energy leaving you with nothing but auto-attacks. It makes very little sense to put both cooldowns and energy requirements on weapon skills. Remove energy from weapons, leave them with cooldowns. Let us focus on managing our energy for our utilities. It’s also a bit silly that weapon skills can share energy from both legend pools – nothing else does this on Rev.
- Need more source of fury to synergize well with Devastation. Fury on heal is nice, but I don’t often heal before going in to battle. This doesn’t make much sense.
- Hammer is complete garbage. Aside from skill 4, there is nothing else worth using other than the auto, and even that isn’t worth choosing over staff or anything else.

The rest is quite good. I’m not a fan of sword, or the Salvation trait line, although I can how they’d appeal to people. That’s all off the top of my head after about 7 hours of PvP.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Kidel.2057:

Darknicrofia.2604:

couple of things re: virtues

1. their active effects needs to be applied at the beginning of the cast, rather than the end

2. they need to be usable while channeling renewed focus.

THIS.

DH is weaker then Guardian also because of this.

No point in having a cast time at all if you get the benefit at the beginning of it.

I disagree. The cast time is for the usage of the new “skills” added to each of them. One throws a tethered spear. One is a leap attack (pretty solid damage too), and the other is a shield, which I’d actually be ok with having instant.

2 things from a competitive PvP perspective:

- Virtues active effects must be instant. The panic heal from F2 and the stability/stun break from F3 are absolute musts. I cannot do without the blind on F1. Using it mid-stomp and having it recharge on kill is one of the best utilities there is.

- Virtues need to be able to swap between their original effect and the DH effect. For example, I want the leap on F2, and may want the shield on F3 depending on what I’m facing, but I shouldn’t be forced into it. F1 could go either way; if I got the instant blind on activate so could still stomp with it, I’d be fine without the spear. If not, I will turn it off every time.

I’ve been noticing this since last week’s patch, and it’s been grating on my nerves a bit. The icon for traits/specializations on the top left, whenever loading into a map, will reset with an exclamation point over it as if I’ve gained new hero points or unlocked a new specialization. I haven’t. If I click on it to open the specialization panel, the progress circle for the current specialization will tick to the very last unlock in the specialization, stop, and then finally finish. This turns off the exclamation point on the icon.

I know it’s minor, but it will be a problem when elites and other specializations come out, because I won’t know when it’s actually trying to tell me something or not.

Was it really necessary to write a multiple-post essay about changes to a class nobody has played yet? If you have this much time, work on your RPG maker. I mean, really, I wrote shorter midterms in college.

I have run GS/Sw+T for the longest time. Despite the severe issues with torch 4, it hits ridiculously hard and you can sometimes get off two tosses when traited for it. Those tosses, if they hit, can crit for 10k total. In under 2 seconds.

The burns are a nice bonus, but I don’t rely them.

I have a feeling necro is going to be a lot more fun to play when the elite spec hits. Dem chills, dat pull, dis leap. I wants it, I wants it now!

MM necro bunker duos. Just try to take a point from them, even with one other person, I dare you.

Interesting. That makes them a lot less useful. Anyone know what the new coefficient is?