Guild Wars 2

lucadiro.4519:

Shield is not horrible but very good, heals+ block+ protection. also sword off hand is good but less than shield.

Shield is currently the worst off hand weapon the Herald has, at least in PvP/WvW roaming. Crystal Hiberbation roots you in the ground making you ultra vulnerable to conditions, plus kitten s your energy (cost 25 units, the most expensive weapon skill for the Herald, not even staff #5 comes close) and Envoy of Exuberance can’t compete with the mix of defense/ofense/cc that off hand sword and axe offers.

I guess that most of the players who run power Herald doesn’t worry about how terribad shield is against builds with conditions (Necros, Mesmers, Rangers… ) due they already known that those are lost battles anyway, but that doesn’t makes the shield a better choice.

zerorogue.9410:

Additionally the main issue is the problem of fleeing enemies. While fleeing is not peculiarly bad, being able to do this loop (fight>run away>heal>repeat) consistently with high dps and survival, is the big issue.

Warriors’s greatsword #5 (Rush) should be nerfed as happened with Elementalist’s dagger #4 (Ride the Lighning): when you use this skill without hitting a target the cooldown rises from 20 to 40 seconds. That alone would keep the disengaging ability but punish any attempt to use it to reset the fight.

Shadowstep.6049:

Yeah and only reason for it is because elite specs are broken as hell compared to core. Every single friend i have in pvp would rather play core build if it was viable in higher tiers. People would quit if game had more build variety? Sssssuuuureeee.

I wouldn’t come back to bunker Guardian after playing offensive DH (and anyway bunker Guardian was useless for a long time before the HoT arrival).

For some classes is even worse: Heralds can’t return to Revenant because “Rev” doesn’t work without Herald/Glint. The last patch twelve days ago made condi Herald useless at every department of the game so I did stop to use the class.

You can foster the idea of nerfing everyone, but I wouln’t play a class if lacks any viable build or if the only one viable lacks fun for me.

Shadowstep.6049:

They should nerf all elite specs (including rev) to core spec levels otherwise we will be stuck with same builds till new elite spec comes out.

That would be an excellent way to make people to quite the game, taking in consideration that no one with the expansion is playing the vanilla classes -ouside a very few exceptions-.

Rolisteel.1375:

Oh we are talking about ESL where every single necro player gets hardcore babysitted and ressed by teammates?

Sorry i talked about us soloQ necros as im not an ESL player and probably you aren’t too. Im talking to average-hardcore solo pvp players.

Take a look at this vid:

Min 04:51 . All nodes contested, Vermillion has score advantage, one of their guys is in downstate but Denial has also a dead player and another in downstate; then Drazeh’s Necro comes to cast fear over everybody, Denial finishes Trifin and then starts to snowball Vermillion. Finally, they win the match due that snowballing effect. A single cc from a Necro won the match for his team.

Necros/Reapers are focused because if you let them to freely cast AoE cc and damage your whole team will be dead much faster than your support players can save you.

DAFA4D98-D2FB-4706-BFB3-11AD6089059B:

So basicaly my choice are Revenant,warrior or guardian,mesmer if I don’t mind to lag a little bit behind ?

Thief/DD has the problem of making you a glass cannon, but between the evades, blinds and stealth you should be fine once you learn the basics. Is mostly used as a +1 and for fast decapping due its mobility.

Herald is also another high burst character, with good mobility. Has better sustain, but is weak to conditions and lacks stability, so either they save a breakstun or they are done as soon as cc attacks start to rain.

Dragon Hunter does good damage and has sustain and defenses against both physical and condition damage, but has less mobility. Is easy to learn.

Warrior has more viable builds, eithe zerk, hybrid condi or bruiser, and is also very straight to learn, with better mobility than DH.

Necro/Reaper has huge access to AoE damage and/or cc, but lacks stability and active defenses, and everyone will focus them first, due how dangerous they are.

Knighthonor.4061:

how Hammer useless now?

Well, for PvE purposes, its damage is way lower that the sword.

For WvW raid/large teams, his main tool (Coalescence of Ruin) was double-nerfed: the cd was raised from 2 to 4 seconds and if a CoR hits a player no other CoR cand damage the same guy in the next second, so you can’t focus and stack area damage with this skill anymore (not in the way as wells from necros, in example). Also, albeit not as bugged as mace #2, still sometimes does no damage if there’s a slant in the floor or a marginal obstacle in any part of the AoE.

Phase Smash and Drop the Hammer are utter useles in duels/roaming/PvP. They have amongst the slowest cast (1.25 and 1.75 secs respectively) and most predictable animations in the whole game. If anyone hits you whith them in 1 vs 1 then probably is time to change to another game. Mail chess or something less frantic. The auto attack animation is also very slow (I mean, mace is 0.25, sword and staff 0.5; hammer is 1!!!) and lacks any kind of condition damage, so you can’t barely pressure foes with him. Is speacially atrocious vs players with stealth, because between the cast and the fly of the bolt it takes so much time without delivering the damage that sometimes the target goes out of range or gets stealth again before you can do much.

Field of the Mist is it’s only good tool, but doesn’t save the day. So, the only reason I see in the current hammer status to wield this weapon could be something like this: you’re playing alone a very dangerous foe (a particulary vicious champion, or something else) and you need to poke Him at range. There’s better classes to perform such task at range, and anyway seems a very punctual issue. So Rev’s hammer = no use.

Jack Skywalker.5674:

New Condi Meta is Corruption/Invocation/Herald with Malyx and Glint.

There’s no new condi meta, condi never was meta (well, was before the nerfs in the beta of HoT).

Glint Mallyx was decent (but subpar) for roaming but had a slot in small scrims due stacking Guardians + Glint Mallyx Heralds was ultra strong; I saw guilds as Visceral Effect facerrolling teams before the pacth with this composition.

After the patch Retribution is useless, and in solo play/roaming condi Herald is extremely weak; Invocation gives you an extra condi cleanse and stunbreack each 10 seconds, which is crap vs condi builds, vs ranged builds and vs builds with strong cc (soft or hard).

There’s only power Herald + Dev + Inv, which is almost suicidal (demands probably the best skill in the game) and is utterly useless in large groups.

In WvW DD has advantage due the mobility and stealth, which usually means the ability to reset the fight as many times as they need. It takes time but the DD has an edge.

In sPvP DH hardcounters DD due going stealth, reseting the fight, trying to poke at range and bursting in and out makes nothing to control the point, so the DD bleeds points in the score. It takes so long (and it’s so risky) to fight as DD against a DH for the control of one point (if both are skilled) that simply doesn’t work.

Star.8401:

Been gone for a few months. What changes have come to the Revenant class?

They nerfed the stability from Unwavering Avoidance so now condi Herald is useless at every part of the game. Power Herald with Glint/Shiro and Devastation, Invocation and Herlad traitlines is the only “viable” build. Hammer is useless.

But they nerfed Phase Traversal (energy cost rised from 20 to 35) and Enchanted Daggers (you lose the heal stacks if your attacks miss), so in order to play power Herald you must play perfect: you have no stab, almost no condi cleansing, your heals are crap, and you can be poked to death at range if you miss your burst.

Specializations probably will still get some nerfs due they are broadly more powerfull than vanilla classes in most of the game modes, and the next expansion needs to set a new level in “opness” for the new specializations -no one is going to buy an exp if his main new spec is worse than before-.

Said this, DH is arguably strong in sPvP, duels and roaming, plus vanilla Guardian is still the backbone in any WvW raid/scrim. The only departments at which I would call them “meh” is at high fractals/raids, but sooner or later those contents would be so facerrolling with any class as dungeons are now.

Since the release of the DH class it got some serious nerfs:

• True Shot damage slashed a 20%.
• Damage from traps reduced; 7% in Test of Faith.
• Daze from Hunter’s Determination reduced from 1 second to 0.50 and now to 0.25.
• Shield of Courage block reduced a 20% (from 5 to 4 seconds).
• Hunter’s Ward barrier is only released if the final attack hits, and its duration was reduced (from 6 to 5 seconds).
• Hunter’s Determination cd rised from 45 to 60 seconds; Shards of Faith dropped reduced from 5 to 3.

Still, got some buffs in virtues and in traits, weapons and skills that nobody uses, and none of those changes assured a slot in teams in the Pro League (there were like a couple of Guardians amongst the 16 teams, without too much success).

Must be signaled, also, that HoT brought blocks and projectile deflections to a lot of classes, and gave them a good amount of new unblockable attacks which rended Shelter almost useless.

Still, people moans. They keep blocking the traps with the face, they refuse to use evade or stability vs Spear of Justice, and they love to go 1 vs 2 DH in the same node instead of taking numerical advantage in another spot, etc.

No balance playe will prevent bad players to play badly. Baddies gonna do bad.

With a large population of players that would be viable; with a PvP population such small as in GW2, such proposition would lead to qeues so long that much of the players just will leave PvP annoyed.

Why do people care about SW? Is an awful concept: to rely in pets instead of the use of skills, in a class which isn’t mean to be a pet user (as Necromancer or Ranger). Having also viable pets means as mandatory that the damage you deal must be distributed between you and your pets (as Ranger), which means that your attacks will deal less damage. Why do you want to deal LESS damage and to give some of your damage to the control of an arguably mediocre AI? The whole concept is absurd.

Azukas.1426:

sophiewhite.3149:

Azukas.1426:

Buran.3796:

blitzkrieg.2451:

This really shows how clueless you are of high skill PvP play in general.

Do you even roam, bro? Because there’s at least half dozen of builds that will melt whathever configuration of Herald you chose, without even trying.

The game isn’t balanced around “roaming” bro

the game isnt balanced around pro league bro.

Actually it’s balanced around PvP bruh

The game isn’t balanced. The prohibition of stacking class after that month in the ESL (a year ago) in which a team with 4 eles and a thief trampled every opposition is a recognition of the inability of the developer to balance the game. If the classes were balanced stacking the same ones wouldn’t lead to any advantage over a mixed team composition. So the game isn’t balanced around anything, period.

Shadowstep.6049:

Why should overtuned classes like revs get different treatment? Thieves should l2p and revs should have easy life because of noobs? How about no? If you are going to require high skill and dedication for being able to play a class and balance around such requirements then all classes should be treated like this not just 1-2 red headed children.

I’m with Mushin here; after the patch I feel that Herald (most specifically: the marginally and nichely played condi Herald) is now useless in most departments of the game, mostly due now lacks any access to stability (I known that stealth is a exclusive feature for some classes, but didn’t figure that stability has the same status) and the game (specifically after the HoT release, which has a huge amount of enemies with cc skills) is nearly unplayable/lacks fun with this calss now, so I recoiled towards my main again, and just stopped playing Herald.

Condi Glint-Mallyx has only a single breakstun (cd 20s), Gaze of Darkness, and in order to improve that you must be forced to use the Invocation traitline (to get stab on legend swap), but due the energy mechanics, you’re severily limited about how and when you can swap the lengends, because this is mainly used to refill your energy in order to be able to use skills, so now you must chose between not changing the lenged in order to being able to breakstun (which means halving the number of skills you use due the lack of energy) or using skills as always (which means being extremely vulnerable to cc).

Due the class was already known for his poor condition cleansing and poor stunbreack capabilities the nerf (nuke) of stability makes the class a less desirable choice for general public: you need to rely in the existance of a stability provider (mostly Guardians) in your group or being a top notch player (evading 100% of incoming attacks) to play Herald now. This also invalidates the nature of the Unwavering Avoidance nerf: If I’m able to evade or block every cc why I would need stability? Anyway, was too much of a change for a game that in PvE mostly demands you to use autoattcaks all the time. Some classes don’t need to get access to stability to be successful (I main a Meditrapper) but those classess had configurable utilities, whereas the Herald lacks flexibility in his skill choices.

Spartacus.3192:

Congratulations you blinded one of the 10 attacks from bristleback F2 burst. GG.

If you think that the pet can win the fight for you after the nerf in the sustain of the Druid you’ll be ready for a letdown. The reason due Druids did counter DH before last patch was their ability to do decent damage while having superb sustain. Now they must chose between having superb sustain with mediocre damage or good damage with mediocre sustain (based on the selected gear/stats).

Spartacus.3192:

The counter to DH is the buff to Call of the Wild making pets unblockable. Well played Power ranger can shred DH now and theres nothing he can do about it. Wait for DH to pop Shield of Courage when they are low. Use CoTW and watch them fall apart. My ranger guildies have been laughing all week about this.

I don’t have to block a enemy already blinded, and I cand blind 7 times each 20 seconds

Kuya.6495:

The counter to dh is power dps. Anything that is unblockable is a huge advantage. If it’s an attack that is both cc and burst dps that is also an advantage if it pierces blocks. In that regard, a power rev and power warrior have better chances vs a dh.

Now that Druid heals were nerfed and Herald stability was throw out the window I’m feeling unstoppable playing power DH again. This patch buffs was much needed, maybe DH will be even competitive in the Pro League this time ^^.

Supreme.3164:

Where do you see the nerfs?

Rewarding players for awareness rather than random spam is called balance in my opinion, if you don’t use shiro heal out of rotation without making sure the enemy is not using blocks..you’ll be fine, if you learn to read the enemy animation you get stability on dodge

How do you evade instant attacks as Judge’s Intervention? How do you evade a instant proc which interrupts you, like Mesmer’s Ineptitude, Necro’s Reaper’s Protection or effects casted from some runes under some circumstances?

Stability wasn’t spammed at random anyway: I did use it for things like to finish a player, to revive an ally, before a fight against foes with wide access to cc, etc… Exactly the same as a Guardian uses F3 or Stand Your Ground! or a Warrior uses Balanced Stance, Dolyak Signed or Shattering Blow. Do you see any of them to need to evade an attack to get access to stability? We already had the worst access to condition cleansing and stunbreaks in the game, why also we must NOT HAVE any realiable access to stability?

For sure, playing with no stability, poorly access to cleanses and stunbreakers, not having any stealth mechanic, not having a single reliable ranged weapon, lacking skill flexibility and having to spent energy on top of cooldowns already makes the Herald the most skilled class to play in the game. But I’m talking as an ex-Herald user now; the patch disgraced condi Herald and I’m not interested in playing the power build.

Krysard.1364:

It makes thieves/guards better. Not saying its the best way, just saying why they proly did it.

Condi Heralds weren’t used too much at any part of the game; they were weaker than the power variants. Makes the class unapealing to me, since I found Shiro as legend and staff as weapon extremely boring to play.

I mean: it wouldn’t force me to change my gear, due I already have full ascended viper and power items for both builds, but will make me to stop to play Herald and to return to DH, since is much more flexible in terms of skill selection and you don’t need stability if you have 3 breakstuns, 6 blinds and 12 blocks on demand.

Canis Major.6791:

Buran.3796:

So you didn’t try the Necro, Ranger and the three users of heavy armor (Warrior, Guardian, Revenant), uh?

Well, the bad news are: all of them are pretty straightforward.

I have tried them, but never gotten very far with them before getting bored. Revenant in particular I found really messy and dull.

Now aside from dull also lacks any kind of viable stability, so you can safely stay away from the class if you want to prevent yourself from a world of hurt.

Tried condi Mallyx for like two hours; went from a 8 streak win before the patch to a 3/5 win lose after them. And man, oh man what matches! Tossed like a crash test dummy… so much finish attempts interrupted… so many fear, chill, daze, stuns preventing me to doing my job or making me to eat gruesome amounts of damage chaining cc after cc and then cc…

I’m done with this class, good luck wipping the floor; I guess Anet won’t fix a crap until the new expansion with OP specializations arrives because that’s how the world works. See you in 3 – 4 months.

So you didn’t try the Necro, Ranger and the three users of heavy armor (Warrior, Guardian, Revenant), uh?

Well, the bad news are: all of them are pretty straightforward.

Obindo.6802:

DH was viable.

You saw the last World Tournament? One DH in six teams (30 slots), and was destroyed.

I wouldn’t call them viable. And I wouldn’t call current patch Herald viable, also.

blitzkrieg.2451:

This really shows how clueless you are of high skill PvP play in general.

Do you even roam, bro? Because there’s at least half dozen of builds that will melt whathever configuration of Herald you chose, without even trying.

Obindo.6802:

Rev has good 1v1 matchups, which isn’t even what makes it essential. It dominates in teamfight and it’s mobility and it’s +1 capabilities is what makes it strongest class in game and essential.

I would believe that when the next season of the Pro League starts; people claimed that changes in june did made the DH viable but it failed in every major competition. The current patch trounces the power Herald sustain and most of the Pro League teams do chose rosters based on the overall survability of the team, which is why DH and DD were outside the meta the whole year.

^ This man gets it. I have no problem playing without stability with DH due I can tailor my entire utility bar to fill it up with stunbreaks, condition cleanses and/or blocks, whereas Herald lacks flexibility and has weakness in EVERY deffensive department of the game. Herald is bad at condition cleansing, is bad at stunbreaking and now is bad at getting stability. Even HoT PvE is crappy for us now, since the new maps are full of mobs with cc skills.

With the Shiro sustain and condi stability both botched this class will fall outside the Pro League meta in no time.

Supreme.3164:

Losing vs condi? Slot Mallyx! ; No optimal power dps? Do you want defense vs condi or no?

Mallyx was great before the patch when stability was available, albeit outclased by power Herald.

Now that stability no longer exists for this class and the Naturalistic Resonance is borked the Demonic Defiance resistence no longer provides you reliable defense against conditions, so runes of leadership should be replaced by Balthazar or something else. Anyway, since no stab, condi Mallyx has no way to prevent being tossed around the map as a ragdoll by classes with good cc skills.

With no sustain (Shiro heal nerf) in the power build and no stability (Unwavering Avoidance botched) in the condi build the days of Herald in top tier PvP are over.

Father Hyem.6407:

So far I prefer support guardian.

This part makes the question harder to answer. The best support gear is “minstrel”, but I don’t known how much useful is in PvE raids when the Guardian must compete against Druid and Tempest for a role as healer/support.

For sure, in WvW scrims/raids minstrel is now a force of nature, because lets Guardians/DH to heal a LOT their teammates while retaining the utility of stability on demand.

Otherwise, full berserker gear (or a bit of valkyrie or marauder in weapons if you want a bit of life) is optimal in most of the game modes if you want a offensive Guardian/DH.

EremiteAngel.9765:

I hear this train of thought often and slowly I begin to think that Power takes more skill than Condi.
But is this really true?
Is it only that the opponent did not bring enough condi clears to begin with?

Depends on the class and build. In example: hybrid condition Herald (Glint, Mallyx) now that Retribution was destroyed has no access to stability, almost no cleanses, almost no breakstuns and a very small window of condi damage reduction (due the -34% nerf on Naturalistic Resonance) and lack any viable ranged weapon. So if this build with almost 0 defense aside of a couple of evades and a couple of blocks beats you it means that you’re a worse player.

Azukas.1426:

Sorry but Revs will be a must pick on all pro teams for PvP. You will see great representation in the ranked season as well due to the insane damage output combined with the inherent survivability of the class.

It won’t. Now that they lack access to stability on demand classes with instant interrupts like Mesmers will eat them alive, specially against classes that can interrupt from stealth. You will waste breakstuns doing nothing but trying to stand on foot while them whack you like a ragdoll.

Eval.2371:

Buran.3796:

Meanwhile take a look at the Ranger…
The ArenaNet balancing team needs some internal coherence…

I get that your frustrated and need something to attack, but to be frank, shortbow is still useless outside of pve. Anything you can do with short bow, is much easier with longbow

I mean that the change gives them swiftness regadless the skill (which needs a target) hits or not, whereas Unwavering Avoidance (which doesn’t need a target) now demands to actively evade an attack in order to gracefully grant stability. In the same patch.

Previously we can call stability before performing a valuable task (reviving, finishing, starting a slow and powerful attack which we want to protect against interrupts as happens with Chaotic Release or Jade Winds, etc.). Now we have to relegate our inititative, we need to let the enemy to attack first, to command the pulse of the fight if we want to get stability. It’s not viable, doesn’t let me play aggrressively, leading the way in wich we start a fight, and is utterly useless if you face classes with broad access to stealth.

Even worse: before we have the choice to get stability and tank attacks and exchange hits against, lets say, a Berserker with mace + shield + Head Butt if we want, and it was arguably a better option than rely on breakstuns, because we have no access to 3 breakstuns in short term. Now you can’t and if you miss one single evade you will eat a chainstun while having at most a couple of breakstuns. Is even more funny because as a Herald our viable ranged weapons are 0.

Huskyboy.1053:

Buran if you’re looking for some help on how to play the class, check out Aka Cryptic’s channel on Youtube.

I do love Cryptic’s gameplay, I’m from the same server (Gandara) and my raid leader oftenly plays with their guild in both scrims and WvW events. But Cryptic plays power Herald and I do prefer hybrid Mallyx builds, which was very viable before the patch against most of classes (except Mesmer). I do DH when I want to play power; no need to kill the only Herald build which I was having fun with. The stability changes had no reason to be.

Varezenem.2813:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Guys, the change to the stab on dodge may have in fact been a buff. Dodged once, evaded 4 attacks, got 8 stacks of stab.

That’s a bug… There is a 8 sec ICD.

Great, they aren’t even testing the skills and traits that they changed. Could you to figure how long could them take to fix traits and skills bugged that didn’t even saw since the HoT release? I guess that could be measured in tree rings…

Meanwhile take a look at the Ranger:

“Quick Shot: Rangers will now gain swiftness REGARDLESS of whether they’ve hit their target. The recharge time of this skill has been reduced to 8 seconds.”

So, you can play a condi ranger with rune of the trapper, shoot Concussion Shoot from stealth at 900 range for a nice 2 seconds daze, then fire Quick Shoot to put a gap and even if you miss, you still gain swiftness to kite the kitten of the stupid Herald with no stab access.

The ArenaNet balancing team needs some internal coherence…

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Or you know you can use your short cooldown Aoe Reveal but meh I gues Revs have no counter to Stealth…..

You mean Gaze of Darkness, that garbage with a range of 360 units? GoD will only help you if the thief/mesmer/ranger you have in front is a tool.

Most of builds that burst out from stealth are specialist in poking at range, and no way (if they are competent) they will attack a Herald inside the 450 unit radius of your Unrentling Assault. Gaze of Darkness only redeeming quality is being a breakstun, and not that useful because the essential mechanics of the Revenant resource: you need to change legends to get energy, more and more often since the HoT release because the cost of skills is being raised patch after patch.

And this is one of the reasons due I think that cleansing coinditions and doing breakstuns through Invocation is pointless: you need to change legends due in combat your energy is depleted fast (you have no traits to enhance that recovery as thieves do with Initiative), so you can chose: change your legends to being able to use skills and then lack cleanses and so, or save the change to break stuns or cleanse and then slow down you skill cast to glacial speed.

Warrior and Guardian.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Buran.3796:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

PrinceKhaled.5104:

I am laughing at people saying that “Unwavering Avoidance” is not a big deal of nerf. Let me ask this, why are some people okay with nerfing a good skill?

Unwavering Avoidance has an amazing usage in WvW (as well as pvp of course). When getting rushed in by an anticipated bomb or CCs, you dodge away giving you these couple stab stacks (or single). Usually zergs kitten their CCs before the bombs, not the other way around (mostly). Now you will need to get CC’ed, breakstun, then dodge and most probably you will get this stab.

P.S. Why does Ventari exist as a legend in revenants anyways? Just delete it.

Anet, can you for once buff something in revenants. 100% of every major updates, we get some kind of annoying nerfs.

You’re mad that now you actually have to time your evade to avoid the attack instead of just dodging aimlessly?

We already touched that point. You can’t avoid attacks with instant cast (as Judge’s Intervention) nor attacks coming for foes in stealth. Herald’s now lack stability against a wide array of classes and foes which can operate while being invisible. Some of those -as the Mesmers- can even interrupt you instantly, on regular basis, several times each 10 seconds, while you will be unable to do a crap.

Actually you can, it’s just slightly more difficult, stealth doesn’t make Attacks ignore Blocks, Evades, Invulns, same for Instance casts, people can evade Steal, JI and other instant casts spells.

So you’re talking about how now you need to aim your evades, and at the same time you’re proposing ramdomly blocking and evading foes in stealth? This is you “can be done”?

Thanx to prove my point, that was a very illuminating response.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Versed in Stone is completely random when it’ll show up anyway, it couldn’t be relied on too much to begin with. And if you were wasting dodge rolls just for Stab, you had a problem to begin with. :/

I agree with the first part of your sentence, and I’m already scraping most of the passive skills from my characters, specially if they fall beyond the 40 seconds cd line.

But using evade to get stability was not only wise but also mandatory in a lot of situations: I did enjoy evading before finishing foes in downed state while PvPing or at
roaming, and in WvW raids evading before a clash was almost compulsory, because Stand Your Ground! alone from your comrades wasn’t enough in the current state of the game, in which is the soft cc (rooting, chill, daze..) what kills you most of the time (you die once you stop moving).

BlaqueFyre.5678:

PrinceKhaled.5104:

I am laughing at people saying that “Unwavering Avoidance” is not a big deal of nerf. Let me ask this, why are some people okay with nerfing a good skill?

Unwavering Avoidance has an amazing usage in WvW (as well as pvp of course). When getting rushed in by an anticipated bomb or CCs, you dodge away giving you these couple stab stacks (or single). Usually zergs kitten their CCs before the bombs, not the other way around (mostly). Now you will need to get CC’ed, breakstun, then dodge and most probably you will get this stab.

P.S. Why does Ventari exist as a legend in revenants anyways? Just delete it.

Anet, can you for once buff something in revenants. 100% of every major updates, we get some kind of annoying nerfs.

You’re mad that now you actually have to time your evade to avoid the attack instead of just dodging aimlessly?

We already touched that point. You can’t avoid attacks with instant cast (as Judge’s Intervention) nor attacks coming for foes in stealth. Herald’s now lack stability against a wide array of classes and foes which can operate while being invisible. Some of those -as the Mesmers- can even interrupt you instantly, on regular basis, several times each 10 seconds, while you will be unable to do a crap.

RyuDragnier.9476:

From what I’m seeing, Rev in WvW was basically untouched outside of the F2 duration nerf. We’re still shoehorned into Glint/Mallyx, and there were no changes there at all.

The major change is that the Retribution traitline is now useless, with their most valuable traits nerfed and the NR boon extension reduced a 34%. You will have even less access to stability and damage mitigation.

So now you Herald can keep being one of the classes with worst access to condi cleansing and stunbreaks, while also being the worst accessing to stability.

I think they touched it… a lot.

Bulwark > Hunter’s Determination which means = now everyone will play meditrapper with a 6 seconds Shield of Courage instead of 5. Enjoy.

Kuya.6495:

I still think you get more out of hunter’s determination over bulwark. The use of stability in pvp can’t be overstated. Maybe if bulwark also reduced f3’ cd i might be tempted.

Nah, Hunter’s Determination cooldown increased to a whole minute while the daze effect from Piercing Light reduced (already nerfed in the past) from 0.5 seconds to “barely more than 0” means that HD is now a waste. And those extra juicy seconds from Bulwark to Shield of Courage are gold.

The two nerfs sinergized turned HD in crap will push people to rise Shield of Courage to 6 seconds with Bulwark which were exactly one of the most hated skills from bad PvP players. Can’t wait for the laughts…

The only relevant change for my meditrapper:

Bulwark is now >>> Hunter’s Determination. And since everyone with meditrapper will run Bulwark prepare yourselves to taste the salty tears of the moaners now that Shield of Courage will last 6 seconds instead of 5

Wow. What a bunch of useless changes. Where to start? Previous to this patch, there were 3 viable variants of Herald (and I mean Herald, vanilla Revenant is a incomplete piece of garbage which remains usless since at least 10 months ago, as we all known):

• Power Herald with Herald, Devastation, Invocation traitlines: a very agressive (high burst build) with some breakstuns, almost no stability and almost no condition cleansing. Very high risk/reward build, really squishy and almost suicidal vs high condition pressure. Legends: Glint, Shiro; viable weapons: staff, swords/axe… shield to some extent.

• Power Herald with Herald, Devastation, Retribution traitlines: still a high burst build but with less damage, solid stability and some damage mitigation with almost no condi cleansing and very weak breakstun capabilities. Legends: Glint, Shiro; viable weapons: staff, swords/axe… shield to some extent.

• Condition Herald, with Herald, Corruption, Retribution traitlines. A hybrid damage build with good condi pressure (mostly torment and burning), solid stability and good endurance against conditions, but with small cleansing capabilities and almost no breakstuns. Legends: Glint, Mallyx. Viable weapons: mace, axe, swords.

So, the patch obliterates the Retribution traitline: the only reason due people use this were the access to stability through Unwavering Avoidance at evades, and to less extent Versed in Stone as damage mitigation. Now, take in consideration the sinergy of nerfing effects that bodied both traits:

• Unwavering Avoidance stability can’t be trigged on demand, now needs to evade an attack. This means that is useless against instant attacks, and is useless against condition users which spam burst from stealth.

• Versed in stone cooldown was 45 for a 5 seconds damage mitigation; now the CD is 60. This was previously a bad trait, only used as the alternatives were disgraceful. I mean, I replaced Eye for an Eye for Retalatory Evasion due a 45 cd skills which pops at random (you have 0% control over it) is always a bad choice. Now Versed in Stone is even worse, due still pops randomly and last the same but the cd makes it useless.

• UA has a little duration enhance (fron 2.5 to 3 seconds, a 20% increase), ViS has 0%. But BOTH got butched due Naturalistic Resonance was neutered from 50% boon increase to 33% (a 34% reduction).

So, Retribution traitline is now hot garbage, just as the Ventari and Jalis legends or the hammer as weapon. In fact, the most striking about the patch is the lack of fixes in the bugs of the current skills and traits.

Now, about the other changes:

Seems that Power Herald Glint + Shiro is the way to go. The problem is: for me Shiro was already a WEAK legend, and this patch nerfs its already crappy heal. I did stop playing power Herald three months ago, and I’ll keep playing condi Herald instead (which works well).

Due Naturalistic Resonance, Unwavering Avoidance and Versed in Stone nerfs I think that now the Blathazar runes are the way to go instead of the ones of Leadership: you will have no use of boon duration for boons that no longer triggers. And as Retribution is now a dead line I’ll go Invocation or Devastation instead. Going Herald + Corruption + Devastation in a hybrid condi build seems suicidal, but at least you will deal serious damage and when you smash the head of an enemy without having access to stability, cleanses or stunbreaks you can argue that you’re better, because you’re doing acrobatics with no safety net.

25th. Every balance patch this year was released around a month after the end of the PvP season, but due the 5th season was delayed and tomorrow (today) is the Halloween patch the balance changes would arrive the next 25th.

Fluffy.1932:

This is most likely not going to kill raid revenant. Suppose they reduce the boon duration to 25 or 30%. This will still be wanted so that chrono can take more dps gear.

Also, to me Naturalistic Resonance is the third most important thing about rev. #1 is fury. #2 is protection. Those are likely going to be buffed to compensate.

Stop being all doom and gloom until we know all the changes and have had some time to play around with them.

I really don’t care too much about PvE raids, due I barely put my shoes on them, but…

I’m currently farming the Leadership runes in WvW; takes a ton of time but the alternative (Dragon’s Stand farming) is EVEN slower. The main reason I’m trying to get those runes is because I’m running condi Herald (Glint + Mallyx); Rev lacks condi cleansing and even the 50% boon increase from Facet of Nature isn’t enough to get the much needed sustain vs condis in WvW roaming. Also, I’m using a condi build due hammer is useless, we have no ranged game and power Rev can be kitted to death after the mobility nerfs, so condi at least puts pressure on kitters (torment).

For me would be pretty terrible to discover that after spending over 70 hours just to get a +30% boon duration runes the patch cuts our +boon duration in the same amount. I really really don’t care about how Rev/Herald performs in PvE and team composition, but the lack of division in this game between gamemodes is truly damaging and discouraging since the point of view of the lost effort.

Also, FIX the kitten bugs. We are JADED about Rev skills that doesn’t properly work. I don’t care about buffs, I’m tired about using skills that do nothing when the hotkey is pressed due the floor elevation has a 3% tilt and some other equaly absurd problems which are dragged since a year ago, despite being one of the classes with less weapons, less skills and less fexibility.

Dirame.8521:

Just look at the change on the Dragonhunter rhetoric from before the expansion to release and then from release to now. People are to quick to conclude that something is weak because it’s not being used by top teams.

In the Pro Leagues and tournaments the DH didn’t have a chance the whole year. In high level fractals they were a plummet until a few weeks ago when the boon steal from enemies was erased. Arguably, only one trap is truly used (Test of Faith): Purification replaced Shelter because after the expansion every class tramples over blocks like nothing.

The only two reasons due people uses DH over the vanilla Guardian is because the power creep from the expansion turned the classic mediguardian almost irrelevant, and bunker Guard was also ineffective way before HoT arrived. This didn’t change my perception about DH: is arguably one of the weakest, less synergized specs from the expansion, and in fact for me Guardian/DH was replaced as my main for other class in every area of the game.

Capricorn is the most beautiful PvP map in the game, no contest. Is also nice in gameplay albeit is far from being the best.

On the other hand, I hate Colliesum: has the worst skins by far, and I think that it’s a really boring and ugly map. I do expect that never reaches the status of ranked map. I do skip it at sight.