Guild Wars 2

Ayrilana.1396:

RubiBayer.8134:

juniterio.1245:

The two event chains (itzel and laranthir) are AWESOME and night cycle feels lacking when compared to day cycle.

That’s true. Colin talked about that on Friday’s PoI. This isn’t a fully functional version of night–it’s an early iteration.

Does that mean what you accomplish during the day will actually impact the map during the night? I vaguely remember someone, likely Colin, saying something like that during one of the very early announcements for the expansion. I got the impression that the more successful that you were during the day, the better equipped you would be during the night cycle. The map we’re currently seeing doesn’t feel like that.

Right now, the further you get in the event chains = more initial rally points to defend at night, and atm there isn’t much reward for that (though that might be what the “Security Level” meter that shows up at night is for, but I haven’t seen a map get more than halfway up the first level)

juniterio.1245:

The two event chains (itzel and laranthir) are AWESOME and night cycle feels lacking when compared to day cycle.

Yeah, when they work (:P) both of those chains are fun and well-focused. Sadly I haven’t had a map that pushed the Itzel chain far enough to fight the wyvern (last one got close, but apparently events stop spawning when the countdown to nighttime comes up?) but the colossal vine that tops the Laranthir chain is a fun and unique challenge.

First of all, I’d like to say that I’m enjoying the map as a whole, and love the density of things to do (at least, when the events don’t break…)

That being said, the first hour or so of playing in Verdant Brink, I was completely and utterly lost, and it was frustrating. Nearly all of the major points as well as the locations of the current events are separated by nigh-impassible cliffs or chasms and are only connected by narrow, hard-to find paths, bridges, cave entrances and inclines, and the labyrinthine nature of most of these paths makes it extremely difficult to pick out how I’m suppose to get from point A to B on the world map. My first experience in VB was trying to reach the current stage of the Itzel village chain, an effort filled with wrong turns and double-backs, with no gliding or mushrooms to help navigate, that by the time I reached where the chain was at, it had gone from the event immediately after dousing the wyvern fires to the one where you bury wyvern eggs in the Zintl base… and then night fell almost immediately afterwards.

Once I had the chance to do both of the outpost chains from the beginning which traverse most of the map’s pathways, my understanding of the map made navigating much easier. What really made exploring Verdant Brink no longer a chore, however, was getting the basic gliding Mastery and bouncing mushrooms from Itzel Lore unlocked. Having those masteries improved the experince of navigating the map so much, I’m not entirely sure that the map is meant to be explored without at least one of those masteries.

So anyway, my suggestions to improving this (that don’t involve new UI mechanics)

• Make the connecting paths more visible. Torches, signs, friendly NPCs, anything and everything you can think of to make the footpaths easier to spot. A couple problem areas that I noticed were:
  • Ramp up to the main Itzel outpost Rally point (above the Temple of Ameyalli PoI). Right now when approaching from the south in blends into the cliff face so well that I only found it after gliding to that plateau from Jaka Itzel and started looking for a way down.
  • Jaka Itzel to the area immediately west and below it. Even though the event following the wyvern fire one has a straight line on the minimap to go there for the next event, but the multi-tier nature of the village makes finding the way to walk down almost impossible: First time I made a huge circle around the Temple of Ameyalli, every time since I’ve just jumped down and deployed my glider at the last moment.
  • Shrouded Ruins: Techincally it is suppose to be a maze, but a couple of the paths- like getting to the Pale Reaver sniping point for the final (playable) event in the chain- are too well hidden, and there is at least one place where what looks like kitten is actually the beginning of a set of stairs.
• More mini-map icons to point the way to the current event. In one of the Iztel outpost events, you have arrows pointing the way to each location you needed to go for the event, which covered a fairly large distance. If you could give us the means to place something similar on our mini-map (perhaps by talking that outpost’s scout) that would make finding the quickest route to the event a lot easier.
• Finally, this is more of a progression thing, but if Verdant Brink is the first area we will explore in HoT when it launches, then I would humbly suggest that the Gliding Basics mastery should have it’s XP requirement lowered significantly, perhaps even to the point that completing the HoT story instances up to that point is enough to unlock it with your first Master Point, because frankly, the idea that I will have to try to get around that map again without the glider on launch or a future BWE gives me the willies.

Steelxsoldier.6512:

Tim.6450:

Chilling Darkness: This trait now activates on all targets that are blinded by a single area-of-effect blinding strike before it goes on cooldown.

That being said I would prefer if this trait with shiver of dread or at least swapped places since the necromancer has inherently more fears while reaper has more blinds.

Excellent points! If they reduced the ICD by 1-2 seconds but made it so aoe blinds chilled everyone hit, it would be a LOT better. Honestly though, I like your idea of swapping the icd’s betteer. We have access to less fear, so the ICD would hurt less vs the blinds. It would really only hurt spectral wall chills, but again, thats only one skill

AoE blinds do apply chill on all targets hit, they changed that with the last patch.

…and I’m not sure if base Necros necessarily have more fears than Reaper does. The only skill or trait that base Necromancer has that Reaper doesn’t is DS 3, and RS 3 is an AoE fear.

That being said, all the non-Reaper fear traits are across 3 different masteries, so a Reaper can’t get all the ways to improve fear at the same time that base Necro does, and I would accept the argument that condi reapers might actually take Path of Corruption over Terror since Reaper’s Shroud 2 is a multi-hit skill, unlike the Death Shroud version.

Wondrouswall.7169:

Would have been nice if more of the Shouts had a base bonus that can be further bolstered by hitting additional targets like “Nothing Can Save You!”

Like if “Your Soul is Mine!” gave a base Life Force of 5% and 3% per enemy struck and “You Are All Weaklings!” gave 5 stacks of Might as a base and 3 additional stacks per enemy struck. Augury of Death trait could use the same treatment, like a 15% base cooldown reduction and -4% for every foe struck.

I can totally get behind this. When I think of what I don’t like about Reaper shouts, especially “Your Soul is Mine!” and “Suffer!”, it pretty much boils down to them not doing enough when you’re only hitting one or two targets, while the cast time/CD/etc for them seemed to be geared for when you’re hitting around 4-5 targets.

It’s almost like the same problem with the old Plague Signet. On paper, the potential of most Reaper shouts are so good that you have to have these drawbacks to balance it out. In practice, it makes the skills weak outside of an ideal scenario that happens too rarely to bother taking them outside of the few places you can expect to get their full use.

I think the answer to “what’s keeping everyone from only doing fractal level X because it’s fractal Y and/or has instability Z?” is going to be the Daily Fractal Achievements. If Anet makes so that the only way to earn pristine relics and get the best (or only) chance for ascended chests and rings from bouncy chests is the daily fractal meta rewards, then people will have no choice but to do several types of fractals and instabilities in order to get the best possible fractal rewards.

Granted, it will depend a lot on what kind and how many dailies that Anet use for these daily tiers. I’m kinda hoping it’s something like 3 out of 6 required, with one or two being a specific level range for that tier, and the rest split between having to do a specific fractals (always including one of the boss fractals), and/or instabilities, depending on how many there and how frequently a specific instability might show up. Maybe even call out a specific fractal level for an achivement. Another thing would be to also have the Daily Recommended Fractal Achievement mentioned in the news post give better rewards on it’s own than others as well as an extra incentive to do something other than Swamp all day and all night.

savacli.8172:

Reflects: No check

Condi Cleanse: Check
Group Healing: Check
Group Distortion: Check
Interrupts: Check
Push/Pull: Check
Quickness: Check
Portal Shenanigans: Double check
Slow: Check
Stability: Check
Stealth: Check

Note that the instability states projectiles can’t be reflected which may allow them to still be absorbed/blocked though. In which case iWarden will be even more desired given the alternatives unless….

‘GUARDIAN SHIELD YOUR TIME TO SHINE HAS COME!!!!’

Anyways, I agree in that the instabilities are designed to make us uncomfortable and break our habits. Hell, even a 38 nowadays makes you think twice before you Deep Freeze something. Adapt or move on, mate.

You forget Thief Smoke Screen, Air Ele Focus 4, a and Revenant’s Ventari shield, which are all also projectile blockers than can protect an entire party.

…and that’s not including personal blocks, which IIRC every profession save Necro and Thief have at least one (well, technically Thief does have one other than smoke screen, it’s just underwater.)

Of course, that’s assuming No Reflections truly means reflections will not work at all, when I think it’s just as likely that reflect skills will still stop projectiles from hitting you, they’ll just no longer Return to Sender.

YuiRS.8129:

Tristan.5678:

Dagger/dagger !!!!
only Dagger Dagger other weapons don’t make sens with spec title
Takeing in consideration that Berserk implies rage endurance and face to face fight I find dagger to match it title perfectly
For example
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiWdHxIEP4I vikings Floki fighting his reckless charcater perfectly matches a warrior that fall in berserk unconontroled rage

what else Staff >Berserk ? Aka Gendalf in blood rage beating enemies with wooden stick to the death nahhh
Short bow > Aka Legolas Melee short bow lol no way
Pistols > aka 777 Bond James Berserk bond non sens
Scepter > LOL Aka nerfed version of Gendalf beating monsters to the death with a shorter wooden stick?

Torch. We’re getting torch.

I’m still holding out for pistols… eh, maybe next spec.

Anyway, remember that one early video where they were showing off adventures and the warrior had an F2 skill? I’m betting the class mechanic change Berserkers are getting is a second burst skill, determined by your offhand weapon.

Wondering what the skill type will be though. Thing is, Warriors already have all the really warrior-ish skill types there are… unless they’re getting a whole new skill type for themselves, the most appropriate thing I can think of for something called Berserker that already exists is… traps. Though venoms come as a close second.

I think drones will be drones, not mantras or signets or minions or any other skill type that other professions have.

Now, their function might be nearly identical to one of those things, but I think that, kinda like Revenant, Engineers pretty much have their own thing going when it comes to thier 6-0 skills and skill types.

morrolan.9608:

Probably similar to ranger spirits.

We already have those, they’re called turrets.

Kidel.2057:

Let’s hope Roy reads and confirms if we can use Impossible Odds for 9 seconds ooc, then doubleswap with no cooldown (ooc) and repeat.

It’s already been confirmed that being unable to use upkeep skills ooc was a bug that should be fixed by next beta weekend, so it’s just a question of whether or not activating Impossible Odds puts Revs in combat or not.

Kidel.2057:

Hammer 5 has like 9001 seconds of cast time. And I don’t want 100% swiftness

It’s 1 and 3/4 sec, the whole combo should take less than what a Guardian spends standing in his staff 3 field.

…and I mention it because, since Hammer is the only ranged weapon, the vast majority of Revenants will have one as a weapon slot while running around, so why not use it?

Also, the only universal condition cleanses a revenant has right now is Staff 4, Jalis heal, and Ventari’s Purifying Essence, so unless you’re running staff as your melee or Ventari as one of your legends, you’re probably running Jalis for condi cleanse.

Kidel.2057:

Mace…
Jalis…
did you read my first post in this thread?

Hammer 5
Weapon swap

and unless your an Engineer or Warrior (or a Mace/Jalis Rev), 100% swiftness by yourself is a myth.

It’s a little challenging, but Revenants do have a way for high (possibly 100% with some practice/boon duration buffs) swiftness uptime.

Jalis’ Inspiring Reinforcement is a lightning Field, which means it can be blasted for AoE 10s swiftness. Mace 3 is a blast finisher, with an 8 second cooldown, and IR is a 5 sec CD, so you can chain those two skills for 100% swiftness if you wanted (I think it’s even possible to blast IR twice with Mace 3, but it requires near-perfect positioning that would be difficult to pull off on the run) Hammer 5 is also a blast, but with a 15sec CD, you would only be able to maintain a 66% uptime, though with weapon swap being added, that might be the weapon of choice for this, since as the only ranged weapon I suspect the majority of people would be using Hammer as one of their weapon sets anyway.

Only downside is that you have to have Jalis as one of your legends, at least while in open world PvE, as well as use mace if you want 100 swiftness, which probably means either a condi build or no ranged weapon.

Jiyu.8310:

Rym.1469:

Roy Cronacher.1576:

We also lacked damage multipliers on the profession, so we’re taking this chance to remake the first two minor traits to help add more damage output options.

• Swirling Mists: This trait has been removed and replaced with Invoker’s Rage.
  • Invoker’s Rage: Gain 5 seconds of fury when you invoke a legend.
• Revitalizing Breath: This trait has been removed and replaced with Ferocious Aggression.
  • Ferocious Aggression: Gain 7% increased damage while under the effects of fury.

Nuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!

Why are you doing this? Swirling Mists mechanic was absolutely awesome and unique, just needed little ICD reduction and more visible orbs!

Those were actually my favourite Revenant’s traits and they had good flow and theme with Invocation line ;(
….

I personally like that they added a damage modifier but I am concerned about this aswell, because Revenants just lost more of their already lackluster survivability.
These 2 removed traits could probably get put into 1 trait and replace 1 of the current invocation adept traits or even made baseline.

The revenant needs more not less survivability since it doesnt look like we are gonna get much active defense for them.

I think those were the traits that were breaking Skill Queues for Revenants, so that’s why they were changed/removed.

…as to why they didn’t just fix it in a way that keeps those traits, I think they mentioned that the bug itself is one of those “simple” fixes that would actually take several months of coding to get right.

Kidel.2057:

Yeah, Jalis should have a way to clear condis, or we are forced to run Mallyx on every build. Ventari tablet is too slow (switch, summon, use skill).

Jalis Heal cleanses conditions…

…and actually, Mallyx has no condition cleanse, just stacking resistance.

EDIT: In fact, Jalis and Ventari are the only two legends with universal condi cleanse. Shiro is movement-impairing conditions only and Mallyx just stacks resistance (okay vs. an engi, catastrophic vs. a condi necro or mes)

Riranor.6315:

Dristig.9678:

Two 7% damage boosts is not enough to compete with other professions that can stack above 20% base damage boost.

There is only one 7% boost and that was to ferocity… even with a control find I could see that. Look again please.

In the livestream, Shiro’s traitline (Destruction) also has a 7% increase against vulnerable targets.

…and Dristig is forgetting that one of the GM traits is basically the Revenants own version of Necromancer’s Close to Death, so with it and Invocation Revenants will have a 34% increase while under the effects of fury against vuln targets under 50% health.

On Unyielding Anguish, any thoughts on changing how the displacement effect works? On top of annoying the hell out of everybody, it was breaking content whenever it moved enemies that were meant to be unmovable. Any chance of making it a CC effect, or at least not effecting mobs with Defiance/breakbar/never ever meant to be moved by the player?

Also, random teleporting to any edge of the field is not fun for either the Rev or their target, would love to see where targets ends up to become more predictable. That could also go for the Rev’s downed 2 skill as well.

Genesis.8572:

Roy Cronacher.1576:

Keep the awesome feedback and ideas coming! There will be quite a few balance changes, among other things, to the Revenant profession the next time you all play it.

Any thought to general revenant utility skills that we can use to replace the legend utilities on our bar?

Personally I won’t want “general” revenant utilities, but rather more options per legend to customize our utility bar(s) to better suit our weapon of choice. I like the uniqueness of Legend/Utility swapping, and general choices would kinda dilute what it means to say, pick Jalis over Shiro.

So excited for Shiro.

Though, if he’s going to be talking to my Revenant, I hope he’s taken some laxatives in the 200 years since Factions.

Pino.5209:

Foefaller.1082:

When doing CoF Path 2, unable to attack Eternal Flame with Mace AA, even when standing right on top of it. Had to use Whirling Hammers or get OOC and swap to Hammer to do any damage to it. Might not have occurred until after the Eternal Flame started to show visible damage.

That’s not only a problem restricted to Rev. Most 1h mh weapon have this problem. Ranger’s mh sword, Thief’s mh dagger and sword, Warrior’s mh axe, etc. You can hit it but the positioning is a bit tricky.

As for bug Selfless Amplification GM under Salvation, does not work.

Really? I ran Axe/Mace warrior all the time before the specialization patch and never had problem hitting it. Is this a recent thing or was I just standing in the right spot all that time?

Thanatos.2691:

- Jalis Utility Skill (Vengeful Hammers) has a good chance to dismiss the hammers immediately after summoning them or randomly during a fight. Additionally, the hammers seem to have trouble interacting with certain terrain such as the entrance to the Crucible of Eternity where they fall onto the water below when you walk on an energy bridge; if summoned on the bridge, they also fall underneath, and they are unable to return to you even after you walk off of the bridge (need to cancel and resummon.) Finally, if you summon the hammers while standing on a ledge, the hammers have a chance to fall off the ledge and disappear below.

- Not sure how to replicate this, but I was randomly displacing enemies in dungeons when I walked into melee range (as the only revenant in the party), even without the Mallyx legend active. Dying seemed to fix the issue.

- Logging out in the middle of Hammer 3 (Phase Smash) makes the game crash and teleports you to the target location when logging back in.
—> Crash <—
Exception: c0000005
Memory at address 00000000 could not be read
App: Gw2.exe
Pid: 4980
Cmdline:
BaseAddr: 00B00000
ProgramId: 101
Build: 50837
When: 2015-07-12T15:50:57Z 2015-07-12T11:50:57-04:00
Uptime: 0 days 3:03:51
Flags: 0

- edit: regarding Vengeful Hammers, the hammers that spawn will disappear as soon as they hit a wall or an object. I doubt this is working as intended due to the cast time and constant energy drain, but I could be wrong.
- Opinion: This skill is practically unuseable in many closed spaces in my opinion, which leads to a wasted utility slot in certain areas especially if revenant isn’t gaining more utility skills in the future.

I’m not sure about the crash, but the logging back in at target area thing has partly to do with the fact that the guy leaping forward during Hammer 3’s animation is actually you, and not just something that shows up for the skill. It’s partly why the camera’s a bit wonky when you use it sometimes, because it’s using new tech to lock it in place at where you were standing when you first used the skill. It also probably has to do with why it doesn’t work very well with uneven terrain, and not at all when crossing gaps. Which reminds me of another bug:

Uncategorized Fractal: Attempting to use Hammer 3 at the very beginning on the first harpy on the fractal while standing at the starting location can teleport and down you as if you fell off one of the platforms right after it lands. Might be something to do with you “passing” through the zone that teleports and downs you. Didn’t occur when trying to Hammer 3 across gaps in Heart of the Mists, so dunno if it’s just that spot/fractal or not.

As for Vengeful Hammers, I think the problem is that the hammers are actual projectiles/objects, rather than simply a visual effect, which is why it has problems with interacting with the environment in seemingly strange ways. You can even increase how often they hit by moving clockwise around the target. I think the better idea would be to make it a pulsing AoE centered on you rather than a pair of projectiles circling around you.

I’m thinking Unyielding Anguish needs at least three things:

First, Displacement should be a CC effect that can be stabbed, or at least won’t move things that aren’t suppose to be movable.

Second, Displaced targets are moved to the nearest edge, not randomly to any edge. This would make follow-up attacks/skills easier, less disruptive for PvE as well as make it more viable for disengaging since you don’t have to worry about the player chasing you being teleported in the direction you were running towards (unless of course they clear more that half the field before it pulses.) One Exception: If Displacement can’t be stabbed, then it also should not displace people over ledges, even if the actual closest edge is out over empty space.

Finally, some kind of soft CC effect for people who are displaced by the pulses, like crippled, just to give it a little more oomph without having to increase the radius.

RE on Staff 3: the blind projectiles aren’t fired off until after the block portion ends, so there isn’t that overlay between unnecessarily blinding people while you are still blocking.

Also, the piercing width of Hammer #1 is pretty large, and being a 100% projectile finisher, can cause some shenanigans with dark (~270 life siphon damage in zerks) light (multiple condi cleanse) and Aether (5s confusion) fields, of which Revs have three dark fields, one of which is Hammer #4. I wonder if that’s why they have the damage and attack speed set the way they are?

Otherwise good suggestions all around, would read again.

Not only that, but the direction is “displaces” is completely random, which makes following up on it extremely difficult bordering on impossible.

Shiki.7148:

nekretaal.6485:

Revenant is missing its DPS weapon, its DPS legend, and its DPS trait line.

But you can see 80% of it now.

Strengths
(1) lots of group support fields and finishers

Problems
(1) no blocks
(2)Emphasis on healing, which just isn’t good in GW2

Problems that can be fixed by tweaking numbers
(1) long cast times
(2) Low Damage

There’s good material to start with. The Revenant is not limited by a “can’t do anything useful theme,” and its DPS is not limited because of “utility skills do DPS so weapon skills do less damage, but you can’t even use those DPS utilities because you need to take stun breaks”

Still, the synergies between the tanks weapon and legend, the condition weapons and legend, and the healing weapon plus legend…. These were clearly built or each other, but they aren’t working o great o far.

It took players a while to figure out elementalist rotations. Without the proper traits and rotations, the class doesn’t do that much damage and dies upper fast. The Revenant is unfinished and its going up against people playing their class for 2 years.

“No blocks”. Yeah but a 50% uptime wall that negates every projectile they are facing which could be disastrous in eg. WvW. And pulsing their conditions to up to 5 enemies, which with the current burning could prove disastrous for PvP cause if they eat the burn and bleed they could instantly melt a 5 man team. And as seen by the “Necromancer so op in PvP” dude running around, players are mostly too stupid to consider NOT loading a profession that eats and reflects condis with ammo… So yeah, even it its current state there would be “Revenant OP” claims. And it will just get worse with the damage legend.

Actually, Revenant Staff 3 is a block, so… yeah…

Some more things people should know.

Mallyx:
Unyielding Anguish is also a dark field, meaning you can blast it for AoE Blind or hammer 1 it for more lifesteal when 4 is on cooldown (though please make sure you keep in mind everything the OP said about when you should use it before using it.)

Jalis:
Vengeful Hammers is unblockable, does about ~550 damage (no crit) in full zerks, and currently the only straight damage no condi utility skill revs have. If you’re not doing a condi build (and you really should) you should be keeping this up as much as possible to max damage. Pro Tip: circling clockwise around your target will make the hammers hit more often.

Hammer:
Coalescence of Ruin (i.e. Hammer 2) has three “impacts” that each do more damage the further they are away from you. On larger enemies, there is a sweet spot where you can hit them twice with the two furthest impacts, for a total damage of about 3.6k every two seconds in full zerker, and that’s if you don’t crit.

Staff:
Warding Rift (staff 3) is poorly described in the tooltip, so here’s how it works: It is a 2 second block that works like every other block skill (meaning both melee and projectile effects from all directions) at the end of the duration, it launches up to 3 projectiles to nearby enemies.

Hey OP, did you try Mace/Axe with a Rabid/Sinister set?

Until Shiro and his swords show up, that’s about the closest Revenant can get in terms of dps/speedrun potential.

Did a few dungeons with that, mostly sticking to Jalis and keeping whirling hammers up as much as possible, and the damage was… not bad. Certainly not top tier, but I wasn’t feeling useless either (until the final fight in CoF path 2, but that’s because Mace AA targeting is bugged and couldn’t hit the Eternal Flame.)

Yeah, Unyielding Anguish moves anything and everything targetable, even if it’s suppose to be knockback immune.

When doing CoF Path 2, unable to attack Eternal Flame with Mace AA, even when standing right on top of it. Had to use Whirling Hammers or get OOC and swap to Hammer to do any damage to it. Might not have occurred until after the Eternal Flame started to show visible damage.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Foefaller.1082:

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Foefaller.1082:

Laraley.7695:

Mindgame.7852:

so to be fair I went back to my Revenant and changed everything to Zerker. Using Hammer and Jalis, I went into Southsun Cove. This is where I test most of my builds.

Sadly the dps is still lackluster on Hammer even with all Zerk gear and Scholar runes. The AOE targeting is cumbersome and abilities you would expect to pack a wallop just does nothing. I didn’t even bother with mace/axe or Staff. Anyway, my original opinion stands. Other than the armor skin looking cool, I don’t want anything from the Revenant.

You should have tried other weapons, they’re definitely better than hammer. They’re not good, but it’s not such a catastrophe.

Also, IMO Zerker is absolutely not the gear set you want for Rev atm. Rampager or Rabid would be the stat array I’d try for Mace/Axe. Sinister would have been ideal, but you probably won’t have the mats or the time to grind enough crafting disciplines to make a set.

This is what I also assumed…. but sadly it is not the case.

I used a full set of sinister on my revenant, and the conditions applied to myself outlasted any resistance i had and i always ended up taking more damage from self applied conditions than from anywhere else.

You’re not swapping to Jalis or Ventari when the resistance is about to run out? Your energy resets to 50 when you legend swap, should be able to use Soothing Stone or Purifying Essence the moment it become available.

At least that’s how I was doing it. Start Mallyx, build some self condis, burst for resistance, then swap to Jalis and use his heal skill to cleanse any conditions that haven’t worn off, then start the hammers spinning until Mallyx is up again. Maybe drop Inspiring Reinforcement for stab as well.

Energy is not an issue…. the resistance at most lasts 2 seconds after using embrace darkness.

Why on earth would you want to swap to demon stance to get 2 seconds of resistance, only to apply more conditions to yourself in the process?

The entire concept behind legendary demon stance is not functioning properly.
(manipulating conditions)

You’d be better off just sticking with jalis.

I mispoke, I meant burst the improved skills now that you have 3+ conditions, which with the right trait, also give you a nice stack of resistance to stay in that legend (as well as negate any incoming conditions) for a lot longer. Then again. I’ve seem to be pretty good at stacking conditions without mallyx with just Mace/Axe. Maintaining 8-9 torment stacks easy with Torment sigil, Corruption traits, AA chain and Axe 5, not to mention a couple stacks of poison and burning. Kinda wonder what it might be like with a full set of Torment runes as well, constantly moving around to trigger the full torment tick.

That being said, Mallyx does have some issues. Seems like unless you’re in a fight where you and your teammates are dealing with incoming conditions, trying to maintain the condition threshold for the improved version of the utilities without overloading is a challenge that is not quite worth it.

Anyways… anyone tried out hammer dps while trying to maintain Field of the Mists and/or Unyielding Anguish as much as possible? Both generate dark fields, and hammer 1 is a 100% chance projectile finisher. That should mean every attack that goes through those fields will also have a life siphon that does about an extra 200 damage, which in my limited testing is about a 25-30% increase to what Hammer 1 normally does.

sendaf.8375:

There is also a 2.5 second stability on dodge trait, seems like rev will overcome stuns by spamming stability instead of stunbreaking

I’m sure there are still a couple of stunbreaks incoming, if only because Revenants do have an “On stunbreak” trait.

…granted, it’s in the same specialization as the stunbreak on legend swap, but it would seem kinda odd to have an on stunbreak trait when the profession has only one way to breaks stuns

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Foefaller.1082:

Laraley.7695:

Mindgame.7852:

so to be fair I went back to my Revenant and changed everything to Zerker. Using Hammer and Jalis, I went into Southsun Cove. This is where I test most of my builds.

Sadly the dps is still lackluster on Hammer even with all Zerk gear and Scholar runes. The AOE targeting is cumbersome and abilities you would expect to pack a wallop just does nothing. I didn’t even bother with mace/axe or Staff. Anyway, my original opinion stands. Other than the armor skin looking cool, I don’t want anything from the Revenant.

You should have tried other weapons, they’re definitely better than hammer. They’re not good, but it’s not such a catastrophe.

Also, IMO Zerker is absolutely not the gear set you want for Rev atm. Rampager or Rabid would be the stat array I’d try for Mace/Axe. Sinister would have been ideal, but you probably won’t have the mats or the time to grind enough crafting disciplines to make a set.

This is what I also assumed…. but sadly it is not the case.

I used a full set of sinister on my revenant, and the conditions applied to myself outlasted any resistance i had and i always ended up taking more damage from self applied conditions than from anywhere else.

You’re not swapping to Jalis or Ventari when the resistance is about to run out? Your energy resets to 50 when you legend swap, should be able to use Soothing Stone or Purifying Essence the moment it become available.

At least that’s how I was doing it. Start Mallyx, build some self condis, burst for resistance, then swap to Jalis and use his heal skill to cleanse any conditions that haven’t worn off, then start the hammers spinning until Mallyx is up again. Maybe drop Inspiring Reinforcement for stab as well.

Laraley.7695:

Mindgame.7852:

so to be fair I went back to my Revenant and changed everything to Zerker. Using Hammer and Jalis, I went into Southsun Cove. This is where I test most of my builds.

Sadly the dps is still lackluster on Hammer even with all Zerk gear and Scholar runes. The AOE targeting is cumbersome and abilities you would expect to pack a wallop just does nothing. I didn’t even bother with mace/axe or Staff. Anyway, my original opinion stands. Other than the armor skin looking cool, I don’t want anything from the Revenant.

You should have tried other weapons, they’re definitely better than hammer. They’re not good, but it’s not such a catastrophe.

Also, IMO Zerker is absolutely not the gear set you want for Rev atm. Rampager or Rabid would be the stat array I’d try for Mace/Axe. Sinister would have been ideal, but you probably won’t have the mats or the time to grind enough crafting disciplines to make a set.

Until Hammer gets buffed and/or Shiro and his swords become available, Revenant can’t do straight dps worth snot.

Quarktastic.1027:

Drlightningbolt.1754:

The cast time is so unnecessarily long it can’t be used in an situation in pvp and its the only stunbreak I am aware of besides swapping legends which is so bad.

Swapping legends gives revenants the most spammable stunbreak in the game. I don’t see how that’s bad.

Necro Shroud with Foot in the Grave and Speed of Shadows is the most spammable stun break. Legend swapping has a 10 sec cooldown in combat.

…as for why that’s still a problem, do you think Eles would be happy if their only stun break was a trait that broke stuns on attunment swap? Heck, you tell a necro that flashing death shroud was the way they should break stuns, they’ll probably start laughing at your face… or crying, depending on how they fell about their profession at the time.

Just a couple hours worth of play (all of it PvE), but my thoughts so far:

Hammer: Needs some more oomph. It’s got the attack speed and damage of other hammers (i.e., slow and middling, respectively) but lacks any of the crazy-awesome CC that makes Warrior and Guardian hammers something to be reckoned with. A ranged Hammer with normal hammer CC options sounds kinda scary, so I’m thinking a damage boost might be the way to go.

Mace/Axe: Loved it so far, great condi weapon set. Now I’m just waiting for the dps weapon set.

Staff: Haven’t used this much. It seems… okayish? Though being able to use my Final Rest skin as a melee weapon is pretty awesome.

Mallyx: Trying to balance how conditions boost these skills while not letting yourself get killed by those skills has been a Fun dynamic, especially when traited to gain resistance on Mallyx skill use. Was in a frenzy of burning of energy popping Mallyx skills as fast as I could to stack resistance so I could stack conditions on myself to maximize the potential of those skills without going into condi overload, before swapping to another legend at the last second to pop the condition cleanse skills they had.

And some general thoughts:

-It’s clear that Revenant is currently missing it’s direct damage legend/weapon set. While I find it amusing to see people complaining about how Revenant damage is terrible while running zerk/marauder gear when none of the weapons and legends we currently have do not suit that stat set at all (Jalis comes close, but it’s still kinda obviously a tank/CC legend) We kinda need to see that final piece in action before we can give a reliable overall assessment to how Revenant is compared to other professions.

-no stunbreaks other than a trait is not cool. Revenant needs some stunbreaks and needs them bad.

-Right now the options feel too constrained. Even without going into the lack of utility options with each legend (which I’m sure has be said dozens of times before this post and will be said dozens more before it’s done) There is a clear link between a Legend and a specialization line that makes it feel like that the specialization is both mandatory for that legend, and only benefits players that are using that legend. I feel like there needs to be more traits outside of the Invocation line that can synergize with legends other than the one it was obviously tailored for, otherwise everyone is going to be running with Invocation/Specialization for their first legend/specialization for their second legend and that will just cut the variation between players even more.

-Weapon sets have a similar, though not as deep, link with a specific legend, and I’m hoping that future Legends will have some skills or effects that would also work well with a currently existing weapons.

Xillllix.3485:

Weapon swap should be available to all classes. They just need to increase the cooldown on ele, revenant and engi.

Revenant however needs a 25% damage boost.

We’re still missing at least one legend, and probably the weapon set that goes with it. That will probably be the burst dps option you are looking for.

I feel like with the revenant, instead of swapping weapons/attunements/kits to fit the battlefield scenario, you’re swapping legends to shape the battlefield to suit your weapon choice.

Like, Mace/Axe is obviously a melee setup, and while all the conditions means it fits best with Mallyx, you could use the taunt from Jalis (which, btw, has no cooldown, meaning you can spam as long as you have the energy) to force them to close the distance (or at least close enough to shadowstep with the unblockable Axe 4 skill), or the Ventari channel as a moving projectile shield to close the distance.

BlazeQ.1095:

Gaile Gray.6029:

I’m remembering the funny post I saw yesterday, where someone pondered if the Hand of Irony would give him his first precursor… in the test.

But as shared, items and wealth won’t transfer to your real account. That just wouldn’t be a good idea at all.

Not that I have a problem with it or dissagree with the practice, I just don’t completely understand why. Some things I do such as class specific skins, but not too much else. Since I only get to play on the weekends I will test out the rev, however I won’t spend much time playing the class since loot and guild chat is disabled.

It’s the three full sets of exo weapons, armor, trinkets and runes every new beta character gets that would be pretty bad for the economy if people could flood the market with them, even if they have to be flushed through the MF first.

Tiger Ashante.1792:

Thanks for all your replies, but i have anther question.

If I can’t keep anything obtained by Rev, why am I then being charged WP costs? Shouldn’t those be free? Or am I getting a refund for those when they delete my beta character?

I noticed during the first stress test in the new zones, every time u died or fell, u had to pay wp costs like normal and it’s the same here. So we pay, but can’t keep anything to compensate?

I just went to SW from LA with my beta Rev, then to frostgorge sound from there and those 2 trips cost me around 7s, plus any deaths, you have to pay wp for that as well, that all adds up. Do that for the next several days and you’ll be quite bit out of pocket. IMO, if they gonna charge us for wp while testing a new class or doing beta tests, then they either let us keep the loot and materials we find, or remove the wp costs. Coz i don’t think it should be costing me money for this. After all, I’ve already pre-purchased HoT, i shouldn’t have to keep paying to participate in beta as well.

Don’t you agree?

That’s not your money though, that’s your beta character’s money

Your beta character gets their own copy of your bank and wallet, made when you created your beta character for the first time. Nothing you use or spend from them is actually from your normal storage.

Hopefully it’s anything that isn’t soulbound to the Revenant can be banked, any anything not soulbound in their inventory will be mailed to you after the event is over. Would really like to try out some stat arrays other than full Celestial with the Rev, and I’d like to have the option to just give them all my Warrior’s ascended gear for the weekend to do so.

NumenorLord.6539:

Gaile Gray.6029:

Due to its current unintended behavior, the Symbolic Avenger trait has been temporarily disabled until the next scheduled release. If you were using this trait, we suggest you select a different one until the trait is re-enabled.

Thank you for the heads up Gaile. May I suggtest that while the team is fixing Symbolic Avenger to consider boosting Shattered Aegis damage so it becomes a viable option too? Giving Sword a % dmg or a speed buff modifier when traited would be appreciated too because the current Right Hand Strength (20% reduced recharge on Sword skills) is not useful compared to the old trait.

You know the new Right-Hand Strength still has the +15% crit chance for MH weapons the old RHS had, on top of the 20% cooldown reduction on sword skills?

I’m not sure if the problem is so much “There are not enough choices per trait tier” as it is “the other two trait choices are just terrible beyond 1-2 specific scenarios/builds.”

I main Engineer, and before the patch, when it came to Explosives, you either put in 4 points for Forceful Explosives and IP, 6 points for Shrapnel, Explosive Powder, and Grenadier, 6 for Shrapnel, IP, and Grenadier, or all your points into other trait lines. While there might have been something like a thousand different trait combinations for that one trait line, the 3 possible combos I’ve mentioned were the only ones that the vast majority of Engineers ever did when putting any points into explosives.

I mean, you can ask for that level of option again, but it isn’t going to help with build diversity if there is still only one or two “real” possibilities for that line.

Nakatsu Hime.3520:

Say that Cantha and Elona do make a return somehow in thier own ‘expansions’, do we think all expansions will be mix-and-match, so we can have some without others, or do we think we’ll need Exp#1 to run Exp#2 to run Exp#3, etc, etc ?

Based on GW1, I think it will probably be the former. You can buy HoT, or skip it, and while the next xpac might build on some of HoT’s ideas, there will still be areas and content that will require you to buy HoT first, even multiple xpacs later, but you will never need HoT to play the most recent expansion.

Of course, I could be wrong, and Anet will release HoT for free X number of years from now so they can build directly on top of it for the next xpac (like WoW does) but most MMOs that do that are also sub-based, not a BtP game like GW2 is.

EDIT: Also, I think that is a question that Anet is nowhere close to answering for themselves in any capacity, so I doubt you’ll ever see a dev comment about it that’s more than “we’re discussing the possibilities” until the next xpac is announced.

IgnisVulpesXI.3015:

Well, at least there are now niche places where other heals can be used, so that’s always nice.

I’ve been using A.E.D. a bit after seeing the sheer ammount of condis and burst in PvP post-patch, and had some funny moments with it (like absorbing ~30k damage in Rampager and surviving). Today, playing Hot-join, finally found someone who knew what to do against it (not counting stun-locks here, since those would interrupt HT too): an Axe/Shield + GS Warrior who stopped attacking and stood at range as soon as I popped A.E.D., leaving me with roughly ~7k after the heal (and I died promptly after).

If the opponent doesn’t know how it works or how to counterplay it, A.E.D. does fine, sometimes making the enemy overcommit to the fight and finding itself in a disadvantage when you’re at 12k+ and they’re down at 6k. If they know how to play around it, well, it certainly is lackluster.

In a weird way, A.E.D. arguably works better against condi builds than pure dps builds. Even before the patch, using A.E.D. I’d have people stop attack after I used it, but still have it trigger from condition damage, and cleanse every damage condition (except confuse, for some reason) in the process, and now with the new condition formula and burning and poison stacking, IMO it’s really only in 1v1s with builds like the Axe/GS warrior you mention that you’d ever worry about not taking fatal damage in time.

Oh, is it time for the bimonthly “I’ve salvaged X rares and only got fewer ectos than I normally do, so the drop rate must have been changed!!” thread again?

Ameno.6813:

Hmm, all my builds require grenades. I wish they woulda have just taken out the penetration component of it and left everything else as is rather than disabling it altogether. Oh well, I needed to go finish witcher 2 and 3 anyways so maybe it’ll be fixed by then.

While you’re at it can you also replace glass cannon with heal bombs? Or at least find some way to fit heal bombs back in? That was one of my favorite traits in hotjoin pvp. Bunker for days.

It wasn’t just the piercing aspect, Grenade Barrage was tossing out almost twice as many grenades as it was suppose too, and that was at least as bad as the piercing part.

biofrog.1568:

Hmm.. and here I was thinking they wouldn’t just disable Grenadier since it is so central to a Grenade Kit engineer, and engineer as a class itself. Guess I was wrong.

Guess I will also be shelving my engie until they fix the trait
I feel sorry for those who main an engie, but I guess you can go try some other builds for now.

Grenade Kit is still good without Grenadier, especially for condi builds, and believe it or not, there are Engineer builds that do not use grenades that are actually good, even sometimes great. Tired of everyone acting like the profession is pre-patch Necro levels of terrible without them.

I want to say I found the old Bomb double kit condi to work fairly well (take Firearms for IP instead of Explosives, otherwise mostly the same) but with the craziness involved with some of the wonkier traits/glass cannon builds, I can’t really say if it works in today’s meta or if I just got a string of fairly noobish opponents when I tried it out.

Gern.2978:

Is anyone able to actually give themselves regen by shooting mortar’s water field with the #1 attack? It never seems to give me any more regen, even if I’m standing in the water field as I’m shooting it with the #1 attack, my regen still goes away as soon as the water field does.

Couple of things going on here.

First, you can get the combo popup for projectile finishers even if no combo actually happens. All projectile finisher combos require you to hit a target (with the projectile, not the mortar shot AoE) to trigger, even if the effect is a beneficial one.

and secondly, to take advantage of beneficial projectile combo effects (like water regen or light condition cleanse) someone has to be standing right next to the target to receive the effect. I say “someone” because if an ally is standing next to your target when you trigger a water projectile combo, they will get the regen. IIRC it’s not an AoE effect either, only one person next to the target will get the regen stack or the condi cleanse (though I could be wrong on that)

Jerus.4350:

Gern.2978:

Jerus.4350:

Gern.2978:

WHAT
THE
CRAP

Not cool Josh, not cool at all.
I am straight up angry right now.

You have completely kitten the engineer for every mode of the game.

By temporarily disabling a bugged trait until it can be fixed. Dude, learn to play the freakin game and stop relying on overpowered abilities. First endless complaints over Mortar getting balanced, now because you can’t use a trait that’s clearly working incorrectly? This community is disappointing.

What was working incorrectly?

Old Grenadier was a GM and it gave you an extra grenade. THe new one was moved to adept and supposed to just increase velocity of the grenades (land at your target faster) and have the blast radius increased. However, what it was doing was giving you extra grenades. In my testing it wasn’t even just 1 though, just on a normal grenade toss I saw 5, now it wasn’t a very long test just enough to see if people were right saying it got extra grenades, but it was clearly working incorrectly. I’ve heard some claim they were getting double the nades they should, so it’s no surprise that people were claiming instant kills with Grenade Barrage. But, even just 1 extra grenade means we were getting an extra 33% damage, 2 nades 66%, and that’s just not what it was supposed to be.

Nades without this trait are still good, with what the trait is supposed to be it should make them more reliable in PVP or ranging in general, but it wasn’t supposed to give any sort of damage increase, just a quality of life trait. Much like Short Fuse doesn’t make bombs suddenly amazing, it just makes them more friendly to use.

It was a bit more than that.

Grenade Barrage was more grenades, in fact, it was twice as many grenades as it was suppose to be, enough that you could easily take off 90% or more of another player’s health with just a single use, if you were close enough for all the nades to hit.

1-5 however, the problem was piercing grenades: any time a grenade made contact with a target while mid-flight, it would do its AoE damage, in addition to the damage they do when they finally land. In a 1v1, this didn’t happen too often (Barrage was the bigger problem) but in PvE it was easy double damage or triple damage, especially with the stacking strat for dungeons and against bosses that are large and/or immobile, and for Wuv zerging, target the middle of an enemy zerg and you’re talking a possible 75 (SEVENTY-FIVE!) separate hits per toss (3 nades per toss, with pierce cap of 5 possible “hits” generating 5-target AoEs), which means 75 stacks of vuln, 75 applications of whatever condition that grenade had, 75 possible Shrapnel and sharpshooter procs, with most of those likely going to 3 or 4 targets or about a dozen hits apiece… It got pretty insane pretty fast.

Anyway, I’m glad this is getting fixed. I am sick and tired of the idea that I “must” use grenade kit in almost every part of this game to be considered viable.

So, OP gave me an idea for an SD build:

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-Z70;2V2Wv026oRFx0;9;4jkm;0246157048;4Xs0;3CoF2CoF2a0f

Stab from Juggernaut should make activating AED easier (even if there is still a 3 second delay between equipping FT and the boons from Juggernaut kicking in) Picked Rocket Boots over Rifle Turret (for Surprise Shot) and Tool Kit (for Gear Shield) since I figured the need for an immobilize cleanse with a short CD made shorter with Gadgeteer is greater than what the other two could provide (even with Mecha Legs + Hoelbrak Runes cutting movement impairing condis by half) Utility Googles is the only stunbreak with a targeted TB skill, and with Gageteer, the long CD shouldn’t be too much of an issue. Supply Crate as the Elite was pretty simple, once I remembered you can now overcharge the Healing Turret that comes with it to help with conditions, though if they make changes to Mortar’s projectile finisher to make it easier to proc, I might consider using Mortar and using Light field combos for cleansing conditions; more effort to use, but shorter cooldowns all around.

I picked Hoelbrak over Vampirism since Vamp’s effect could get in the way of an AED use, and over Ogre or Pack for the condi duration decrease. The new-ish Marauder seems like the best choice; Would give you an almost 75% crit chance in close range once you get a stack of bleed on, which almost makes FT’s AA good enough that you won’t hate yourself for sticking with FT most of the time to keep the might and stab up, and swapping to Rifle for bursts, rather than sticking with Rifle and only picking up FT for stab, blind and CC.

digitalruse.9085:

Gaile Gray.6029:

Due to its current unintended behavior, the Symbolic Avenger trait has been temporarily disabled until the next scheduled release. If you were using this trait, we suggest you select a different one until the trait is re-enabled.

I don’t suppose any sort of ETA would be asking too much? :/

I’m guessing “scheduled release” probably means Tuesday, unless they’re planning on some more fixes before the end of the week.

Basandra Skye.4031:

Gaile Gray.6029:

Due to its unintended behavior, the Symbolic Avenger trait has been temporarily disabled until the next scheduled release. If you were using this trait, we suggest you select a different one until the trait is re-enabled.

Gonna give grenadier the same treatment?

As an Engineer main, you wouldn’t get any complaints from me. Grenade Barrage shouldn’t be a 1-shot.

…Though the level of disruption that Grenadier is causing is nothing compared to people using Symbolic Avenger to kill Teq in less than 3 mins + Turret Defense phases.