Guild Wars 2

Dhuum would be cool except for the fact that he’s not dead. Just dormant. I would love to see Kalla Scorchrazor for 3 reasons.

1. It would add a Charr legend that Charr players can feel comfortable channeling.
2. It would add another female legend.
3. The Specialization weapon could be Greatsword!

As for the utility skills it can grant, perhaps it could draw inspiration from Warrior and get stances that act as upkeep skills that grant perma resistance, perma stability, and perma invuln as long as you have the energy. Of course, they can be balanced out to cost a lot of energy considering they would be very strong. Elite skill can summon Kalla’s soldiers similar to Thieves guild except all Warriors instead of thieves making them more tanky.

No problem. Also it looks pretty interesting. I like the fact that the target can have almost perma cripple and you got some decent survivability. I’ll probably give it a shot in PvP just for fun though may not do so well. We’ll see.

There’s also a bug with Roll for Initiative that sometimes delays its activation if there’s a lot of skills being used in a short amount of time though I’m not sure if that’s just the client lagging or an actual bug but I experienced it on at least 3 separate occassions and it even cost me a match in pvp at one point. Close game, was gonna kill Svanir in Niflhel, Roll for Initiative bugged as I was out of endurance and he got off a ton of damage on me because I couldn’t evade in time.

You got daggers on that build, bruh.

Knighthonor.4061:

Mantra of Honor need to be changed or else its useless in SPvP.

The only real use would be should your team be close to securing a stomp. You can buff your team heavily to get the stomp or right at the start of a fight with Mantra of Survival charged + the Master of the Mantra grandmaster. Or if you’re running double Endure Pain, you can use it at half hp with the grandmaster trait to proc your second Endure Pain and become immune to damage while your entire team just got a crap ton of boons. However, 30-50% of your hp for a bunch of boons might not be so great even with Mantra of Survival’s big heal so yeah I could totally see it getting some sort of damage reduction or maybe give it the effect of applying the opposite of each of those boons you shared out to yourself. Essentially applying corrupt boon on yourself in exchange for buffing all your allies.

One thing to note, I came up with this Elite Spec and wrote this article out over the span of 3-4 hours haha so maybe not all the skills are up to par.

The mobility issue is why I’m considering running staff with my dual swords for that skill 5 rush and popping Impossible Odds for super speed afterwards. Not a whole lot of OOC mobility but I regularly play Necro anyway and I have zero OOC mobility aside from perma swiftness which doesnt make up for movement skills tbh. I think a rush and superspeed should be fine though. At least for me. I wasn’t expecting Revenant to be the next Warrior with their crazy mobility.

Bearhugger.4326:

Focused Blade seems way too focused on defense. We don’t really have a defensive burst so I would at least add some blocks or evades to the skills of Focused Blade to make it more versatile.

Although personally I’m not very interested in samurais and katanas. I think their armor was hideous and rubbish, and while the katana looks like an excellent cutter, I find it quite short for a two-handed sword and its hand guard looks lackluster as well. And just in general, they have been given more than their share of glory in animé and Japanese RPGs so I’d like Arenanet to get us something more original for elite specs. I’ll welcome a samurai elite if we go to Cantha because it will be more in-themed there, but otherwise I’d rather they didn’t pull out a samurai spec.

Berserker? Well, it makes me wonder if our F2 will be an off-hand burst or just a “Berserk” skill that burns adrenaline. If it’s just “Berserk”, it better be an awesome berserk that does more than increase our damage by X% because that’s not going to cut it with an off-hand like torch. (Which is probably what we’re getting.)

I was actually thinking that it would be a perfect addition to the game should we ever return to Cantha. I’m on the other side of the fence though, I think a Samurai specialization would be really interesting as it could add some really flashy sword style attacks to a class that is really just smash, hack, and kick as well. Ironically, I main thief but flashy attacks are so my thing haha. I think the warrior as it is right now is already basically a Berserker that’s why I’m not too excited about the potential of that being the Elite Spec. I would love to see Warriors get above land spears however. Man, I would love to be a spear fighter.

Idk about you, but my warrior is perfectly solid. I’ve been running a Sword/Shield + GS build and wrecking. Alternatively, I have a Rifle+GS build which is really strong as well. You just have to know how to make your build and use it. The only thing really that needs balance as far as I’m concerned, is the stupid OP elite, Rampage. It should not be pulsing stab and shouldnt last as long as it does. Rampage should be used for a quick burst of cc’s and then end. The fact that you can auto attack for ages and down multiple players within its 20 second duration is dumb. Same with Lich Form. These elites should be used for quick bursts as opposed to entering god mode for an extended period of time.

These traits allow for good synergy with practically all warrior weapons and allow for some creative hybrid, condition, support, and even power builds to be made.

So…. that’s pretty much it. Let me know what you guys think and if you would one day like to see a specialization like this come to Warrior someday. I think the concept is perfect but obviously, some of the numbers are probably too strong or too weak but that’s just the general idea. If by some miracle Anet likes this idea, I’m sure they’d balance it better. Anyway, hope you guys enjoyed my Elite Specialization idea!

TL;DR: Warrior gets weapon swap and burst taken away but gets cool Samurai Engineer Kit/Death Shroud, Mantras, and some good traits.

Speaking of traits…

Trait Line: Swordmaster
Now, similar to Reaper on Necro, this specialization has a specific theme for each 3 rows of traits. Those themes are:
-Conditioned Training traits are for those looking to play a condition oriented Swordmaster without relying on the power based traits.
-Master of the Sword traits specifically meant to bolster the Focused Blade fighting style
-Battlefield Hero for traits that help you stay alive while supporting allies

Let’s start off with the minor traits!

Minor Traits
— Focusing Rage(Minor Adept): Removes weapon swap and burst skills on warrior and replaces them with Focused Blade.
— Bladed Defense(Minor Master): Gain increased toughness while Focused Blade is active. Crippled and snared foes cause 10% less damage to you. Toughness gained: 150
— Building Strength(Minor Grandmaster): 50% Chance to gain might for 5 seconds when hitting with any Skill 1.

Explanation: Tada! Not too bad for minors. Bladed Defense gives you some really nice added damage mitigation in order to allow you to move in for the kill with Onslaught after a Precision Throw or Crushing Sword. Building strength allows you the ability to might stack with any weapon set if you’re running Phalanx Strength while also letting you might stack on yourself for added condition or power damage.

Adept Traits
— Burning Spirit(Conditioned Training): Gain a Fire Aura for 5 seconds when activating Focused Blade.
— Absolute Focus(Master of the Sword): Focus skills give 3 seconds of Quickness. Focus skills recharge 20% faster. Deal 5% more damage to foes with a condition.
— Allied Protection(Battlefield Hero): Pulse protection to allies while charging a mantra.

Explanation: These are the first traits available to Swordmaster. Pretty straight forward. Burning Spirit gives you some options for condition play, Absolute Focus gives you a bit more burst potential, and Allied Protection lets your allies benefit from channeling mantras.

Master Traits
— Heat Treating(Conditioned Training): 30% Chance to cause burning for 5 seconds. Deal 20% more damage to burning foes.
— Total Offense(Master of the Sword): Attacks with sword now additionally cause 10% extra damage when wielding a sword, focus, axe, or mace in your offhand.
— Mantra Training(Battlefield Hero): Gain increased toughness while channeling a mantra. Mantra of Skill now applies fury when a charge is used, Mantra of Persistence also applies regeneration. Mantras recharge 25% faster if any mantra skill is interrupted by a foe.

Explanation: This set of traits is a little more interesting. Heat Treating is obviously great for condition builds but works very well in conjunction with Burning Spirit if you’re not using mainhand sword or focus. Total Offense gives you great reason to run dual weapons as you will get a nice boost in damage and it works very well in conjunction with the Arms trait line. I didn’t want to include shield in order to motivate players to run more offensive sets with this trait theme. Mantra training is really good for punishing rude players who dare interrupt your channeling.

Grandmaster Traits
— Blade Shards(Conditioned Training): Crushing Sword now additionally causes 5 stacks of bleeding for 10 seconds. Blade Retrieval applies 5 stacks of bleeding for 5 seconds.
— Focused Blade Master(Master of the Sword): Focused Blade skills have a 30% chance to destroy an incoming projectile. Focused Blade skills recharge 25% faster if Onslaught or Crushing Sword strikes more than one foe.
— Master of the Mantra(Battlefield Hero): Mantra of Survival will also heal nearby allies for 30% of total healing. Mantra of Assistance will also heal you. Mantra of Honor will only take 30% of your total health.

Explanation: Blade Shards is good for conditions. What else is there to say? If you want to keep those condies sticking on to enemy players, it’s a really good trait to have. Focused Blade Master is just awesome to have. Gives you defense against projectiles and is just great to have in group fights as it will recharge your skills faster. I chose to make this specific to group fights as it’s very strong and having reduced cooldowns for 1v1’s would make Focused Blade overwhelmingly strong. Master of the Mantra just solidifies support Mantra builds and allows you to use Mantra of Honor more safely. Not to mention gives you some extra healing for yourself and allies.
(Part 5)

Utility 1(Offensive Mantra) Cooldown: 20 Seconds, Charge time: 1 Second
- Mantra of Skill: Focus on your target and deliver 3 rapid Focused Blade attacks from a distance. Apply conditions.
— Character Line: “Practice, discipline. Skill!”
— Damage per strike: 550
— Last strike damage: 800
— Applies 5 stacks of Vulnerability on first strike, 2 stacks of Torment on second strike, and 2 stacks of bleeding on third strike for 10 seconds.
— Number of Charges: 1
— Range: 900
— Mantra color change: Red

Explanation: Pretty cool and useful skill. Basically delivers an auto attack chain from an extended distance than regular Focused Blade auto attack and applies a bit more conditions. Definitely strong but also risky as you have to charge your mantra and then cast it and wait for cooldown again.

Utility 2(Defensive Mantra) Cooldown: 25 seconds, Charge time: 2 seconds
- Mantra of Persistence: Concentrate your willpower to resist conditions and crowd control.
— Character line: “Resist, stand firm. Persist!”
— Applies 1 stack of stability and resistance for 6 seconds every time a charge is used.
— Number of charges: 2
— Breaks Stuns
— Mantra color change: Yellow

Explanation: Does as it says it does. Gives you 2 stun breaks and stability every 25 seconds if you charge it. Once again, pretty strong but also risky to charge.

Utility 3(Support Mantra) Cooldown: 20 seconds, Charge time: 2 seconds
- Mantra of Assistance: Concentrate on your surroundings and apply slow and weakness to enemies while healing and providing Might to allies.
— Character line: “Observe, prepare. Assist!”
— Damage: 550
— Applies slow to enemies for 3 seconds
— Applies 3 stacks of might to allies for 10 seconds
— Healing: 1500
— Number of Charges: 2
— Combo Finisher: Blast
— Radius: 240
— Mantra color change: Green

Explanation: I’m still very unsure about this one but basically, it’s meant to slow enemies and buff allies so they can counter attack. I think it could be useful in certain scenarios.

Elite Skill Cooldown: 30 Seconds, Charge time: 2 3/4 Seconds.
- Mantra of Honor: Sacrifice yourself to inspire your allies. Cut half of your total HP to apply Stability, Resistance, Fury, Swiftness, Protection, Might, and Retaliation to nearby teammates.
— Character line: “Glory, triumph. Honor!”
— Self Damage: 50% total hp.
— Allies receive 2 Stacks of stability, protection, resistance, swiftness, 5 stacks of might, and retaliation for 10 seconds.
— Healing: 3000
— Number of Targets: 5
— Number of charges: 1
— Radius: 240
— Combo Finisher: Blast
— Mantra Color change: White

Explanation: The idea for this elite was inspired by the idea of honorable, selfless warriors who lay down their lives to ensure the victory of their side. Basically, this skill is really useful if you manage to down someone and your team is attempting to secure the stomp but entire enemy team is pressuring your team too hard. You can sap your own life to heal your teammates and buff them heavily to let them stay in the mayhem for just about long enough to win. I know 50% hp is a huge hit for this somewhat situational skill but it can also turn the tide of the fight if used in the right situation and you can get a huge chunk of hp back if you use your Mantra of Survival right after. Plus there’s a Grandmaster to reduce the damage on yourself if you want to run a support build mainly.

(Part 4)

Now as for the Focus Skills…

The idea for the focus was that the Swordmaster would meditate to prevent his rage from exploding in a single burst skill like a regular warrior and instead focus their rage and direct it in battle. Thus the Focus fit perfectly for this concept. I know it draws upon themes from the guardian but the idea is to be a skilled samurai warrior who fights for his honor and for his comrades thus the support skills.

Focus Skill 4 (AOE Support) Cooldown: 20 seconds
- Cleansing Strike: Spin once striking enemies and allies around you. Remove boons from foes and conditions from allies and yourself. Gain resistance and adrenaline for each boon and condition removed.
— Damage: 500
— Number of boons removed per player: 1 boon
— Number of conditions removed per player: 1 condition
— Adrenaline gained: 2 per boon/condition
— Applies resistance for 2 seconds for a total of 10 seconds if 5 players are hit.
— Number of Targets: 5
— Combo Finisher: Whirl
— Range: 150

Explanation: Focus on this Elite Specialization serves 2 purposes. First, to give support to teammates while dealing damage to enemies and second, to build adrenaline in order to draw your Focused Blade to dish out more damage. The idea for this particular skill is that your circular slash is so precise, it weakens your enemies and removes conditions on your allies.

Focus Skill 5 (Single target CC+Adrenaline) Cooldown: 25 Seconds
-Challenge: Target will be taunted and you will build adrenaline. Build double adrenaline if target strikes you while taunted. Target receives damage when taunt ends.
— Damage: 800
— Applies Taunt for 2 seconds
— Adrenaline: 5(10 if hit)
— Range: 600

Explanation: Deals good damage and builds adrenaline. Overall, a very good skill. The idea is that you challenge your enemy’s honor and they are forced to accept the challenge. You then “defeat” them when the taunt ends by delivering a strong hit. Good for spike damage and pulling an enemy off your teammate.

And now for the utilities. Mantras!
Once again, this fits in really well with the idea of a focused and centered warrior who can enter a zen state in battle to dish out precise attacks or keep the morale high by assisting friendlies. In order to allow classes to counter these strong Mantras, you can have each mantra change the color of the character who is charging it to resemble the Box of Fun’s color changing effect. Each color will correspond to a specific Mantra and players who are fighting Swordmaster will be able to easily tell which Mantra a Swordmaster is charging and decide if it’s worth bursting, interrupting, or ignoring it.

Healing Skill Cooldown: 25 Seconds, Charge time: 2 3/4 seconds
- Mantra of Survival: Concentrate and charge a mantra to allow yourself to heal.
— Character Line: “No pain, no death. Survival!”
— Number of charges: 3
— Healing: 3000
— Mantra color change: Blue

Explanation: Yes, I know this is a very strong heal but it is very easy to interrupt if necessary. Furthermore, the cooldown without traits makes it crucial to save these mantra charges for the right opportunity as well as using the other mantras to conserve this one.

(Part 3)

Skill 4 (Stun) Cooldown: 15 seconds
- Scabbard Strike: Bash your foe with your scabbard and deal damage, stunning them.
— Damage: 400
— Stun duration: 1 second
— Range: 130

Skill 5 (Burst) Cooldown: 20 seconds, Duration of Skill 2 seconds
- Onslaught: Unleash a barrage of attacks hitting nearby enemies in a cone in front of you. Randomly apply a stack of condition and vulnerability for each strike.
— Damage: 2500 Total
— Individual Strike Damage: 500, attacks 5 times
— Conditions randomly applied: Torment, Bleeding
— Applies Vulnerability
— Condition Durations: 8 seconds
— Number of Targets: 5
— Range: 200

Explanation: The reason you want to keep your enemies nearby you sometimes is to be able to setup and land your Skill 5 Onslaught. This attack will heavily burst up to 5 players in front of you at a decent range and is perfect for group cleaving. It is similar to Hundred Blades though slightly weaker but has the added effect of applying conditions and of course has longer range than Hundred Blades. Skills 2 through 4 all work perfectly to setup Onslaught as they have various methods of keeping the enemy near you.

Cooldown for Focused Blade will be 9 seconds or about 7 1/2 seconds with Disciplines trait line. All current burst skill traits and effects will still apply when you activate Focused Blade. However, like Death Shroud, cooldown for Focused Blade only begins after you exit Focused Blade.

Cleansing Ire will remove conditions without having to land a hit but won’t be as effective since you have to wait for your single F1 to cooldown after switching back to cleanse.

Berserker’s Power will still apply its effect after Focused Blade is activated.
Burst Precision will have to be changed slightly to make the first skill used after activated Focus Blade to crit.

As for Versatile Rage and Burst Mastery in the Discipline line…
Versatile Rage will grant you another 5 adrenaline as you activate Focused Blade and potentially boost you to the next Adrenaline level if you are close enough.
Burst Mastery will also have to be changed slightly to give your first attack after using Focused Blade to get 7% damage increase. This will be perfect for leading off with Skill 3 after switching to Focused Blade.

Switching to Focused Blade will also count as a weapon swap, similar to kits, so all traits and sigils relating to weapon swap will proc.

(Part 2)

Okay so first off, this is obviously NOT confirmed or even rumored to be an elite specialization but just hear me out. This is an idea for a specialization that can really change up how warrior plays inspired by Woodenpotatoes “Make a Pirate” video. When he was mentioning ideas for some Elite specs, I immediately got the idea for this one as he said Samurai for warrior. So… here we go! Please note that the numbers I say in this thread are all just ball park estimates while using Marauder Amulet in pvp so if something seems overpowered or broken, please leave some constructive feedback

Name: Swordmaster(or maybe Samurai, Sword Sage, Ronin, Blademaster)
Elite Spec. Weapon: Off-Hand Focus (Don’t worry, I’m going somewhere with this)
Utility types: Mantras
Specialization Mechanic: Replaces all burst skills AND weapon swap with Focused Blade
Description: Swordmasters are warriors who have trained and mastered the art of sword combat, allowing them to focus all their adrenaline into their curved swords to control the flow of battle by overwhelming their enemies with devastating attacks and sacrificing themselves honorably, if necessary, to ensure the victory for their side.

Alright so, let’s start off with Focused Blade.

-Focused Blade: This is a new type of class mechanic that combines elements of Necromancer’s Death Shroud with an Engineer kit. Essentially what this does is it allows you to focus all your adrenaline into wielding a Katana-style weapon that you switch into when you use your F1 ability. This weapon replaces all your current weapon skills with a new set of skills revolving around this sword. However, you can only wield this weapon for a certain amount of time depending on how much adrenaline you spent to unsheathe your Focused Blade. Also gives you a cool Katana in your mainhand and its scabbard in your offhand. You can still use utilities and elite skills as well while in Focused Blade

Level 1 Adrenaline lets you wield your Focused Blade for 7 seconds
Level 2 gives you 10 seconds
Level 3 gives you 10 seconds as well but also grants 2 Stacks of Might, Fury and Swiftness for 5 seconds for burst capabilities

Focused Blade skills:
First off, I just wanted to say that when thinking of the skills and effects for this, I intended to make it strong for power but not useless for conditions so there are options here for anyone who might want to run a hybrid build or a condition build. There are also traits that improve on it.

Skill 1 (Auto Attack 1)
- Focused Slash: Slash your foe from afar using wind generated from your sword swing.
— Damage: 550
— Applies 1 Stack of Torment for 5 Seconds
— Range: 600
Skill 1 (Auto Attack 2)
- Focused Cut: Slash your foe again, applying torment
— Damage: 550
— Applies 1 Stack of Torment for 5 seconds
— Range: 600
Skill 1 (Auto Attack 3)
- Focused Precision: Cripple your foe with a precision wind cut.
— Damage: 750
— Applies Cripple for 1 second
— Range: 600

Explanation: Basically, this auto attack chain is similar to a Necro axe in that it can hit from a distance but is about as fast as Thief auto attack. The reason for this is that without weapon swap, you will need a pretty versatile weapon for different situations and giving the auto attack range will make it even more worth it to activate it more often to chase down fleeing enemies or prevent having to always force you into melee range if running anything other than Rifle or Longbow with this spec.

Skill 2 (Gap closer Part 1) Cooldown: 10 Seconds
- Precision Throw: Throw your blade at an enemy and immobilize them in place.
— Damage: 550
— Applies Immobilize for 3 seconds
— Combo Finisher: Projectile
— Range: 900
Skill 2 (Gap Close Part 2 Flipover Skill)
- Blade Retrieval: Rush at your immobile foe and rip the blade from them dealing damage.
— Damage: 800
— Range: 1200

Explanation: This works similarly to Impale in that you throw your blade at an enemy but functions like Rush on Greatsword. Cannot work unless you hit a target to prevent Double Rushing if running Greatsword with your build. Great for snaring runners.

Skill 3 (AOE) Cooldown: 10 seconds
- Crushing Sword: Leap to the target area and impale your blade into the ground, crippling nearby enemies and shattering the ground.
— Damage: 1250
— Applies Cripple for 3 seconds
— Combo Finisher: Blast
— Range: 600

Explanation: Just a cool looking AOE skill with some decent cripple duration to keep enemies near you. Now you may be wondering why keep your enemies nearby when auto attack is ranged. Well I’m about to explain that with the next two skills.

(Part 1)

skowcia.8257:

Broken. Use odds, deactive them. Enjoy 4sec quickness for no energy cost. Repeat

It would be possible for them to make it that when you deactivate Impossible Odds, it takes away your Quickness and Super Speed. They do this with Lich Form on Necro. You gain stability but it is stripped if you leave Lich Form. Alternatively, they could make each pulse drain the same amount of energy per pulse that it would have drained per second in its current state to compensate for getting those instant 4 seconds of buffs.

skowcia.8257:

It would be better to give it 1 icd so you cant get rid of all conditions every 10sec with sword 3 and keep it balanced. Transfering conditions would also open up hybrid builds with Mallyx. Mallyx to cumulate conditions and once overloaded, swap to Shiro and transfer them.

Transferring conditions would be nice too. Particularly, in the example you gave to load up with condies on Mallyx, then switch to Shiro.

I think I’d be happy with either change as I feel Impossible Odds is perfect to fit the bill of condition removal on Shiro without having to load up on Lyssa runes.

“Rev Up Those Fryers”

You’re welcome

https://youtu.be/ys3qcbO5KWw

Hey skowcia. I liked your idea and was considering of making a post about this myself. I really hope more of you guys read what I’m about to say because I think OP’s idea is actually very good.

Okay so Impossible Odds. It’s pretty good. Quickness and Super Speed will let you wreck players in 1v1. However, it can be just a tiny bit better and add even more reason to conserve energy to use Impossible Odds or just give incentive not to spam it.

Here’s my idea built on skowcia’s. Impossible Odds pulses quickness and super speed every second right now. Change it to pulse every 3-4… maybe 5 seconds and applies said buffs for the same amount of duration it takes to pulse again.. So you still get perma quickness and super speed but you will also remove a condition on every pulse. This will not only fit thematically with the original GW1 skill but will also help Revenant’s stay on their target with this skill plus give them at least some supplementary condition removal in the Shiro stance. Not to mention will allow for some counter play by allowing other classes to corrupt or strip quickness to counter Impossible Odds. Personally, I would really love to see this change. It would work similarly to the old Shadows Embrace on thief except Anet can change the time it takes for each pulse for balance while still giving us a little bit more defense against conditions and making the skill more faithful to the original.

Tinni.4351:

I guess it depends on what you want out of a class. I mean, there are still elementalists who cannot do the “attunement dance”. Meaning that some struggle even with open world PvE. Supposedly HoT is going to have actual hard PvE content. This might well mean that the population of dedicated revenants would be quite small due to how challenging the class is. I am not saying this is a bad thing but if the new class is underplayed, it could mean bad things in terms of support going forward.

Alternatively, we can have players thinking the class wasn’t good because they can’t play it properly – an actual thing that plagued Elementalist at launch. We are going to get a surge of new players come HoT, I am just not sure how accessible revenant will be to the average players. Again, this doesn’t have to be a bad thing and I am all for revenant being the new hard mode class. But just saying that both bars swapping might be a bit much for some players.

Yeah I know what you mean and while I do think having a big enough population of Revenants is good, I think we as a community and Anet themselves want and hope that people will become actively engaged in battle and learn how to become good at their classes instead of just sitting back with Ranger longbow afk’ing with auto attack. If Anet is gonna be giving us challenging pve content that we hope will make us shed sweat and tears then we need people who come into this game to feel at least somewhat challenged by their class to improve in order to one day be ready for the difficult content ahead.

skowcia.8257:

Impossible odds should remove condi every 1sec instead pulsing that useless super speed. That thing is not needed with gap closer.

Now that is a more sensible idea I can get behind. Super speed is kinda weird and original impossible odds was a condi cleanse so it would make perfect sense.

A thief can still get hit while they’re invisible. Not to mention shadows embrace doesnt cure immob anymore so have fun trying to get out of that one. Furthermore, Shadows Refuge isn’t fullproof either if the team can get the proper cleave going and being a squishy thief, you probably wont be able to take the extra damage a heavy armor Revenant can take and the double heals+spam rolls I mentioned are assuming you have legend swap ready or more than 50 energy on Shiro. Also, you should really only need to use Riposting Shadows once and then either use your actual dodges or sword block after that.

skowcia.8257:

For resistance i have to use condition legend which doesnt work with power builds at all. Resistance can also be stripped and at this point what will save you from condi burst? If i happen to get 0 energy with Shiro, i have to swap and baam..my defensive rolls are gone for a good 10 seconds. Surviving a burst is not as much of a problem as getting out alive from team focus.

Mallyx is probably the best in terms of condition defense though which is why I suggested using him for defense against condies. You can still be hitting hard with dual swords while using Mallyx as well so your damage isn’t completely gone. Furthermore, say you do get hit with 0 energy while on Shiro and switch to either Jarlis or Mallyx. Depending what trait lines you’re running, you can either stun break with Jarlis, dodge, switch to staff and skill 5 away towards your team and heal or stun break on legend swap, leap with Mallyx towards your team and displace any nearby enemies and get some distance. I know it would be tough but trust me, Necros deal with this kinda thing all the time. Like I said, it depends on how you’re specced and what weapon sets you’re running. Me, personally, I’m gonna be running staff for that skill 5. I admit, it would be cool to have an invuln or stealth on Revenant too but with Shiro, honestly, this class looks like it might be too strong if it wasn’t played with caution in a team fight. Let’s not forget the buffs to all the Revenant’s weapons we just got too. You can’t expect to survive everything and still have the offensive presence that we’re hoping to get with Shiro+recent weapon buffs. If in the next beta, Revs are still getting hopelessly rekt though, I will gladly admit I was wrong but as a Thief main and regular power Necro player, I think I can live just fine with the current Revenant abilities granted they increase Riposting Shadows length.

Implying you have to trait into more than three lines if you want life steal, resistance, and heal when attacked. If you get attacked when you have 0 energy, well then simply swap legends and bam 50 energy. You act as though you should be compensated for not being able to properly dodge an incoming burst. Warriors need invuln because their best heal skill ticks slow. As a Revenant, you have way more tricks up your sleeve. If anything, I do agree Jalis needs a bit more tankyness and Riposting Shadows could have a bit longer distance evade but aside from that, saying Revenant can’t survive a burst is just not knowing how to play.

And I suppose you can survive burst on a thief or a necro without death shroud? Thief can shadowstep and necro can maybe get a fear off. What does Revenant get? Spammable roll for initiative on Shiro, aoe teleport with Mallyx, potential to pop two heal skills to recover, block on sword, knockback and rush on staff 5, resistance on Mallyx for condi burst. Trust me, you have what you need to live a burst if you’re specced right and if you’re quick enough to react. Not to mention idk… maybe anticipating and dodging the burst? And if you’re talking about in an outnumbered fight, well then can’t really blame someone for getting nuked in a 2+ v 1.

Haha I saw that and was like, “Wow perfect timing”

Looks pretty cool though and has DIcaprio and Tom Hardy in it. Definitely interested in watching

Tinni.4351:

I feel it might be too overwhelming because weapon swapping and legend swapping means that neither of our skill bars are “set”. This can prove a cognitive challenge because even with engineers and elementalists, the utility bar is always fixed. You know you’ll always get X when you press 0. But with revenant you have the additional cognative load of remembering which legend you have selected.

So you have 1-5 changing and 6-0 also changing. So I think weapons swap will be taken away before final release.

Did you just say it might be too hard? My goodness. You know, I was a bit upset too like OP when they added weapon swap to Revenant but after a few minutes of thinking about it, I realized it makes complete sense. There is indeed a cognitive challenge of changing weapons and legends but that is where the reward of playing that class will come from. Knowing what to do when you switch to a different weapon with the currently equipped legend and knowing when to switch to your other legend. If anything, adding weapon swap will increase the skill gap required to play this class and hopefully add enough complexity to make it rewarding to be good at it.

If anything, maybe increase distance you evade back on Riposting Shadows but aside from that, I think Revenant has plenty of tools to survive. You need to consider the various traits Revenant has. Life steal, resistance, incoming conditions heal you, getting attacked heals you, swapping legends breaks stun, super speed on Shiro and Staff 5 for mobility and escaping, aoe stun with Jade Winds combined with Runes of Lyssa for condition cleanse,. And that’s just the stuff off the top of my head. There are many options for increasing your survivability with Shiro. Just because there isn’t a skill that automatically saves you like shadow refuge or endure pain doesn’t mean you are a sitting target. Like how Zetsumei said, necro players know how to survive without stealth or tons of mobility so the fact that Revenant gets decent mobility similar to thief plus life steal similar to necro and tons of stuns and spammable stun breaks means you should have just enough methods of surviving.

Just attempted to come up with new strategy taking into account the Inf Return. In no way does this nerf make any sense. I just got absolutely one sided by an engie which I, previously, would have had an epic back and forth fight with. Not only do conditions absolutely own a thief but now that I have no method of escaping the engie’s aoe short of using up my shadowstep, I got a rather costly delay on my condie removal thanks to Inf Return nerf. How is this balance? This patch has officially made Sword/Dagger practically useless against an experienced engie. I’m not even a glass cannon and I could not stand a chance against this engie’s conditions and aoe. This is not balance. This is sheer thief hatred.

I really don’t think the change in Infiltrator’s Strike was needed at all. It was practically the best feature of sword/dagger and extremely useful for confusing and defeating other players. Not to mention that it was the only way to effectively fight stun builds or larger groups. It gave us sword/dagger thieves a tool to use against dagger/dagger thieves as well. See, the problem is that with sword/dagger you don’t have the ability to deal out massive damage in a short amount of time like dagger/dagger thieves. You need to stay in and hit a few times to deal effective damage. If things get hot, you need a way to get out of there asap. Dagger/dagger thieves have the ability to backstab for huge damage, cloak and dagger again, and repeat. This all happens so quick and makes dagger/dagger thieves deadly. Now that Inflitrator’s Strike has a cast time, it means you have to Return before taking heavy damage or getting stunned which also gives you significally less time to deal damage. As OP mentioned, the return interrupts any skills we are using and delays the time you have to heal. This means more damage from conditions. Once a thief is stunned they are screwed, sure you can say sword/dagger can use the same tactics as dagger/dagger and stealth+dodge to avoid that; however, as I mentioned before dagger/dagger have the luxury of being able to deal massive damage using the stealth and in a short amount of time while sword/dagger don’t. So the best option is to retreat if we get hit with stun while attempting to use our skill 1 chain.

A smart player knows about the sword/dagger’s Return and can keep track of where the thief ported from and know where they will port back. I fought several people like this and it made my Infiltrator’s Strike a challenge to use. With this nerf, it is practically useless as a retreat as we won’t even be able to do anything until the animation for the Return is done. My sword/dagger build which, before today, could take on any other class and build on equal footing is now considerably weaker and leaves me with precious few options while fighting. I relied heavily on Infiltrator’s Strike to confuse and fight enemies and now I can forget about it being an effective solo roaming build much less being somewhat usable in an outnumbered fight.

It seems like Anet doesn’t want people to use Sword/Dagger as we keep getting nerf after nerf. First, Infiltrator’s Strike lost it’s stun breaking ability. Okay, at least we can still avoid some damage by porting back. Then we lost the ability to remove two boons with Skill 3, now it’s practically useless to strip boons especially from guardians since they have so many. Now, we can’t even port back while stunned meaning we take tons more damage before being able to get away. If I had known, it’d be this bad, I would have preferred not having the faster initiative regen as I fought much better with less initiative as long as I could confuse the enemy with my trusty Return.