Guild Wars 2

Hexalot.8194:

otto.5684:

From all the new elites this seemed to be the least interesting. Conditional range will be nice, but if we have to give up Glint there is much that the new line must offer.

If you’re going to spec condition as this new weapon suggests, then corruption and herald will still be the automatic go to traits. It’s either retribution or invocation (depending on what you’re using) that everyone will drop for the new spec.

You can’t slot two elite specs at once. With Renegade you won’t be able to use Herald.

The elite spec looks interesting, but removal of Shroud has to be compensated in some way. Shroud is not only bland hitpoints, it’s also 50% built-in direct damage reduction.

A bit sad that Torch is not main-hand. Unless it has a CC skill it will have a tough competition in PvP against Warhorn. At the same time, in PvE Scourge condition build will probably be back to Scepter + two off-hands to swap. If Torch was a main-hand weapon we could get to use more weapons in general in a rotation. That’s still speculation though.

Foraoiye.4506:

I found some more renegade footage, can’t say it looks really exciting compared to the other elite specializations. Will have to try it for myself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nflQFIFnpVo

That’s a lot of fancy looking skills, but they don’t seem to be doing that much interesting stuff.

If anyone gets hands on full legend/weapon/trait preview, please post it in here.

We don’t know much about it yet, seems like everyone has footage of every elite spec but Renegade.

…I decided to have some fun and come up with an idea for Revenant’s Shortbow. Partially to show that a bow doesn’t have to be boring at all.

Numbers on tooltips are purely to reflect an idea and give some vague feeling of the skill. They are not balanced.

The weapon is heavily based around punishing enemy’s positioning. It has multiple tools that can be combined into rather deadly sequences. Most importantly, it can also make enemies harmful to each other. Foes hit often face decision whether to move or not.

You can see the abilities either via attachements for this post below or by using the imgur gallery link.

• Link to imgur album

Brief explanations of the skills:

• 1. Chaos Arrow – Chain Auto Attack. Fairly standard chain attack inflicting Torment and transforming from single target to an AoE if it hits enemies affected by some other Shortbow effects. As the name suggests, it capitalizes on chaos the weapon can create, being a bit more deadly against moving targets.

• 2. Miasma Shot – 2nd skill. Cheap and low-cooldown attack that aims to punish enemies for standing too close to each other, forcing target’s movement with a risk of harming his allies. The detonation part is unblockable and unevadeable for the struck foe, but it isn’t for his allies. Once an enemy takes the initial shot, he starts carrying miasma pool around him, the “ticking bomb” that can strike his nearby allies. If the target dies at any point of the skill, the “ticking bomb” can spread once to closest foes. Because of that, you might want to capitalize on dying foes/minions/pets to magnify the effect of this skill.

• 3. Branding Spear – 3rd skill. A big, ground-targeted spear launched from the bow that explodes on impact, leaving a burning field. This skill punishes enemies hit by the initial impact for chaotic movement, making them create fire trails behind them when moving that can burn their allies. Fairly hard to hit very mobile targets with because of the quite long cast time and ground targeting, so you might want to combine it with other skills.

• 4. Mutilating Ambush – 4th skill and it’s flipover. Skillshot, multi-layered ability that can be used for re-positioning, defensive capabilities or to briefly empower your burst against struck targets with something akin to condition snapshotting. It also has a flip-over skill that, for 10 additional Energy, allows you to instantly swap positions with the assassin (while he hasn’t reached the max range and dissapeared yet). Being instant, it can be used to mitigate things like stuns if used pre-emptively. As for the toxin part of the skill, it increases duration of all conditions you apply to the target (going past the cap) during the debuff for their entire duration.

• 5. Ring of the Mists – 5th skill. An AoE delayed pull that punishes allies for leaving their allies. The more unique enemies escape the ring, the harder it is to escape for the ones remaining inside. High combo potential with other Shortbow skills, as it can create one big group you can easily punish.

That’s it. All tooltips created with the help of that_shaman’s
tool. I hope this shows that Revenant can, in fact, get a new cool weapon. Now, let’s wait for the reveals.

Rym

I think someone could make a legit sitcom out of gw2 NA PvP scene.

Wait for the new elite spec reveal and most importantly, balance pass coming up in the next major release, confirmed by Karl in the last AMA.

We will discuss Revenant and post feedback after that. For now we have some icons, an elite spec name and logical thinking for speculations.

…Instead, lock them out of entering Fractal and Raid instances or leaving the PvP lobby. If they really want to win a monthly Automatic Tournament, help them focus on this goal, since it takes some dedication. Give them a chance.

Ben Phongluangtham.1065:

I mentioned this in the AMA, may as well repeat it here. For a multitude of reasons, balance being just one, we don’t have any plans on doing a 2v2 (or 3v3) queue.

We’ve been talking about doing special tournaments on occasion. 2v2 would be one option for a special tournament.

Stronghold hasn’t seen any support since beta, has severe balance issues, has one map – yet it is still in unranked. Unless the issue of including 2v2 queue checkbox next to Conquest and Stronghold in Unranked mode is technical limitations, I see no big reason not to give it a spin. OP is right about one thing – it will never be tested and played if it’s custom map only.

Due to possible match length, maybe up the daily requirement to 2 or 3 games for 2v2 and increase the warm-up timer before the match/add build templates so we can adjust the build to comp and enemy team.

Interesting change of the warrior theme, probably greater than Berserker which could be described as “a regular Warrior, but even more Warrior”.

Definitely the most interesting elite spec so far according to leaked information.

The movement part is fine. As far as it goes, the only change I’d like to see would be increasing Ventari’s Will range to 1500 (full leash range).

The primary needs of Ventari are:

• Better traits – Salvation traits are terrible. If you want Tablet to bring respectful healing, you dedicate all the trait tiers to increasing your outgoing healing modifier. If the legend is built around having high modifiers and doesn’t work without them, bake as many as you can into Minor traits in the supporting specialization. Give the traitline some new things that can enhance support Revenant, rather than trying to stuff overbloated Ventari’s Elite with it.

• Visible Tablet radius outlier – A request dating back to HoT betas that would be a major buff to Ventari without changing any numbers, yet still not here for whatever reason. Tablet’s effective radius is so small that allies NEED to see it. There’s no work-around, unless you want to triple the radius of it. Untill this change happens, Tablet will forever feel clunky, because allies who are not coordinated will be missing on heals without knowing about it.

• Possible radius increase from 240 to 280 or 300.

• A defensive skill on Ventari’s set. Probably the best candidate for it is Protective Solace (the bubble). That skill is not that much fun for either side when it works (everlasting projectile deflection is not a great design) and it’s absolutely useless when there are no projectiles (besides niche Light Field uses, which in my opinion, are wasting energy). Be it a stunbreak, anti-focus tool, whatever.

• Possible changes to how Regeneration boon operates – Support Revenant with the modifiers brings the strongest Regeneration possible in-game by far, yet it will more often than not get overwritten by much worse versions provided by Tempests or Chronomancers due to short duration.

SotM could definitely have the skillshot aiming, same for Echoing Eruption for example. Aiming with the character model, while possible and way better in those cases than lock-on targeting, is not as intuitive as skillshot.

For Crystal Hibernation, I think the skill is all right. We already have a mobile block on Sword #4 if you need it. If I were to do something with CH, it would be adding some minor group utility to it. Bonus toughness to nearby allies for example.

The new legend might be going more into the core color scheme from what we’ve seen, maybe with a bit of dark blue on top.

Kind of outside the main topic, but I’d welcome an animation change for this skill.

It doesn’t convey the brutality theme of warrior at all and, especially on humanoidal races, looks more like ballet than a powerful warrior skill. It’s especially odd since nearly all other warrior animations reflect the theme well, it’s just Axe #5 that stands out.

As a bonus thing, either a stack of Stability or a small heal on hit when you strike enemy with more % HP than you would be welcome.

The concept of the tablet and managing it is fine and welcome as it’s different from generic shout support. It lacks polish and can be improved upon, but it’s enjoyable once you get used to it and I’d like it to stay.

Other means of support can be provided by other legends.

When running in a guild group, arc dps meter shows an average of 5,5-8k+ when group needs healing, occassionaly lower if there are many elementalists sniping (reducing max potential) of your healing or not much healing is needed – but that’s not fault of the build. It can briefly spike up to 10k+ in situations when you happen to get full potential out of your healing or in random groups where healers are not present. Raw throughput-wise, ventari revenant outclasses everything, but is harder to use properly and can’t heal people well if they all run in different directions.

I wouldn’t go overboard and replace all elementalists with revenants, as tempests have their unique things, but having one or two ventari revs who know how to play shouldn’t be underestimated.

The biggest enemy of healer ventari is not viability, but community perception after years of being a meme.

More overall damage and Revenant benefits from on swap sigils more than other classes, having access to the double swap.

Taobella.6597:

^ main reason people do not like tablet rev over ele is rev is a lot harder to be effective healer at.

But that being said overall number ele and rev have no different healing total or DPS i say there a slight edge to con removal on ele but it very small.

Healer Rev has better cleanse and resistance application than Ele. It basically covers the base role of Revenant in WvW group – applying resistance – while outhealing Ele if played correctly.

Death Perception provides better spike than Dhuumfire, given you play Carrion amulet. If you run non-power amulet or go against comps with little conditon cleanse you can opt for Dhuumfire.

As a side note – Dhuumfire should have the visuals updates for Reaper, just like it got for Death Shroud. The fel-green projectile Life Blast looks sick, yet there’s no green scythe for Reaper.

Dagger will likely see more play once again when we get more viable options outside of Reaper’s Shroud. Death Shroud synergizes better with it, any ranged or semi-ranged future Shroud will.

Cutting the cast time of Life Siphon is definitely the way to buff it, although the bonus heals and damage are welcome.

As someone mentioned, reduced cast time on Staff #4 would be a decent change. It’s just unecessary long for a rather mediocre healing (even with healing power) and some condi cleanse.

There are issues with Revenant, many weapon skills could use love because they’re either boring (Sword 2, Sword 3), don’t work (Sword 5) or can’t really fullfill their role (Staff 2 being an interrupt with longer total cast time than most skills it is to interrupt).

However, Revenant itself right now, in meta power build, is actually relatively balanced and it’s single biggest problem isn’t some skill or trait, but Thief being so dominant. If Thief stops being as oppressive to Revenant, you’ll see more of Revenant.

These two classes seem to really hate each other, since the dawn of HoT.

Impossible Odds is fine by itself, in my opinion. As is Protective Solace on Ventari, Inspiring Reinforcement on Jalis and Pain Absorption on Mallyx.

The problem with these Legend skills is that they won’t always be universally usable or great. We can try keep adding to them – Impossible Odds could, for example, increase your damage by generic 15% if affected by other source of Quickness already, but do we really want to? It just clogs the skills even more, trying to make them do something else than they were designed to be doing.

What I believe we still need is that one bonus Legend skill option per Legend we can switch to and adapt our utility better for the content we do. It’s been one of the most requested things ever since Revenant beta preview and continues to be so. It’s the most elegant solution. Sadly, I doubt it will happen anytime soon.

An alternative for Shiro would be upcoming traits update. Proper traits could make Shiro skills more suitable for PvE – be it adding weight to movement, unblockable skills or high upkeep costs – which Shiro is currently known for.

It has a hitbox of a Hanzo arrow, as long as target is in front of your character it shouldn’t miss. It now does really significant damage when you think about it so I don’t mind the “aiming” nature of the skill. And I can finally blast fields I want without sudden turns mid-cast.

The one improvement I could definitely suggest to ArenaNet is something I requested in the first place – making this skill a skillshot with a skillshot indicator. It should keep it’s generous hitbox, but skillshot aiming instead of aiming with character model would be more intuitive and practical.

Vitali.5039:

Rym.1469:

I’ve tested couple variations of it and Berserker runes with Smoldering/Geomancy look the best indeed.

The one missing thing from the qT guide is the fact that you can run second Axe/Mace on other weapon set with Hydromancy sigil on to proc double swap sigils for that extra bit of damage every 10 seconds.

On swap sigil didn’t proc only for the new set swapped?

Revenant, much like Necromancer, has access to double swap. Activating main profession mechanic (F1 Invoke here) triggers weapon swap sigils on your current weapon set, then you can swap weapons to trigger sigils on the other weapon set.

As long as the swap sigils are different, both will trigger. You simply do Invoke->weapon swap. Hydromancy is the second best sigil after Geomancy because in addition to solid direct damage it will also trigger Abyssal Chill trait and apply Torment.
I’ve seen people mentioning Doom sigil instead, but it’s single target and can easily get wasted by hitting random mob with jalis’ hammer for example. And it does no direct damage.

I’ve tested couple variations of it and Berserker runes with Smoldering/Geomancy look the best indeed.

The one missing thing from the qT guide is the fact that you can run second Axe/Mace on other weapon set with Hydromancy sigil on to proc double swap sigils for that extra bit of damage every 10 seconds.

If the condition copy could return, I’m sure it would come back to Mallyx because that would save a lot of work on re-designing traits, rebalancing legends and silence people who want old Mallyx back.

I think there are enough unexplored areas for Necromancer elite specializations (like anything with treating life force as a resource) that you can make a brand new mechanic.

Besides, having both condition copy and condition transfer would’ve been a bit of an overkill.

It can burst really hard with Torment, but is still hard countered a decent Necro or Thief. That’s said, you can certainly have some fun with it, especially if the counters are not present.

I don’t want to get into discussions on PI and it looks like the thread is going this way. I’m just pointing out that the sigil might be a bit over the top value.

This sigil is way ahead of power level of the other new sigils for Thief. The issue here is that it steals entire stacks of boons with full duration – headshot Revenant, steal 20+ might And apply PI? This power level of an effect should be reserved for traits, not sigils. Either remove it or make it “steal” fixed boons with amount and duration.

I really love the sheer flavour of the Axe changes. Amazing direction, strenghtening the theme of the “execution” weapon. Life Siphon & Dark Pact changes as well, great theme and adds some bonus gameplay to skill. Overall 10/10 job in here. It really looks like ArenaNet has some Dev in there who genuinely likes Necromancer and wants to establish what Necro and particular skills/weapons are about.

Epidemic, once it gets fixed, will be fine. It needed counterplay, it got a bit more counterplay. Better than “standarizing” it.

Other nerfs are understandable, maybe the Rise! cooldown increase is a bit harsh.

While I will miss Plague, Plaguelands are all right. Not a mindblowing Elite that would add some gameplay or thought, but at least Condition Necromancer has some DPS condition Elite now. Wouldn’t mind some more visual effects on it, as right now it is barely noticeable.

Trashing the idea of pulsing Stability is the hidden, yet massive, buff to Necromancers. Good to see it gone at last. If it makes our recently buffed widespread low-cooldown corruption tools too good, I won’t mind slight nerfs.

Changes to Shrouds might go a bit unnoticed, but are significant. 20% DR for Reaper is great. The Reveal on Tormented Shackles is a surprise, but better than nothing.

And after posting this to reddit, we got a try at buffing Corruption. Won’t say no to buffs, just point out few thoughts on new stuffs:

• The new Maniacal Persistence is a bit confusing. This is a trait made for the old Mallyx who could copy conditions baseline, but the old Mallyx is not with us anymore. And the only trait that has decent synergy with the new MP… is in the same trait tier, so you can’t have both. Quo vadis, Balance Team?

• On the other hand, this trait is pretty powerful in PvP and generally anywhere with enemies that move, giving Sword a lot of bonus value in Condition builds and allowing for huge Torment bursts in very short timeframes, upwards to 35+ Torment within 2s. If it’s not supposed to have supporting traits that make the negative effect (self-torment) into an advantage, is it the first ArenaNet’s attempt at traits with trade-offs? Interesting.

• Abyssal Chill – Can we please stop getting traits like this one? “When you apply X condition, apply Y condition”. These traits allows the condition perpetuum mobiles to exist, when by hitting with one non-significant ability players actually apply a lot of pressure and burst with dozens of various conditions. The trait itself is solid power-wise and surely does add some more gameplay to Condition Rev with Chill application, but I’m just not a big fan of this design.

Overall it’s good to see changes. Traits are a bit basic (apart from new Maniacal Persistence), but it’s a big progress from getting barely any updates for the past two years.

Thanks ANet – I just hope it’s not everything you have planned for Corruption and Mallyx.

This one is probably more down-to-earth than other suggestions of mine.

As for the blasting concerns, If my predictions are true the shortbow will have more focus on burning rather than torment. It’s really hard to speculate on the final playstyle and how it would flow with the rest of Revenant’s toolkit because we have no specific info besides predictions, name of the next Elite Specialization, Legend character and weapon type. I think that ideally Condition Revenant would use both Mace/Axe and Shortbow in rotation.

Yes, Defy Nature would be updated for every new Elite Specialization. Finding an opposite theme of new Legend and making it into a simple mechanic is certainly possible, even with minimal creativity. The tooltip already says it works with Legendary Dragon Stance (it just uses different Invocation icon rather than Glint icon because the tooltip builder was missing it).

Toxic Shock being a Blast Finisher is certainly an option. My concern here would be the frequency of Blast Finishers avalible from this trait. It would likely need an ICD which I’m not the biggest fan of, but could see it if proven to be required.

And thanks for kind words.

Now on to traits, in order:

• Rampant Vex – Adept Minor. Unchanged. Classic critical strike trait, almost every profession has one of these.

• Defy Nature – Adept Major. Replacing Replenishing Despair. This trait gives you a “corrupted” effect of every Legend on heal – the opposite of it’s core theme and gameplay. I thought it would be a fun idea and I think it turned out decent. Has strong potential in pretty much all builds, especially some hybrids. Legendary Demon’s heal is also a Blast Finisher, to fully synergize with further traits in line.

• Demonic Defiance – Adept Major. Changed. I took the idea of Boss characters resistance from Guild Wars 1 and mixed it with Mallyx’s theme. I think it would be very solid defensive trait and an amazing synergy with Pain Absorption.

• Spontaneus Destruction – Adept Major. Replacing Venom Enhancement. Strong trait for all game modes and competitor in the tier. An alternative to Defy Nature in some PvE encounters.

• Opportune Extraction – Master Minor. Changed. This trait now requires a boon to be present in order to trigger.

• Toxic Shock – Master Major. Replacing Bolstered Anguish. A playstyle-defining trait, one of the ones I’m the most proud of. Heavily affects the optimal way you use skills if picked and would often require you to change your rotation on the go. I’m not sure if it should be single or multiple target skill, so I left this bit out.

• Bonds of Torment – Master Major. Replacing Frigid Precision. Named after one of the skills used by bosses in Realm of Torment in Guild Wars 1. Powerful trait that makes thriving in melee range easier and works well with some other traits due to recharging boon removal on demand. Prioritizes player characters over anything else.

• Consume Torment – Master Major. Replacing Spontaneous Destruction. The crit trait for crit specialization, insane when working together with the new Spontaneus Destruction. Very similar to Decimate Defenses in Reaper Specialization, but because Torment is harder to come by than Vulnerability, increasing crit chance more per stack.

• Yearning Empowerment – Grandmaster Minor Changed. Similar traits on other professions are a bit strongers than just duration increase, so to go with the theme of the name, I added a bit of conditional Might.

• Diabolic Inferno – Grandmaster Major. Changed. Now it’s the core of the PvE Mace playstyle, working decently in other game modes as well. Idea behind this trait is to compensate for times when Torment works at half the potential and play into Revenant’s kit. Adds more thought and value into Blast Finishers.

• Bolstered Anguish – Grandmaster Major. Replacing Maniacal Persistence. This simple trait plays well into Mallyx’s tools, works great with Demonic Defiance and gives new life to two odd old traits that were leftovers of Beta Mallyx – Replenishing Despair and Bolstered Anguish.

• Demonic Possession – Grandmaster Major. Replacing Pulsating Pestilience. Final piece if you want to be the horror of builds that spam a lot of boons. Your boons are now my boons. All stolen boons would be normalized so no stealing 10 Stability stacks or 25 Might at once. Still extremaly useful. I was thinking about moving the Opportune Extraction recharge part of the Bonds of Torment trait to this trait, but left it there for now.

If I have time, there may be more Specialization/Legend/Weapon updates of the same quality.

You can find all tooltips in Attachments, together with quick visualization where the mentioned traits would be located.

All tooltips created thanks to that_shaman’s tooltip builder tool. I appreciate all feedback.

Thanks for reading,

Rym

Hello,

Because the next expansions release and balance pass draw near, I am releasing some of my final suggestions for Revenant updates as of now. They are focused on four aspects:

• Strengthening the theme,
• Reducing completly passive traits and procs to minimum,
• Providing interesting gameplay,
• No specific damage numbers. These can be fixed anytime.

Link to imgur album with all the Corruption updates: http://imgur.com/a/LTAId

This one is focused on Corruption specialization – likely one of the most important specializations, if the rumours are true and the next Elite Specialization will offer some support for Condition playstyle. Why does it need an update? Because it has:

• Outdated Traits - Many traits in Corruption were meant to work with the first version of Mallyx, which got removed for BWE3. Holding conditions on yourself for damage modifier, healing per condition but with added ICD are just examples. They are leftovers of the old systems that are no longer in place.

• Blatantly underpowered traits - Traits like Maniacal Persistence which sounded and were useless even before Specialization update and now nobody would ever think about touching them with a stick.

• Abundance of passive procs - Half of the traits are completly passive and don’t affect your gameplay. The procs are not even remotely controllable or fun.

• Mandatory traits - Demonic Defiance. That’s the single reason why PvP Mallyx builds would even go for that specialization. Situation looks similar in other tiers – there’s always a superior trait.

• No flavour - The traits are mundane and uninteresting. Rather than picking a trait that synergizes with your build you pick the one that’s the least terrible or even works at all, because others are bugged. Traits add nothing to the theme of playing condition Revenant besides edgy names and don’t make you feel any more powerful.

I won’t be going into Mallyx reworks, at least for now, just touch on few things before I move on to traits:

• Banish Enchantment -Currently it is a piercing beam in between caster and selected target. To get maximum effectiveness out of it, you have to target the furthest target in line. I would love this skill to fire a beam that pierces in line regardless of chosen target, because this removes the unncessessary target swapping and fighting UI.

• Resistance on Mallyx – I would like to see Demonic Defiance trait removed and Pain Absorption to be changed. Currently PA is problematic because in solo situations the Resistance uptime it provides is minimal and requires heavy boon duration investment while with allies around the Resistance uptime from this skill alone is too much. Find a middle ground for this skill. Possibly 4-5 seconds Resistance and bonus 0,25-0,5s Resistance per condition from ally? If Demonic Defiance (the must-have trait in tier) was removed as well, we could get some baseline Resistance on Legendary Demon’s heal and maybe on something else.

• Echoing Eruption – This skill, while great, faces some really annoying bugs when it randomly changes direction. Sometimes you would like to blast in other direction than target’s, too. To combat this, I strongly suggest this ability to be a skillshot.

• PvE Damage and Condition Revenant – The suggested traits reflect my view on this problem. To explain it in simple way, I believe the way the way to make Condition Revenant damage viable in current PvE where NPCs are mostly static is not to add PvE-specific (?) traits that make Torment work like Burning or Bleeding, but to focus on the dichotomy of Burning and Torment present in Revenant’s kit. If foe is moving, increased Torment damage compensates for the loss in Burning damage. If foe is not moving, increased Burning damage compensates for the loss in Torment damage. The way re-worked Diabolic Inferno trait works supports this vision while not affecting rotation. Core Mace kit brings us triple Blast Finisher on low cooldown and a combo field, giving synergy in here.

Lily.1935:

InsaneQR.7412:

Lily.1935:

InsaneQR.7412:

Best thing about the new E-Spec concept so far are the new F abbilities.
Looks like we get more options to pick boys.

I’m a bit curious about it because Kalla was a leader. So you think she might play into support once again a bit? Some of the Icons do suggest that.. Hmm. Although Condi support is never a bad thing.

Yeah and maybe the skills are varying depending on legends. This could give us more diversity. Maybe we could have some kind of range CC role and effects depending on the current legend using.

I’d like to see some method to regain energy other than through Legend swapping or passive regen. This is probably the biggest disconnect between GW1 and GW2 energy. Energy management was an active mechanic in GW1. GW2 with revenant its kind of passive. Which makes it less fulfilling imo.

I have to agree on this. Some spice added to Energy would be great – not “Energy on autoattack”, but some interesting way to temporarily store Energy or regain it would be welcome.

Buran.3796:

Rym.1469:

They would have some use in PvP, though.

Didn’t found a single Ventari Rev in PvP in my ~100 matches at Season 6; the build isn’t currently meta in PvP and that game mode is more than toasted, so that rune probably doesn’t have much use aside to balance the uneven leg of a table…

While Ventari Revenant isn’t really too viable in PvP as of right now, it doesn’t mean that the rune wouldn’t have a good synergy with the build, which is what I’m saying.

Whatever you rate this episode, I guess we can assume that the further story may move away a bit from dragons towards more gw1-centric characters. Which is a good thing.

Episode started out cringy and boring, but after landing on the new map it got better. I almost expected Primordus to give us Deathwing 2.0. I enjoyed gliding in the volcano, even though many textures in there were really low resolution. I get the melting effect, but not to that extent.

Konig basically said what there was to be said, just one small thing from me. ArenaNet really missed the opportunity for Charr NPC/PC to comment on never trusting gods and how human haven’t learnt it from Charr mistakes.

flow.6043:

Rym.1469:

I wouldn’t mind it dropping a tier or two, maybe even becoming a minor, but changing the 10% conversion rate into something more reliable and predictable. After that we could start thinking about making it heal through Shroud.

Again, tiers are irrelevant.

I am very aware of that – I talk about dropping tiers because that sort of trait could be more competitive in Adept.

Sure they are, but there’s really no place to use them. In organised PvE they have no use as of right now, in WvW your condition cleanse comes mostly from Pain Absorption and other members of the group.

They would have some use in PvP, though.

Parasitic Contagion is one of those traits that either do nothing or get out of hand in a matter of seconds, depending on scenario and your preffered game mode.

I wouldn’t mind it dropping a tier or two, maybe even becoming a minor, but changing the 10% conversion rate into something more reliable and predictable. After that we could start thinking about making it heal through Shroud.

The only problem with it is that the trait is not yet split between PvE and WvW. Split it, end of the problem.

Akeno.4962:

It’s a shame that, apart from micromanagement, Ventari’s Tablet has no mechanics whatsoever. The design choice of not tying weapons to legends to provide build diversity has resulted in no interaction between them, and Salvation only offers lackluster options: either tablet fragments that appear wherever (even if Ventari’s kiting builds use them) or an increase in healing output while changing legends, only worth when you change from whatever to Ventari since weapons don’t have many healing skills.

Even when they added alacrity to Ventari (that only benefits the healer himself because of making tablet skills spammable) they didn’t try to create a mechanic for it. Just spam Natural Harmony. And the effect is purple as if Ventari were some mesmer.

That’s precisely why I split my feedback in two parts – first adressing the most needed changes and second part, where I present my take on adding more mechanics, decision-making and trait interactions, akin to modern healers from other MMOs.

I think 300 is fine, from my personal experience. We still want to keep the tablet micromanagement aspect of Ventari, because moving it correctly isa big part of the gameplay. Once you get more familiar with Legend mechanics you can snipe heal quickly moving allies with delayed heal+Ventari’s Will. Most issues come from allies not noticing the kitten thing, rather than just small range.

Tablet being a separate entity to control sure comes with some downsides compared to more traditional “AoE around me” supports, but also a significant advantage – you don’t have to be where you want to heal. I’ve been playing quite a bit of organised WvW lately and it really matters. Additionaly, in combat Tablet moves much faster than any other support build so you can respond with heals in different areas miles better. Not to mention that on it’s own Ventari has the highest throughput by far out of all supports.

With better visibility and slightly bigger radius (and stunbreak) I believe Ventari would have much bigger success. It’s quite ridiculous what it can do even right now.

Reducing the cooldown by 15-20 seconds and removing Chill, Cripple and Immobilize on cast would make a solid update to Swalk. It’s been kinda left out, now even having longer cooldown than Sarmor.

narcx.3570:

Hardened Foundation has gotta go… Or at least get moved into retribution or made a major trait so you can not select it.

Part of the suggestion is removing it. I agree that it messes up toughness levels in PvE. While it’s not really an issue in PvP or WvW, that minor is not anything exciting nor influences your gameplay and I’m generally against design like that.

Rar sometimes streams on Twitch, sadly more Warrior than Rev because Warrior is far more idiot-team-proof

Check him out if you like: https://www.twitch.tv/rarnark

Ayrilana.1396:

Rym.1469:

Ayrilana.1396:

vicious.5683:

Ayrilana.1396:

Sun Lian.4075:

KrHome.1920:

Not a waste but balanced.

Deathly Chill in its current state (3 bleeds for 5 to 10 seconds) should also have an ICD of at least 2 seconds.

Why?

Because Necro has so many skills and utilities that apply chills which allow them to stack up a large number of stacks. It’s even more of an issue for those skills and utilities which pulse. PvE also has an issue with an ice environmental weapon which has an auto attack that allows you to get and maintain about 40 stacks of bleed.

Adding an internal cooldown would bring the trait back into balance while still allow chills to add bleed stacks.

I don’t think it’s unbalanced, maybe underpowered. Necros are still behind any other profession in the dps department.

Underpowered? You just haven’t seen it in action yet.

I will guess that you are talking from WvW perspective, while the rest talks either from PvP or PvE one.

Yes, Deathly Chill in WvW is overpowered because, as with many skills, traits and effects, WvW shares balance with PvE where DChill was recently buffed. The solution to this problem is splitting Deathly Chill balance from PvE in the same way they did split Epidemic, not internal cooldowns.

I’m talking about both WvW and PvE (not dungeons, fractals, raids). That just creates more work when a 2 sec ICD should be adequate ir they can just bring it back to a single bleed stack.

But why would they do that if the solution is the WvW split and if you mean the PvE open world environmental gun shenanigans, nerfing said gun?

It just creates more work for balancing to split yet another trait/skill based on game mode -you say it, yet in previous post you include this: I’m talking about both WvW and PvE (not dungeons, fractals, raids). What I’m reading here is suggestion to split Open World PvE form instanced PvE and add another layer of balance split and that contradicts your next point.

ArenaNet buffed Deathly Chill for PvE deliberately so Necromancer can compete in raiding scene and it ended up as a success, why would they want to make the profession non-competitive again by reverting changes or putting ICDs? Out of spite?

You’re making a huge workarounds while the solutions are extremaly simple and likely already in works.

Ayrilana.1396:

vicious.5683:

Ayrilana.1396:

Sun Lian.4075:

KrHome.1920:

Not a waste but balanced.

Deathly Chill in its current state (3 bleeds for 5 to 10 seconds) should also have an ICD of at least 2 seconds.

Why?

Because Necro has so many skills and utilities that apply chills which allow them to stack up a large number of stacks. It’s even more of an issue for those skills and utilities which pulse. PvE also has an issue with an ice environmental weapon which has an auto attack that allows you to get and maintain about 40 stacks of bleed.

Adding an internal cooldown would bring the trait back into balance while still allow chills to add bleed stacks.

I don’t think it’s unbalanced, maybe underpowered. Necros are still behind any other profession in the dps department.

Underpowered? You just haven’t seen it in action yet.

I will guess that you are talking from WvW perspective, while the rest talks either from PvP or PvE one.

Yes, Deathly Chill in WvW is overpowered because, as with many skills, traits and effects, WvW shares balance with PvE where DChill was recently buffed. The solution to this problem is splitting Deathly Chill balance from PvE in the same way they did split Epidemic, not internal cooldowns.

People keep on whining about it, but design concepts aside I really don’t see how removing energy cost from weapons would help. It wouldn’t change PvE gameplay a tiny bit, it would be minor for WvW and in PvP likely result in another attempt at nerfing Shiro’s evade… and basically that’s it.

It really seems like a lot of people in here and on reddit stick to that old idea like a drowning man will clutch at a straw and won’t let it go. Revenant wouldn’t be fixed by it, not a one tiny bit.

The approach of handing out a lot of unique modifiers was already proven to fail in old World of Warcraft days and ultimately leads to either erasing them altogether or making them so bland and common that every second class brings them.

A lot of the unique modifiers were initially implemented to compensate for lack of pure damage or out of pure fear that the new thing won’t be brought to the new content (Druid and change to Grace of the Land), back when skills were not split in between game modes. Now, with shift in this approach I believe that we could tone down on them.

As for healing, I think that ArenaNet should definitely introduce more sustained pressure on players to make healer role more desireable and there is a phleora of yet unused mechanics that could easily make it happen in natural way – damage split mechanic, for example.

This discussion aside, I’d love to hear a feedback on my suggested changes.