Guild Wars 2

I forgot to mention, the first time you see Matthias there is a huge bloodstone shard hanging in the centre of the arena and it shatters once you start fighting him. I don’t have any screenshot of that yet, sadly.

Wethospu.6437:

I have never raided but this clearly proves what a joke raiding is in this game. At least in WoW it takes months to beat raids even for top guilds. Even then I don’t understand why anyone would take pride in raids. Anyone can beat the scripted static content with enough practice. Give me truly hard content with dynamic and opponents with brains and you got me interested.

What you want is PvP then.

The raid team as well as artists and writers did an amazing job with new raid wing, truly. Superb zones, a lot of self-responsibility, more mechanics every profession can help with and very different encounters with much more focus on paying attention to what’s going on screen rather than mashing best DPS rotations.

Couple thoughts we had:

• Last phase of Matthias fight could still have the Sacrafice mechanic and ghosts could have reduced damage/do something else to make it more dire. The last phase seemed to be easier than the 2nd phase with Water (making choices if we want to risk wipe or to break sacraficed member)

• We had mixed feelings about 2nd encounter. Idea for it is amazing and it is hard without bees, wargs etc., but some people said it didn’t really feel like boss fight, although it’s matter of preference.

• Sloth seems to be the deadliest boss of the wing Could be because of slightly RNG nature that can punish you hard sometimes and weird camera work.

Hey,

I made an album containing all lore bits I’ve managed to find so far after clearing the raid. There might be some stuff left, but I think it’s vast majority and the most important stuff. I guess there are peope on this forum who would like to examine this stuff more closely, but haven’t had time to explore the zone or beat all bosses yet. Message me if you have any request or want open instance on EU.

http://imgur.com/a/shHEk

Couple notes:

• Raid Wing 2 Ending Cinematic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIW_oH49P1M

• It seems like some Professions and Races have unique interactions with some of the stuff you find (Necromancers studying dead bodies, Warriors examining wounds and Asuras doing the same to their gateways). There may be more interactions than mentioned, either in first 2 wings or next ones

• There are blue ghosts appearing in couple places (you can see some of them in the album) that dissapear once you get close to them. You cannot interact with them.

• Zone has ~3 chests you can find by exploring after defeating bosses, vista and a mastery point.

• Before clearing the wing you may experience strange weather effects appearing suddenly out of nowhere (Snowstorms, rain) which ties to powers of Matthias used in the encounter.

• Matthias in his “enraged” form (last phase of the fight, when he transforms into Bloodstone Abomination) uses Risen Abomination’s animations for the most part, but also has some unique ones.

• Matthias manipulates weather effects (Lightning, Fire, Water) and has many Bloodstone-themed abilities.

• There are certain “environmental” side-objectives you can take advantage of during the second encounter i.e. release bees or wargs on bosses or cover them with oil. You can read about them in journals in the camp near Prisoner’s Camp.

• I wasn’t able to capture the Asura interaction screenshot as I don’t have any Asura character, but the gateway leads to Fort Vandal.

• Matthias’ Staff is probably single best Staff skin in game.

Timers are extremaly generous, especially on last boss. There’s big focus on getting the mechanics right, surviving and awarness instead of DPS race.

It’s 100% possible to kill Matthius and maybe Sloth in enrage, too.

Had a lot of fun during Matthias fight. Best raid encounter so far imo

Take a look at your status bar (above skillbar) from time to time, you should have enough time to escape if you notice the Poison icon.

Maybe you have reached your wall for now and to progress further you have to improve a bit?

It’s potential is reliant on number of targets you hit with it. General rule of the thumb – most utilities in PvP have to be always good and flexible and that Shout heal isn’t.

On the other hand, Condi Shatter Mesmer can hardly do anything against Condition Revenant. Reaper with traited Suffer! is also tough matchup.

Let Mesmers have one working build, would be my opinion.

Sword auto doesn’t need any buffs, it’s still miles better than most AAs in the game (maybe falling behind Thief ones now).

Revenant could use fixes when it comes to Ventari, Jalis and that long-overdue Mallyx rework, but Sword apart from #2 projectile behaviour is fine, quite OP in 1v1s in fact.

It’s fine. You still have to land full AA chain to get that 1 corrupt. May sound incredible in theory and on paper, but is hardly a big factor in practice. Unless you get to stand somewhere and freecast autoattack for dozen of seconds, but who would let you do that.

Hey all,

So with current huge Reddit post and all Devs responding, I decided to get more official response and confirmation on question if Revenant (and possibly other professions) still has some dedicated Devs (Roy in our case) and got the answer from Roy.

Nothing to dramatize about, as I knew it before and I believe there are some good updates incoming (hope, at least), but I will leave link to it here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/48zlyd/im_mike_obrien_here_with_gw2_dev_team_ama/d0nwkjr

Yup, a bit after the launch of HoT I transitioned teams to be team lead on creatures, working on expansion 2. You are in good hands with /u/Anet_KarlMcLain and the rest of the skills and balance team. I’m still involved with that team though and provide lots of advice and feedback,

Pretty much like a Thief (+1, but less about decapping), but you have fair chances in most 1v1s.

Multiple Reapers are pretty easy to deal with. In fact, one Mallyx Rev using Pain Absorption correctly with all bonus boon duration can carry teamfights vs. bunch of Reapers on his own.

AivenPrimus.9184:

What’s with this ‘’Reve top tier, blah blah’’ thing?

Am I playing different game?

These few days of playtime, I have at best seen 2-4 Reves in Rankeds,
I have hardly ever had a problem to play against them,

Even when I myself play Reve, I never believed that they are ’’That’’ good as other people seem to say…

People watched Pro League S1 Finals where extremaly coordinated top teams with good players were using Revenants and assumed it will work for them solo queueing, too.

And then you have Revenants who can’t do anything besides Sword 3.

Deathly Chill should work just like Unstable Affliction - not greatest damage (I would say ~ 250-300 damage with Mercenary’s+Nightmare setup), but bringing punishment in form of spike damage whenever conditions are cleansed from target.

It would have to be different for PvE or just straight damage like right now, but I would gladly see something like this in PvP. Not easy-kill condition, but condition allowing Necromancer to stack his primary conditions and punishing target for constant cleansing.

Tooltip gives you total healing from Regeneration over duration applied by skill, not per tick.

So if skill giving you 3 seconds of Regeneration with no healing power heals for 390 on tooltip, it means that boon will heal you for 130 every second for 3 seconds.

Berserker amulet means you don’t really want to sit in teamfights or any fair fights. If enemy team doesn’t have Thieves, you can run Hammer instead of Staff. WvW Nerfs to this weapon hurt it a bit, but if you get to freecast even for couple seconds you can absolutely melt anything that isn’t Scrapper or Cleric’s Tempest.

I also use Invocation instead of Devastation/Retribution every time I run Berserker amulet. Higher crit chance gives better value out of Ferocity.

It’s semi-viable in PvP after removal of Celestial amulet and couple other nerfs.

PvE side, it would be the way if condition Revenant worked there.

Facet of Nature is being hardly, if ever, used as 50% boon duration upkeep in popular PvP builds in general. Most Revenants instantly end the upkeep to just get boons from One with Nature.

Few builds that actually upkeep FoN in some situations are not really viable, nor popular.

If anything, upkeeping that 50% boon duration should be more vital part of Herald’s playstyle. Nerfing it is direct opposite of this idea and idea of Facets.

And F2 is basically the thing that keeps current Revenant in raid groups.

Since Energy sigil is now meh, you can run Intelligence+Geomancy on Staff and proc on-crit effects with ease and with even some control over them.

Precision in HoT just isn’t the best stat overall.

Swagger.1459:

Malchior.5732:

Why is everything that requires any amount of skill so heavily frowned upon by such a large margin of the community?
No one’s forcing you to run them if you feel they’re too difficult and their rewards are rightfully exclusive to encourage players to get better and go on the raids and even then we’re still getting people that buy their way through it.

HoT is too hard? Well the only option is to literally L2P. Games should increase in difficulty as you get further, not remain the same and allow sloppy play in the highest levels. If you’re in HoT or any future expansion/raid, you should be expected to know how to play your class well.

If you just want a casual game to play, then you still can do that, but you can’t expect to just brainlessly go through it; you’re going to need to actually try.

Sure, raids take skill, but it’s sad to see these “exclusive” rewards are given for memorizing scripted AI and beating them.

Some of the most competent and knowledgable players I’ve gamed with over the years have participated in pvp areas of games. There were (few are still here) tons of amazing gw2 wvw and spvp players, but sadly there were/are zero “exclusive” rewards for these pro wvw players and a “meh” “exclusive” item in spvp. Sad.

What are leagues then? Badge next to the name is exclusive to PvP, as are the Legendary division titles.

spoj.9672:

Then they should consider giving it damage that scales on power. It could have split scaling. Or it could have a separate direct damage component. Or it could just scale on power instead of condi damage.

Whether that really was their intention or not. The nerf is inconsequential and makes no sense. We should be getting buffs in areas we suffer not silly nerfs which dont make any real difference to the gamemode the nerf was obviously directed at.

Wouldn’t make much a difference. Everyone runs Mercenary’s anyway which has equal power and condition damage. That would only shorten the list of viable PvP builds. Wouldn’t help Power Reaper, because it’s inferior in many other ways. In PvE, I guess you would still use Reaper’s Onslaught.

Crimson Shi.5047:

Brokensunday.4098:

spoj.9672:

Then they should consider giving it damage that scales on power. It could have split scaling. Or it could have a separate direct damage component. Or it could just scale on power instead of condi damage.

Whether that really was their intention or not. The nerf is inconsequential and makes no sense. We should be getting buffs in areas we suffer not silly nerfs which dont make any real difference to the gamemode the nerf was obviously directed at.

conditon scaling on power lol then you will se all power necro with free 1.2k chill damage ticks

Yea cause it’s chill that’s killing everyone, not the 10 stacks of poison, the 12 stacks of bleed, the occasional 4 stacks of burn, and those insignificant 1.2k terror ticks.

Yes, it’s mostly Chill in PvP. Check your logs.

Also, if someone runs Terror he either plays build you don’t find on metabattle (which is very rare and I can name such Necromancers) or is handicapping himself. Or both.

Henry.5713:

Pretty obvious:

1st Boss: Sid
2nd Boss: Diego
3rd Boss: Manni

Jon Snow!

oh snap…

It is still good, either Viper’s or Mercenary’s. With recent change you can opt for Soothing Bastion over Bulwark if you face many Reapers and use your Shield skills to further increase duration of Resistance, dropping or not Runes of Leadership.

Boon corruption from Necromancers is now more predictable because more and more drop Spite with insta-corrupt Signets and CtD boonrip procs in favour of Corrupt Boon you can avoid with correct timing. It’s dangerous and every 10s, but at least you won’t suddenly get rekt by proc.

Revenants, at least currently, share the spot in teams with Thieves, maybe new condi shatter Mes and are better than them because of better burst resistance and easier damage dealing when supported.

Problem with nerfs here is, while Thief can always be used as decapper and Mesmer for utility, if you nerf Revenant too much (and that’s Balance Team’s style in general), it would be left just with…nothing. There are no alternative, meta-competitive builds (condition M/S has the same role as Power G/S and rely on Riposting Shadows being over the top) or unique utility Revenant can bring. And looking at amazing ratio of fixing many Revenant’s issues per balance patch, it doesn’t look like there will be this year or expansion.

You should probably ask this question on Guardian forums. Most people here could tell you general things about Power Revenant, but you will get better, more specific advice from other Dragonhunters.

dominik.9721:

You can’t compare traits with an utility-slot.

I care more about the unique downstate teleport mechanic than about SnR being powerful utility. I wouldn’t mind it instantly recovering 50% downstate health of chosen target even, I just don’t like the fact that something that was supposed to be unique support ability is given to other professions.

Besides, giving up one Specialization for GM trait and timing RS#4 instead of using it for damage only is comparable in my eyes to one utility slot.

I don’t like this skill, because it’s a direct upgrade of Transfusion Blood Magic GM trait of Necromancer, which was supposed to be something unique. Better range, doesn’t require trait investment, pet rezzes, shorter cooldown. It just further blends everything together and removes the unique reasons why would you bring one profession over another.

Give Ranger something equally powerful, but unique to Ranger.

Terrorsquad.4802:

I have to say that letting the skill going through some walls/edges is quite overboard and OP. Mostly happens at Legacy where the downed gets “pulled” through the ledges on both sidepoints.

I’m ok with the teleport.
I’m not ok when it’s going through stuff.

This mechanic has been avalible since Specialization patch.

They are afraid of nerfing it because Bleeding and Poison Condition Necromancer applies don’t do enough burst damage. Deathly Chill and Terror are only two DoTs that don’t require ramp-up time (could maybe include Dhuumfire in here) and Terror is just bad, especially with Reaper and has traits all over the place. Most of your condition damage comes from Chill, because you can re-apply it at full strength without poking somebody with Scepter for 10 seconds just to get bleeds going. It’s absolutely not healthy for the game, but the game has evolved, there are more cleanses, better power damage and general powercreep, so to stay competitive, you just can’t play fair. Arena Net’s decisions.

I said it when Reaper was revealed, before that and I will say it again – Deathly Chill should punish chilled foes for cleansing conditions, same like Unstable Affliction/Vampiric Touch in WoW does.

This has improved my Reaper skill tremendously.

Wasn’t so bad. Soothing Bastion bugfix is looong overdue, but awesome.

Malchior.5732:

Also, who decided 20% is the amount of LF a Necro should start with? I’m genuinely curious.

20-23% Life Force is unspoken rule of PvP duelling and is considered as fair. Not sure how that would apply to actual matches, but I guess people got used to that number equal to 2 minions sacraficed. 20% is enough to absorb first hit/hits and enter Shroud at start, just not enough to stay in it for more than couple seconds.

Many Revenant traits (and legends) were made and balanced for Pre-Specialization patch with less power-creep in mind. Diabolic Inferno has received small buff with HoT release, but it’s one of these traits, although rather powerful because it goes through evades.

Because Toughness+Vitality that scales with Life Force. Also, the gain from Precision is minor and you can trigger the “on crit” effect with either Spite Vuln+Decimate Defenses or Curses Target the Weak+Fury.

Condition builds in GW2 PvP are not about DoTs providing sustained damage over long periods of time you find in many other games. Pretty much every single one Condition build up to date has been about overloading target with 9999 conditions and bursting it down within seconds. Condition Duration really doesn’t make that much difference if you kill target within 10s.

kreven.6017:

meta is the stab trait

No it isn’t. It was okay trait pre-spec patch, but either other options outclass it now by a mile. It’s one of Shroud dancing traits that aren’t too amazing untill new E-spec supporting them shows up.

Minor heal helps and Shield #5 fits better in cooldown rotation.

Burtnik.5218:

Rym.1469:

Just nerf Riposting Shadows to restore 30 endurance (not whole dodge like right now, lol) and Revenant is more than back in line. I’ve been saying it since Pro League qualifiers. Think, why Shiro has been used in pretty much every popular Revenant PvP build and is considered to be pretty defensive? That’s right, it has only reliable stunbreak that also happens to give full dodge.

Oh and give us stunbreaks on other Legends than Shiro and Glint. Would help.

You have no idea how badly it would hurt rev when they were carried by ele heals actually. Based on that i guess daredevil should be the most op thing in game..

What’s the point of Daredevil if Shiro with one skill has basically equal amount of dodges they have?

No, Power Revenant would still be fine with Riposting Shadows recovering less than a full dodge, with amount of damage it does now. It would still be one of the best stunbreaks in the game and recover endurance, just not carry bad players anymore. Just take a look how many Revenants use dodge instantly after it or get away with double dodging just because they can recover it fully a while after.

It also causes the imbalance in “on-dodge” traits. While old 2 stab on dodge was bearable against non-Shiro Revenant (because almost no extra endurance regeneration), it was broken for Shiro Revenants.

Just nerf Riposting Shadows to restore 30 endurance (not whole dodge like right now, lol) and Revenant is more than back in line. I’ve been saying it since Pro League qualifiers. Think, why Shiro has been used in pretty much every popular Revenant PvP build and is considered to be pretty defensive? That’s right, it has only reliable stunbreak that also happens to give full dodge.

Oh and give us stunbreaks on other Legends than Shiro and Glint. Would help.

Fivedawgs.4267:

Of course, let’s make revs jack of all trade. Oh I am sorry, I forgot revs weren’t supposed to have any weakness. How silly of me, OP you are totally right. It’s about time for revs to go back on GODLY GOD tier.

PJSalt

I would like to keep Retaliation. Doesn’t have to be on heal, though. First good change about Soothing Stone would be making it cleanse conditions before heal, not after like now.

In general:

1. Fear classified no longer as Condition, but hard CC. Improved Fear durations.

2. Wail of Doom (Warhorn Daze) made into Fear after change above.

3. Axe rework

4. Fixing Death Magic to provide better self-survival without minions (minors especially)

5. Deleting Unholy Martyr and giving Blood Magic Grandmaster for self-survival or giving Necromancer Quickness.

6. Parasitic Contagion down to 5-7%, working in Shroud, as Curses Minor.

Now, further part could be solved by either Core Necro changes or next Elite Specialization:

7. Reducing the need for Staff (transfer, range and easy LF generation with Soul Marks).

8. Improving Soul Marks alternatives in adept SR as consequence of change above.

9. Greatly reducing the need of Vital Persistence.

Blood is Yolo
Apply 50 stacks of Bleeding to the foe and kill yourself.

Brokensunday.4098:

just reduce the chanel ( cast time of shippon) and is all good

Indeed.

As I said, it’s not necessary, I would just want to see more theme and “feeling” added to the weapons instead of autoattacking and introducing some fun synergies between skills. I generally enjoy such things on weapons (if you have ever seen any similar threads for me it occurs in every single one), “soft rotations” kinda.

Some people will say it’s still not a competitive system, but it’s fine for me. Because this system wasn’t meant to be competitive, it was meant to give players sense of progression and goals to reach and does it very well.

As for the changes, they look decent. We will see how they work in practice. I have also noticed there will be “Some minor balance tweaks will be coming for the start of the new season” and I’m looking foward to these. My predictions would be:

17% Nerf to Deathly Chill (because Anet has 1/6 fetish) or nerf to Chillblains aimed at reducing Chill from this skill by either less Chill or longer cooldown. Maybe compensated with slightly more Poison.

Bristleback bugfix (no free 25% more damage anymore).

Lowering the access to Stability on Scrapper line? Maybe?

Another minor buff to Warrior that will change nothing.

Tweaks to Precision Strike so it doesn’t do as much damage, but with slightly better projectile behaviour (hitting downed, maybe not flying to walls) and some extra like Vulnerability?

After Helseth said he found another Bunker Mesmer build I wouldn’t expect much for Mesmer.

Buff to Shatterstone for Ele Scepter. Here, I called it.

It would still heal for the same or even greater amount. Shorter cast time means more HP/S and further reducing cooldown even improves it’s healing by quite a lot I assume. It’s just that each tick could probably heal 40-50 less to balance out rapid access if played correctly.

I think Axe could be reworked to be medium-ranged AoE Power weapon. While Dagger is single target, this would be AoE and neither would step on toes.

Hey,

I was playing with Dagger recently and got couple ideas for it. This is by no means necessary, as it’s fine weapon, but I thought it could be pushed more into using Life Siphon instead of just auto-attacking for damage.

I haven’t really bothered to tweak the numbers , but I will quickly explain the main idea:

Autoattack – Slightly lowered damage, last hit recharges Life Siphon’s cooldown by small amount.

Life Siphon – 1 more tick, reduced cast time. Should be visible DPS increase. If all pulses hit, access to Blood Renewal is granted, similary to how Fist Flurry works. The healing per tick could be lowered a bit to keep it at bay.

Blood Renewal – Long Bleeding for targeted foe, making traits like Blood Bond more accessible for Power Necromancer. Heals allies around Necromancer. Necromancer gets short Quickness mainly used to speed up the auto-attack chain and recharge Life Siphon quicker. I’m not sure if “heal allies” part is needed, but since we don’t have any support weapon, why not.

Dark Pact – As usual + Enemy hit by this attack is temporarily “marked” for your next Life Siphon. If he remains within 600 radius, next use of your Life Siphon will also strike him for 50% of effect. You can use Life Siphon on other enemy or the marked one for 150% effect essentialy.

As for dagger traits, I would modify Quickening Thirst a bit.

Quickening Thirst
Increases movement speed for while wielding a dagger. Bleeding your foe removes Cripple and applies Regeneration(5s) to allies (10s ICD).

Just my small set of ideas how to make Dagger less on an auto-attack spam and give it better theme. Feel free to criticize.

Yes, you can. A lot depends on RNG and pure luck though.