Guild Wars 2

Pumpkin.5169:

preacher.9370:

I was actually asked to run a staff on an AC run for skill 5. I don’t mind using it from time to time in PVE just for something different, but honestly my main dislike for staff is the boring animations for it. I unlocked daredevil and really never touched theif after that until yesterday, and was really liking the animations for their staff, wish rev’s could get an overhaul.

Really? Are you playig different races? Because I really like the animations from staff on humans. At least the auto, 3 and 5.

And on topic, I really like staff. Of course, I would love if the autos hit for more, but it is a great weapon in PvE, PvP and WvW. Being defensive/suportive is quite good sometimes.

I initially thought the staff auto should hit harder, but then I did the calculation. Without traits, the staff auto is only about 8% less than the sword auto. Given that the staff is supposed to be a defensive or support-oriented weapon, I think this is fine.

That difference gets bigger when you run Devastation trait line, since sword can get a 10% damage bonus, and will trigger life siphoning more often since it will maintain perma-vulnerability on targets. As a result I have found that it is best to use sword as main weapon if you are using the Devastation line, but if you’re not staff is decent.

So I think the Staff does not really need more auto-attack damage. I think #2 needs to be revised (e.g. faster cast on the first swing, and lower energy cost on the second). #5 could also use a shorter cooldown, and #4 is still really slow and clunky to use.

I also found this to be an intense fight, but I was able to accomplish it on my first try and get all achieves (shield > 50%, never downed) using melee (Rev, not Thief). However, this brings up something that I think is very important:

Personal story needs difficulty settings. I (and perhaps others) would welcome some sliders to crank this fight up to even more insane levels (e.g. maybe the bombs no longer insta-kill enemies or drop the boss’s shield). Others who may be newer to the game or to videogames in general might have trouble finishing it at all, but they should get to see the story too.

Single player games often have difficulty settings for this very reason, and I think the personal story instance of GW2 could benefit here as well.

Anyways, to answer the OPs troubles, I recommend the following:
-wait to throw the bombs until you can knock out multiple opponents. There may be too many to kill at a reasonable pace otherwise.
-Try equipping skills or traits which give you sustain. Invigorating Precision on Thief might be very helpful here (if running power build, though I guess with DD you’re probably running condi)

Thanks for putting these together!

I really enjoyed the Taimi’s Game simulator BGM – however, in-game this track also has a different variation while you are fighting the monkey.

I also liked the instanced story quests (first and last quest). Really good music in the first one. However they lack replayability. I found them reasonably challenging but I got all the achievements for them on the first playthrough, so no need for me to play them again.

I remember some old LS quests in Dry Top, I think, had challenge motes to make the quest harder and unlock new achievements. I wonder why ANET doesn’t do this anymore? The two instanced story quests in LS3EO2 would have been the perfect place for it.

As long as you have HoT, you can play Revenant with a new account – no other characters needed.

Thanks for your responses everyone.

Justine.6351:

You are not really asking for solo content, you are asking for more rewards for doing content solo. There is no solo content that can be made that won’t simply be trivialized by repetition. You should try solo roaming in wvw if you want repeatable solo content that will challenge you by ever changing encounters.

Not quite…while I do think that content should be appropriately rewarding, I was trying to state that solo challenges don’t really exist in this game. Yes, we can solo dungeons or Fractals or champs, but since they aren’t really designed for it. This often means, for example, that a monster has HP scaled for 5 attackers and takes a long time to kill for a single player. While this certainly is challenging, it’s not necessarily fun.

I do participate in WvW frequently, and especially roaming, and I agree that it is challenging and enjoyable. I am simply proposing that that similar challenges be developed for PvE against AI opponents.

Healix.5819:

The problem with challenging solo content is that you either can or can’t. That’s why group content is always the “challenging” content, because it’s not balanced to challenge each individual, it’s balanced for the group as a whole, allowing for others to pick up the slack and making it easier to tune. So what you end up with is a hybrid of solo content that allows groups, however doing so essentially allows groups to trivialize the content, much like the living world achievements. Including the group size in the achievement would fix that however.

All content should scale, or at the very least, the rewards should. The problem with doing that however is the risk that good players will choose to scale down, while the bad players are stuck together. Although soloing would be more challenging, a group needs to be more rewarding as an incentive.

These are all fair points, and I do agree with them, though I don’t think these points are mutually exclusive with challenging solo content. As example ideas, I chose to propose content that could be done either solo or as a group (not forcing you to play it solo). E.g. challenge modes to personal story which are harder than normal, however the full story can still be completed as normal. And, of course, you can still do personal story in a party. Or Fractals which scale with the number of players so they could be solo’ed. So even if a player can’t finish the Fractal alone, they can still do the content in a group (or in a team of two if that’s how they like it, for example).

I do also agree that most content should be more rewarding in a group, though I think the difference should be fairly small.

I wanted to talk about ideas for content in GW2 that is challenging and friendly for solo play.

Before we get into this, let’s try to avoid responses like "MMO = ‘multiplayer’. I play plenty of WvW and PvP, and some group PvE. I am not advocating that all content be soloable just as I would not advocate that all content require cooperation from other players. At this time, I would argue that most of the soloable content is relatively simple and easy, like map completion and gathering. Some dungeons and Fractals can be soloed, but they are not designed for this, and consequently I would argue they are not typically rewarding or very fun to solo. GW2 would benefit from more challenging content which is amenable to solo play. So I want to ask: are others interested in challenging solo content? And if so, what form do you think it should take? I want to present this discussion now since, with an expansion in the works, such content could be added if it is sufficiently appealing to players.

I will present two ideas of mine briefly:

1) Fractals scale with the size of the party – all the way from 1 to 5 players. This means any fractal should be made solo-able, duo-able, etc. I have played GW2 since launch but didn’t try my first Fractal until a few days ago. I did the scale 1 Urban Battleground solo, and it was awesome. The final battle against Captain Ashym was an epic duel that just became a 5v1 gang beatdown when I did the Fractal later in a party. Of course, even high scale Fractals can be solo’ed, but they generally aren’t designed to be. Scaling the Fractal to the party size may mean for example, that Fractals would either have to adjust mechanics if the number of players change in the middle of the Fractal, or NPC support (e.g. GW1 henchmen) can be hired on-the-fly- to replace players that leave group.

2) Personal Story challenges – there are some personal story and instanced living story quests which have difficult achievements and even challenge motes to increase the difficulty of the quest. However, few quests have these challenge motes, and often the achievement rewards are lackluster This system could be extended to make all relevant instanced quests optionally challenging (e.g. Challenge Motes on all quests), with the potential for increased rewards.

But what does everyone else think? Do you want more challenging content? Do you want challenging content that must be played with 5 players? 10? A zerg? Solo? All of the above?

Fortunately out-gearing one’s opponent in WvW and PvP in Guild Wars is pretty minimal. For PvP there is no gear – everyone is on equal ground. For WvW, gear does matter, but it is very easy to get exotic (orange) gear with gold, dungeon tokens, WvW badges of honor, karma, or other currencies, which will give you a very, very good start.

Jack Skywalker.5674:

fluidmonolith.3584:

Jack Skywalker.5674:

If we didn’t have legend swaping and Ventari as base I think the stuff for Malyx and Jallis would be doable.

Thank you for your feedback. If I interpret correctly, you think the changes could be useful for Mallyx and Jalis but not as much for Ventari and Shiro, is that correct?

No….I just meant that your suggestions for the extra utilities on Malyx and Jallis fit the legends better than your suggestions for Ventari and Shiro.

Aegis and Shiro simply don’t mix at all in my eyes and regardless of how much I want a stun break on Ventari I feel it will never happen because Ventari is designed to be vulnerable to cc.

As for the concept of having more choices for utilities as a whole…..it’s something I would like to see.

Ah, I understand. I certainly agree that Shiro’s extra utilities could be improved, but I’m not sure where to go with them. Regarding Ventari being necessarily vulnerable to CC … is that true? In order to take the stun break, a user would either need to give up the condi removal, the projectile wall, or the spammable-ish heal. In a support-oriented build, giving up any of these can be a significant cost. Further, the stun break only works in the area of the tablet (like all other Ventari utilities) so it’s still a little time-consuming to use. If you’re not standing on the tablet, you’ll need to move it to yourself before you can break stuns on yourself, leaving you more vulnerable than with other stun breaks.

Burtnik.5218:

They wont add more utility skills. They cant even fix the bugs, mistakes o their kitten desing decisions and you want them to add new skills. Gl hf

Each legend should have 5 utility skills like engi (per category) but meh..

I agree that ANet may have their hands full with the next expansion if they’re releasing a new profession. In this case, they may not significantly revise Revenant. And if they’re not releasing a new profession, players may be disappointed.

Nonetheless, I think it’s important to point out problems with Rev, even if they likely won’t be addressed.

Jack Skywalker.5674:

If we didn’t have legend swaping and Ventari as base I think the stuff for Malyx and Jallis would be doable.

Thank you for your feedback. If I interpret correctly, you think the changes could be useful for Mallyx and Jalis but not as much for Ventari and Shiro, is that correct?

Why do you think more skills may not be useful for Ventari or Shiro? IMO, Ventari skills are very focused on group support at the expense of personal support, leaving the user very vulnerable. They are also only useful in a build with lots of healing power. The changes here are intended to give it more versatility and thus make it functional in a greater variety of builds.

You also mentioned that these changes may not be necessary since we can swap legends. Do you think that having a stun break on each legend is unnecessary?

I think Shiro already has a pretty solid package so I had a bit more trouble coming up with new skills to add here. I decided to go with more skills that focused on multi-target damage rather than single-target, but I am not completely convinced yet that this is the best way to add more skills for Shiro. Please let me know if anyone has some alternative suggestions here.

epouvante.7392:

fluidmonolith.3584

First thanks to answer, it’s nice to have other visions. To goal is to propose balance ideas and not op ones.
Concerning the hammer trait, i agree, i don’t switch to hammer when i want to have more defensive tool but i think is cool to give to the rev more weapon traits and to give to hammer more defensive tools. Don’t forget that is Jalis ironhammer^^ so i have fou d funny tu put the hammer trait in retribution line.

For the glutton trait i think you are right, an active boon dispel will be more skilly so we can imagine reducing the energy cost of banish enchantment or improve the number of boon dispelled.

I think too that Anet doesnt want to introduce trait like energy recovery but it could be really smart for some lines

What do you think about the trait switching? Do you feel that it fit more with the lines?

I like some of the trait switching, and I’m not so sure about some others:

-Salvation: I like the new traits here which focus on self-healing. The only thing you really get out of the current salvation line is group support, and it leaves the user really vulnerable. This also makes the current Salvation line really single-focused such that it’s only useful in a group healing build and useless in all other builds. I think your changes make it more useful in a variety of builds.

-Corruption: Not too many changes here, but I think the removal of Maniacal Persistence helps. I know there are a few ‘on crit’ traits in that tree currently so that they’re trying to give it a crit focus, but Maniacal Persistence seems misplaced here since Invocation and Devastation do a much better job on focusing on crits.

-Devastation: Not so sure about the trait swaps here. With so many traits focusing on crits and fury, it’s pretty much a direct damage dps tree with no use in any other build. For example, in the Adept tier, the traits all pretty much read ‘increase damage’. It then just becomes a calculation to see which one increases damage the most for your build, and you take that one. This is a pretty boring choice. I think we could almost say the same for the Grandmaster tier comparing Swift Termination with Roiling Mists. Both just read ‘do more damage’ so then you just have to calculate which one does more damage for your build and take that one.

-Retribution: Not much trait swapping here to comment on.

-Invocation: I think this is a very interesting change. You’ve really made Invocation useful in many builds. In the Adept tree, for example, you can choose between group healing, damage, or self sustain. I’m still not sure about the new Maniacal Persistence. I see now that it has anti-synergy with another Invocation trait, Invoker’s Rage. Some of the traits may be a bit OP, as previously mentioned, which could make Invocation mandatory, but that’s could be remedied just by changing numbers.

Some good ideas in here. Let me comment on some of them:

Invocation
Cleansing channel – I think a group 3 condi removal on 10s cd is probably a bit much. I think it is fine to leave it for condis on self and leave the group condi cleanse to Eluding Nullification. Even in the current iteration of cleansing channel I don’t think it’s too weak. But maybe it could be made a minor instead of a major trait.

Maniacal Persistence: I like this idea. But I don’t think ANet does. They previously had some Warrior traits, for example, that increased damage or healed the user based on how much adrenaline they had, encouraging them to pool adrenaline and never spend it. They changed these traits in order to encourage players to spend adrenaline. I think if this version of Maniacal Persistence ever became meta, players would feel forced to camp a legend all the time … which is not necessarily better than the current form where players feel forced to dump energy and swap legends every 10 seconds.

Retribution
Forced Engagement – I like this change. I think the taunt skill is pretty cool but is a little weak, and the current trait does nothing for PvP or WvW.

Protector of the Throne – I don’t like this idea. Even though hammer and Jalis are sometimes linked, I personally do not feel they go together. Hammer is a very aggressive ranged weapon and doesn’t fit with the defensive nature of this trait. For example, I would not swap to hammer for defense … I would swap to, say, sword and shield, or staff.

Salvation
Energie Recovery – I’m not sure ANet wants energy regen to go above +5 pips. The UI only has a range of +5 to -5, so they would have to change to UI to allow it to go to +8 while this trait is in effect. I think they are also very hesitant to add energy recovery traits.

Corruption
Opportune Extraction – since this is only a minor master trait, I don’t think it is necessary to buff it.

Replenishing Despair – although you don’t change this trait, I think it is rather weak. I gives 126 hp/sec max, but in reality it will never proc every second so the healing will be much less. I preferred the original version with lower healing but no cooldown. That gave it synergy with Pain Absorption.

Glutton – seems really powerful in PvP. I would rather perhaps see Banish Enchantment modified to remove 3 boons instead of 2. This encourages active boon removal rather than passive.

The objective of this thread is to present additional utilities for each Revenant legend (some exceptions, see below). The rationale includes:

-Revenant launched with 4 heals and 4 elite skills (without elite spec) just like other professions. However, they only have access to 12 normal utility skills, whereas other professions have 20.

-Many Revenant utilities are very specialized and will result in dead action slots on the utility bar in some content. For example, Shiro’s Phase Traversal may be useless in some content, while Mallyx’ Banish Enchantment may be useless in others.

-Revenant lacks build versatility, in part due to few weapon options and in part due to rigidity of utility skill packages (Legends). Additional build versatility can come from adding more utilities to each legend, and can even help to make up for the weak weapon selection.

Next, a few comments about what this proposal will and will not do:

-I am not generally addressing bug fixes to existing utilities or re-balancing of existing legends. I am not altering traits, even ones that affect utilities. There may be some exceptions.
-I am addressing stun breaks – I believe each legend should have access to a stun break, and that feature is being added here.
-I am not adding new heal skills or elite skills, only regular utilities. I am not adding any utilities that should be considered ‘mandatory’, e.g. ones which would be required to use in all builds and all content.

The idea of adding new utilities to Revenant legends has been around for a while, but with a new expansion in the works, this would be a good time to develop and implement them.

Mallyx
I have given Mallyx a ranged condition damage utility to provide some ranged pressure with the mace/X set. I have also added another skill which does not apply damaging conditions to make Mallyx more versatile in non-condi builds.

Summoning Shadows – Summons shadows in an area that randomly move towards enemies within range and explode, applying chill (1s), torment (1 stack 4s), and confusion (1 stack 4s).
Channeled (can’t move while casting), cast time = 3.5 seconds
Shadows summoned – 1 (per pulse), 8 total
Pulses – 8 (once at start of cast and then every 0.5 seconds)
Energy – 40
Range – 1200
Radius – 300
number of targets per shadow – 3
damage per explosion – 92 (0.25)
shadow explosion radius – 180
*Shadows are treated as projectiles here. They cannot be damaged or CC’ed, but they can be blocked, reflected, or obstructed by obstacles. If there are no enemies in range when a shadow spawns, it will move in a random direction to the outside of the radius and explode there.

Pain Absorption – now also breaks stun

Misery – Pull foes toward you and apply chill (2s) and slow (2s)
Cast time – 3/4s
Energy – 35
Radius – 300
Targets – 5
unblockable

Jalis
*I have given Jalis more defenses against ranged attacks and more direct damage capabilities. I have kept Jalis focused as a melee fighter for thematic reasons, so I purposefully did not add ranged attacks or lots of mobility.

Stonewall – Erect a stone wall in front of you that reflects projectiles.
Cast time – 1/2s
Energy cost – 35
Duration – 3s
*this is a wall similar to Field of the Mists (hammer #4) or Shield of Courage (Dragonhunter virtue)

Vengeful Hammers – rename to Righteous Hammers. New text is ‘Invoke hammers to circle around you, protecting you and damaging foes’.

Vengeful Hammers (new, upkeep skill) – Invoke hammers to circle around you, giving retaliation and damaging foes.
Cast time – 0s
Energy – 5
upkeep – 7
Damage – 120 (0.45)
Number of Hammers – 2
Radius – 180
unblockable
Retaliation (self) – 1s
Interval – 1s
Release Hammers – ends vengeful hammers
*this skill is an offense-focused version of the current Vengeful Hammers. It deals 3x as much damage but does not provide healing or self damage reduction. The retaliation on self provides synergy with unused Retribution traits (primarily Empowering Vengeance).

Rite of the Great Dwarf – reduce energy cost to 40. Add 5 second cooldown.
*the energy cost is reduced to make it more functional as a stun break

Shiro
*for Shiro I have added some multi-target damage capacity. I have tried to keep the focus on a very aggressive playstyle.

Meditation of the Reaper (upkeep skill)
cast time – 1/2s
energy – 10
upkeep – 10
Pulses stacking ‘Meditation’ charges and aegis to the user.
Aegis – 3s
Interval – 3s
flip-over skill, becomes…

Cancel Meditation – consumes ‘Meditation’ charges to damage nearby foes.
cast time – 1/2s
energy cost – 10
Damage – (per stack of ‘Meditation’) – 180 (0.45)
radius – 300
*this allows Meditation of the Reaper to do heavy damage to multiple foes in AoE if it’s maintained for a while. If you pool to 100 energy and maintain it as long as possible, it will do damage similar to Coalescence of Ruin at max range. If Meditation of the Reaper ends due to switching legends or running out of energy, the damage will not occur.

Imbued Jade – Your next attack causes a jade explosion which causes life siphon and chill. (1s)
cast time – 1/2s
energy cost – 25
radius – 180
life siphon damage – 194 (.067)
life siphon healing – 245 (0.08)
Number of targets – 5
*this skill can visually show a jade crystal over the player, similar to Enchanted Daggers.

Ventari
*Ventari needed some skills which are applicable in builds other than a healing build. It should still, however, be support oriented (e.g. no damage skills) to fit the theme.

Hesitation – Blind foes near the tablet (5s). Daze foes who are using a skill (1/2s).
Energy cost – 25
Radius – 240
Cooldown – 5s

Liberate – Breaks stun and remove movement impairing conditions for allies near the tablet.
Energy – 40
Radius – 240
Targets: 5
Removes immobilize, cripple, chill.

Glint
*Due to the theme of Glint’s facets (as boon-providing upkeep skills which also have a different active skill) and the fact that Glint utilities are generally all useful in most content, I do not think it is necessary to add more utilities to Glint.

Torsailr.8456:

I think we already passed the point of your first concern. Here we have the elder dragons, creatures many thousands of years old with an unfathomable amount of power capable of making the mightiest beings in the world flee in terror…and we killed 2 in 4 years….

Zhaitan I can see the case being made that it took decades (or longer) to work up to the point where we could kill him. Then Mordy wakes up, and by most accounts is stronger than Zhaitan, yet we kittensmack him as soon as he wakes up. And now we have Primordus…are we just going to roll over and kick him in our sleep?

At this point the only way the dragons could feel even remotely threatening to me is if we lose to Primordus in the next expansion and cede control over large sections of the world to him. Mordy destroyed a fleet of airships and both dragons have taken their share of allies but we haven’t actually lost yet. We haven’t been beaten or even pushed back. Zhaitan never claimed additional lands despite having an army that only gets stronger the longer we fight. Mordy reached some fingers into the world but never took over any lands. Their threat feels very hollow now.

The elder dragons no longer feel like a threat, they don’t even feel powerful. They’re just the flavor of the week bad guy to stomp.

I have had the same impression following HoT. Elder Dragons should feel threatening, however both Mordemoth and Zhaitain have made relatively small incursions into land controlled by the playable races. Much of the fighting has been on the dragons’ territories, putting the dragons on the defensive. I certainly agree that, for the Elder Dragons to pose a threat, they need to cause damage or atleast urgent risk of damage to central Pact regions, e.g. Lion’s Arch, Hoelbrak, Divinity’s Reach. Lion’s Arch was destroyed once, but it wasn’t even a dragon that did it…

I think maybe we need to fight 2+ Elder Dragons at once…

You can use the skin once for free (does not require transmutation charges) and it is consumed. However, just by owning the skin, you have unlocked it and can transmute into it at anytime with transmutation charges just like any other skin.

I like the idea of rifle on Revenant and Scarlet as a legend. I also like the general idea of a CC focus. Some specifics:

Rifle # 4 (switch places with target) sounds like a pretty cool idea.
I’m not sure about Rifle #5 – that sounds very hard to code, and confusing for players especially in a large-scale battle like a WvW zerg.

About holograms – if they can only be dismissed within a 1200 range, then if you move further away, do they auto-dismiss or do you have no way to dismiss them? For example, imagine Engineer turrets if you couldn’t detonate the turret from any range. What happens if you have a hologram draining your energy and it’s too far away for you to dismiss it?

Regarding some of the traits dealing with energy management – I believe ANet wanted to not have any traits that boosted energy as these could become almost mandatory. As such, I think Major traits 1-3 might be problematic. For example, Major 2 would need an internal cooldown. Major 3 would require a redesign of the energy graphic, since there is only space for +5 pips of energy regen, whereas this trait would permit up to +7 at times. Major 1 could be abused by, for example, toggling upkeep skills on and off, unless it had a significant internal cooldown.

The effect ‘bewildered’ sounds pretty cool, but also exceptionally powerful (in PvP / WvW) so it would need to be heavily regulated.

I have tried Rev staff quite a bit in pvp / wvw (can’t say much about pve) and I will say that it is usable as a primary weapon (meaning that you can use it most of the time rather than just swapping to it for #3 or #5), with the following considerations:

-you will be kited much more easily than with sword. I recommend using it with Shiro for access to Phase Traversal. Using it with Mallyx and Unyielding Anguish for mobility works too.

-in my opinion, it seems to perform better in a tanky build than in a glassy build. Glassy direct damage builds will generally want sword. Despite the loss of the evade on sword #3, staff seems to provide better sustain due to the healing orbs on auto-attack, provided your build is tanky enough to take advantage of it.

-it seems to be better against multiple opponents (especially #2) compared to sword, but is less effective against single opponents.

epouvante.7392:

serj.8214:

Mace+Axe is main condi weapons and you still can apply torment via trait with autoatacks and Mallyx has now good condi copy ty to reworked trait. In spvp shiro\mallyx with viper is decent.
I run mallyx\glint in wvw and its so good)
And raid leader is right in Raid ur team need ur DPS so zerk is better then condi. Even ventari Rev in raid is better then condi)

I know that mace/axe is condi… I think you dont understand the topic, compare mace/axe to sword/ shield and you will see that the condi set have 0 defensive tool (sword3, shield 4 and5), and actually in pvp you need that.
Also condi doesnt have a condi switch with defensive tool.
In wvw is not the same, you have more condi armor with defensive stats. And you run in a bus…

I don’t think it’s fair to compare mace/axe to sword/shield though. Axe is an offensive OH and shield is a defensive one, so it makes sense that X/shield would have more defense than X/Axe. Furthermore, shield is compatible with either a power or condi build, and so is axe. Axe #4 has good power scaling and no condi damage while axe #5 has good condi application.

I think to be more fair we should be comparing Mace/Shield to Sword/Shield. In this case, Sword/Shield does indeed still have more defense due to the evade on sword #3. But sword also has poor multi-target damage, while multi-target damage on mace is very good.

One could argue that Mace needs axe OH for the gap closer and can’t use shield… but I don’t think that’s a valid argument. Shiro has a gap closer and Shiro is fine in both power and condi builds (though not meta in condi build). Furthermore, I run a pure condi build which uses Mace/Sword (for defense) and Mace/Axe (for CC / mobility) rather than the Mace/Axe and Sword/Shield meta. This way mace gets both the defense from shield and the mobility from axe when needed.

Lucred.1802:

fluidmonolith.3584:

xXMapcoXx.9614:

See I be just find if the Revy’s skills had one or the other, However that is not the case. The Revy’s weapon and utility skills have both energy cost to use them and a cd after using them. I mean what kinda kitten is that? At first I though the Revy played like the thief were the weapon skills cost initiative and the utility skills had cd, but no the Revy suffers from having an energy cost and when you use any of its skills a cd. Sure you can argue that Revy has the ability to swap from legend to legend and has access to more skills then the other classes, but so does the ele and they don’t have a energy cost and a cd to worry about.

I think it works out best that Rev weapon skills have both cd and energy cost. Let us think about what it would be like if they only had one or the other:

-Weapon skills only cost energy (no cooldown): Rev has some pretty potent weapon skills. For example, staff #5, sword #3, shield #5. With no cooldown, these could be used repeatedly unless they cost absurd amounts of energy. Thief uses this model, but thief doesn’t need initiative for utility skills, while Rev needs energy for utilities. If staff #5 cost 50 energy, for example, you’d never have energy for utility skills.

-Weapon skills have no energy cost, only cooldown: When energy is only used for utility skills, which are generally pretty situational, Rev would often have excess energy and very few choices to make about how to spend it. Imagine Glint with no weapon skill energy cost – Free swiftness, fury, and might forever. This would be broken and boring to play. Utility skill cost could be increased to compensate … but do you really want to pay 80 energy for Jade Winds?

Now, regarding cooldowns on utility skills, I agree that these are often not needed. A few of them (e.g. Jade Winds 5 second cd) were implemented because it was deemed too powerful to use it back to back if you had pooled energy. But for the most part, cooldowns on utility skills are very short (5 seconds or less). I personally do not feel limited by such short utility skill cooldowns most of the time, though there are a few exceptions, such as Inspiring Reinforcement and Phase Traversal.

The only utilities whose cooldowns are shorter than 5 seconds are:
-pain absorption (35 energy, 0 cooldown, half second cast)
-banish enchantment (20 energy, 0 cooldown, half second cast)
-unyielding anguish (30 energy, 0 cooldown, 3/4 second cast)
-embrace the darkness (5 energy, 7 upkeep, 3/4 second cast)
-riposting shadows (30 energy, 0 cooldown, instant cast)
-impossible odds (10 energy, 10 upkeep, instant cast)
-vengeful hammers (5 energy, 7 upkeep, instant cast)
-rite of the great dwarf (50 energy, 1.25 second cast, 1/2 second aftercast)

Now getting into Glint:
-30 second cooldown on Infuse Light
-20 second cooldown on Gaze of Darkness
-15 second cooldown on Elemental Blast
-15 second cooldown on Burst of Strength
-45 second cooldown on Chaotic Release
these are significantly longer than the elite skill cooldowns of most other classes
And that’s on top of most of Ventari having 3-5 second cooldowns (not like anyone uses it) and a few other skills with 5 second cooldowns like Jade Winds.

I think that for the length of the cooldowns, both the initial energy cost and the upkeep are pretty stout. Especially with Glint, where the second function of the skills are pretty weak and are almost never actually used outside of “oh shii” scenarios. Particularly Riposting Shadows, usually when you need it you don’t have the energy for it as it’s a third of your total possible energy and more than half of your starting energy.

This is technically correct, however Glint’s utilities were designed to have a longer cooldown to force the player to choose between maintaining and upkeep or getting an active effect (like signets on other professions). Furthermore, the Glint skills you mention (the active facets) don’t have energy costs at all – they are only limited by cooldowns. Would Elemental Blast be better if the cooldown were reduced to 5 seconds but it cost 15 energy? Most heal skills were also designed to have longer cooldowns for balance purposes. You mention Riposting Shadows having a prohibitively high energy cost, but it doesn’t have a cooldown at all. Heal skills only cost 5 energy. Would heal skills be better if the cooldowns were reduced but the energy cost were increased?

There is only one other utility with a cooldown longer than 5 seconds, and that is Jalis’ Inspiring Reinforcement at 10 seconds. I think we can all agree that some utilities need rebalancing (e.g. phase traversal’s energy cost and cooldown may both be too high), however that doesn’t mean that the system itself is broken.

There are also still some skills that are treated differently depending on whether action camera is enabled or not.

Specifically, skills that teleport you to a target (e.g. sword #2 on thief, phase traversal on revenant) can be used at any range (even if the target is further than away than the range of the skill) when action camera is turned off. When used, these skills will teleport you towards the target up to the maximum range of the skill. However, if action camera is turned on, these skills cannot be used when you are out of range.

This means, for example, that on Revenant if I want to use phase traversal to travel towards a target more than 1200 units away, I need to disable action camera first.

epouvante.7392:

I have to be agree with justine.6351 but the proposal ideas here are really nice. The proposed weapon related talent are also nice.
It’s good to spezialise more weapons but we will loose in versatility without weapon swap even with adding defensive tool in sets.
Another example, if we add a defensive tool to mace, and we run a condi mace shield, we have a nice condi/defensive set the problem is if we need more defensive tools or cc or whatever on cds we cant switch to staff, we just have to wait cds

Fair enough. But I don’t think the problem is impossible or even improbable to solve, atleast conceptually. It sounds like you are saying in your example that we can currently couple mace/shield with staff so that we can have a lot of defenses. In the absence of weapon swap, it just means that staff or X/shield alone has to have comparable defensive capability to what X/shield + staff currently have together.

I can think of a couple of ways we can do this, though each one has some concerns.

One example we have now is I can rune sword/sword and staff, and block with sword #4, weapon swap, and then block with staff #3. This can be repeated every 12 seconds, so I can get two 2sec blocks every 12 seconds.

To perform similarly without weapon swap, I would need to reduce the cooldown of staff #3 or sword #4 to 6 seconds (so I could use either one twice in 12 seconds). On the down-side, I can’t use it twice in a row; but on the up-side I don’t need to lose access to sword #3 for 10 seconds every time I swap weapons just to block. But anyways, at face value a 2 second block on a 6 second cd seems really OP, even though we have the same result numerically with X/sword + staff combo. What do you think?

We can go even further and reduce the skill cooldowns drastically or even eliminate them (probably at a result of an increased energy cost). This would minimize or eliminate the concern you mentioned in example for the mace/shield build that needs a defense or cc when something is on cooldown. For example, what if staff #3 had no cooldown or maybe a 2-4 second cooldown but cost 20 or 30 energy? This eliminates the need to weapon swap when stuff is on cooldown, because cooldowns are very short or non-existant. It also shifts Revenant’s focus from managing cooldowns to managing energy but allows you to really mess yourself up if you burn all of your energy unwisely. This would also be a drastic play style change and it would really raise the skill floor.

Even with all of these changes, we can’t necessarily replicate mace/shield + staff in a single weapon set (nor should we, in my opinion). Reducing cooldowns on mace/shield might be able to give comparable defenses, but it won’t give the cc of staff #5 to the mace/shield set. It does, however, solve other problems, like being unable to do damage for 10 seconds when swapping to staff from mace/X in a condition damage build.

Anyways, thank you for your input Justine, Epouvante. I will take these points into consideration and see if I can make some meaningful revisions, but please let me know if you have any specific suggestions.

epouvante.7392:

I love the idea, really. New talents focusing on weapons buff. Add mace or sword ranged options or hammer close option to compensate their weakness.
But their is a big problem. If you delete the weapon swap you will nerf a lot some builds.
1) the actual power build, if you cant swap to staff, you loose a nice block+blind, a nice cc+evade, and nice heal+dispel….
2) with a support staff build, you will loose the sword block and shield block support!
3 the worst is for the condi build, if you run mace/shield you loose a potential nive defensive switch with staff or sword axe. A big nerf. Dont forget that usually condi plays with malyx, a legend with no evade, dodge, immune. So your proposition could be great if you add some defensive tool to mace and malyx (block, evade, like sword 3, or shiro evade)

Thanks for the feedback. You make a good point. I can see, for example, that Mace + Axe with Mallyx would leave zero defensive utilities. Regarding the other examples, it sounds like you are saying that what we would give up (e.g. in the power build, a cc+evade, heal+dispel, and block+blind) would not be worth what we would gain (a ranged attack + chill on sword #2, and shorter cooldowns on shield or sword off-hand).

So my question is, can we reduce the cooldowns, or otherwise buff weapon skills, to make up for that loss? For example, can we reduce the cooldown on sword #4 to 8 seconds? Is that OP or not good enough? Can we reduce the cooldown on shield #4 to 10 seconds and/or add condition removal to shield #5? I certainly think that each legend should have a stun break, and that would help but it is outside of the scope of this proposal.

These are just some examples. I will plan out some revisions to the weapon skills proposal but I would be happy to hear suggestions from others as well.

Justine.6351:

I would not give up weapon swap for this. Even if weapon swap stayed I probably wouldn’t want the changes you are suggesting for hammer specifically.

Thank you for your reply as well. If you don’t mind, would you be able to elaborate on why you prefer weapon swap to a two auto-attack method? For example, are the redesigned skills not versatile enough to replace two weapons? Are the new skills too weak to make up for losing weapon swap? Or if you’re happy with the current system and don’t see a need to change it, of course that is fair too.

Sword
The second auto-attack on sword now deals ranged damage. This gives the sword user some ranged pressure, though it will generally not provide as much damage as the melee capabilities. However, when traited it does allow for greater multi-target damage than currently possible with sword.

1.
-unchanged

2. (chain)
1 Precise Slash
Slash of wave of energy from the mists toward your foe. Inflicts vulnerability (4s)
cast time – 1/2s
range – 900
energy cost – 0
power coefficient 0.70
projectile finisher 20%
2 Precise Slice
Slice a wave of energy from the mists toward your foe. Inflicts vulnerability (4s)
cast time – 1/2s
range – 900
energy cost – 0
power coefficient – 0.70
3 Frigid Slice
Slice of wave of chilling energy from the mists toward your foe. Inflicts chill (1s)
cast time – 1/2s
range – 900
energy cost – 2
power coefficient – 0.8
*the energy cost is added here since the energy cost the current sword #2 (Precise Strike) is removed. I am still debating whether or not the second auto-attack should have energy cost or not.

3.
-unchanged

4.
-cooldown reduced to 10s

5.
-unchanged

Traits (Devastation)

Jade Echo – moved to Adept

Nefarious Momentum – moved to Adept

Ferocious Strikes – trait moved to Master
Sword skill #2 (Precise Slash, Precise Slice, Frigid Slice) pierces. Still adds 150 ferocity when dual-wielding.

Vicious Lacerations – trait moved to Master
When hitting with sword #1, damage increased by 2%, stacks up to 5x (now only applies to sword#1). Increase the duration of each stack to 8 seconds since it only triggers from sword #1 now.

Hammer
A melee auto-attack was added to hammer to be used as a bruiser / brawler weapon. Ranged attacks still focus on burst damage. Phase Smash and Drop the Hammer were merged to allow gap closing or gap creation as needed by melee or ranged attackers.

1. Hammer Bolt
-unchanged

2. – (chain)
1 Hammer bash #1
cast time – 1/2s
range – 130
energy cost – 0
power coefficient – 0.80
2 Hammer bash #2
cast time – 1/2s
range – 130
energy cost – 0
power coefficient – 0.9
3 Hammer AoE bash
cast time – 3/4s
area – 180
energy cost – 0
power coefficient – 1.4
Deals AoE damage. Blast finisher.

3. Coalescence of Ruin
energy cost increased to 10

4.
-reduced duration to 4 seconds and cooldown to 8 seconds. Energy cost is still 10.

5. Drop the Hammer
cast time reduced to 1/2 second, but hammer has an additional 1s delay before it hits. Knockdown duration reduced to 1 second. Cooldown reduced to 10s
(flip-over / chain) Phase Smash
-available after casting Drop the Hammer until the hammer hit occurs (so it’s available for 1 second after the cast time of Drop the Hammer). Will cancel Drop the Hammer when used. Same as normal Phase Smash, but doesn’t teleport you back to the casting location after hit. Will fail on terrain that can’t be teleported to.
energy – 5

Traits (Retribution)

Retaliatory Evasion (rename this trait as appropriate)
Gain retaliation after you dodge (2s). Hammer #2 (3rd attack in the sequence) gives self retaliation (1s).

Dwarven Battle Training
Hammer Bolt has a 33% chance to inflict weakness on hit (1s). When you apply weakness to a foe, you also apply Chill (3s) interna cd 10s.

Staff
Staff has been modified to add healing / support at mid range and increase crowd control in melee range. Staff melee auto-attack damage increased a bit due to reduction in damage from staff #2.

1. (sequence)
1
increased damage coefficient to 0.75
2
unchanged
3
increased damage coefficient to 1.2
no longer drops healing orbs. Instead, it applies weakness on each hit (2s).

2. Boomerang
Throw your staff in a line, damaging foes and healing allies on the way out and as it returns to you (also heals the player when it returns).
channeled
cast time – 1.5s
range – 600
energy cost – 2
damage coefficient – 0.6
healing – 150 (0.05)
Pierces
*energy cost was added here to replace the existing energy cost on Staff #2. I am still debating whether or not the second auto-attack should have energy cost or not.

3.
cd reduced to 10s

4.
cd reduced to 12s
cast time reduced to 3/4 s

5.
cd reduced to 15s

Traits (Salvation)

Tranquil Benediction
Staff#2 (Boomerang) creates healing orbs at the first ally it hits (will drop at the player if no ally is hit).
orbs created – 3
healing per orb – 250 (0.2)

Barrier Wave (replaces Invoking Harmony)
Staff #4 (Renewing Wave) now also knocks back and blinds foes.
Radius – 240
Knockback – 300
Blind (5s)

Mace
Ranged condition damage has been added to mace for the second auto-attack.

1.
unchanged

2. Meteor
Fling a ball of molten mist energy from your mace toward your foe. Explodes when it hits a foe or reaches maximum range, damaging and inflicting burning (1 stack, 2s).
Cast time – 1/2s
Range – 900
energy cost – 0
radius – 180
damage – 184 (0.5)
Does not pierce

3.
range increased to 600

Traits (Corruption)

Searing Crater (replaces Frigid Precision)
Mace #2 (Meteor) causes a Searing Crater where it explodes. Internal cd = 3s
combo field – fire
radius – 300
burning – 1 stack, 4s
pulses – 4
duration – 3s
damage – 92 (0.25)

Venom Enhancement – moved to Master tier, swapped with Spontaneous Destruction
internal cd reduced to 10s

Axe (off-hand)

4.
cd reduced to 10s

5.
cd reduced to 12s

Shield (off-hand)

4.
cd reduced to 12s

5.
cd reduced to 20s

The objective of this thread is to propose a long-term redesign of Revenant weapon utilization – specifically, the application of versatile, dual-auto-attack weapons (like spear) coupled with the removal of weapon swap. In this proposal, I include a dual-auto-attack on each main-hand or two-hand weapon. I have also included a trait option for each weapon that allows the player to specialize in one auto-attack or the other. These traits are always in the same trait line and in the same tier so they compete with each other. This solution is intended to address many concerns:

1) An innovative framework already exists for weapon versatility, but this method is not utilized. Revenant spear uses two auto-attacks – one at range with condition damage, and one in melee with direct damage. This system can be used to address limitations in current weapon sets. It is possible that ANet had been designing this system to be used with all of the Revenant’s weapons in place of a weapon swap, but ran out time to implement it before HoT was released.

2) Long cooldowns on weapon skills, which are likely a result of the potential to chain powerful skills from separate weapon sets together (e.g. sword #5 into staff #5, or sword #4 then staff #3). If I recall correctly, Revenant was initially intended to have shorter cooldowns since they also require energy for weapon skills. However, cooldowns have increased over time due to balancing concerns. Removal of weapon swap permits shorter cooldowns on weapon skills.

3) Lack of weapon selection. Revenants have fewer weapon options than any other profession. For example, they have no good weapon to accompany mace in a condition damage build. Removing weapon swap and adding dual auto-attacks is intended to lead to increased build variety as well.

These changes are meant to be relatively simple. I try not to make drastic changes to existing play styles that people are already familiar with. To attempt to circumvent some reader angst about a topic as controversial as weapon swapping on Revenant, let me give a DISCLAIMER first outlining some things that this recommendation is supposed to do and not supposed to do:

1) These recommendations are a long-term goal and should not take priority over bug fixes or tweaks to ineffective skills or traits. A good time, perhaps, to implement changes like these would be during the release of an expansion.
2) These recommendations are not meant to be taken as an indicator of the author’s perception of the relative competitive capabilities of Revenant. These recommendations are made by myself, a Revenant player, and not by someone who lost to a Rev and is asking for nerfs…
3) These changes are meant to preserve the Revenant playstyle as much as possible while returning the class to the original concept (swaps utilities and not weapons), making use of the interesting dual-auto-attack feature seen on the Revenant’s underwater weapon, spear.
4) These recommendations are not meant to address weak legends / skills (other than weapon skills), weak trait, or bugs.

Now with that out of the way, the proposed changes:

Azukas.1426:

Problem remains Revenant is in no need of a buff at this time. Discussing shorter CDs and/or energy costs is pointless unless some hyper power creep for the rest of the game is taking place.

At this time Revenants NEED nothing.

Revenant does seem competitive with other professions at the moment (WvW / PvP perspective), so I agree that buffs should not happen (except to under-utilized skills, traits, or legends, such as Jalis). However, there are many remaining aspects which are too weak to be usable, bugged, or boring to use. There is plenty of room to tweak things without buffing them. For example, if a weapon skill has the cd decreased but the energy cost increased (or vice versa), is that a buff or a nerf?

serj.8214:

All Rev need ids rebalance on energy costs lower weapon energy costs and some tune on utilities costs thats all.

Which weapon skills cost too much energy? They’re already pretty cheap. I’ve outlined in my above post some of the consequences of reducing or eliminating weapon skill energy costs. Utility skills might be given increased energy costs as compensation, I’m not sure I’d like that…
I advocate for decreased weapon skill cooldowns coupled with increased energy costs (when appropriate). If done well, this would create meaningful decision making processes regarding skill use, rather than the “use on cooldown”

Burtnik.5218:

The Game Slayer.7632:

Revenants skills are very low CD compared to other classes.

No, they arent. We have same cd’s or even longer as other classes but unlike them rev skills still cost energy.

I agree with this in many cases. However, if we just decreased the cd on many weapon skills, I think Rev would become over-tuned.

The question I have: Would users be willing to accept higher energy costs on weapon skills in return for lower cooldowns? E.g. Staff #5 is reduced to 10s cooldown but now costs 30 energy. E.g. Axe 4 is reduced to 6s cooldown but now costs 20 energy.

IMO, there is a delicate balance between over-costed weapon skills regulated primarily by energy and cheap skills regulated primarily by cooldowns. I think right now Rev is closer to the latter and needs to be pushed a bit in the other direction.

xXMapcoXx.9614:

See I be just find if the Revy’s skills had one or the other, However that is not the case. The Revy’s weapon and utility skills have both energy cost to use them and a cd after using them. I mean what kinda kitten is that? At first I though the Revy played like the thief were the weapon skills cost initiative and the utility skills had cd, but no the Revy suffers from having an energy cost and when you use any of its skills a cd. Sure you can argue that Revy has the ability to swap from legend to legend and has access to more skills then the other classes, but so does the ele and they don’t have a energy cost and a cd to worry about.

I think it works out best that Rev weapon skills have both cd and energy cost. Let us think about what it would be like if they only had one or the other:

-Weapon skills only cost energy (no cooldown): Rev has some pretty potent weapon skills. For example, staff #5, sword #3, shield #5. With no cooldown, these could be used repeatedly unless they cost absurd amounts of energy. Thief uses this model, but thief doesn’t need initiative for utility skills, while Rev needs energy for utilities. If staff #5 cost 50 energy, for example, you’d never have energy for utility skills.

-Weapon skills have no energy cost, only cooldown: When energy is only used for utility skills, which are generally pretty situational, Rev would often have excess energy and very few choices to make about how to spend it. Imagine Glint with no weapon skill energy cost – Free swiftness, fury, and might forever. This would be broken and boring to play. Utility skill cost could be increased to compensate … but do you really want to pay 80 energy for Jade Winds?

Now, regarding cooldowns on utility skills, I agree that these are often not needed. A few of them (e.g. Jade Winds 5 second cd) were implemented because it was deemed too powerful to use it back to back if you had pooled energy. But for the most part, cooldowns on utility skills are very short (5 seconds or less). I personally do not feel limited by such short utility skill cooldowns most of the time, though there are a few exceptions, such as Inspiring Reinforcement and Phase Traversal.

I also like stronghold. In fact I only play stronghold for ranked games during the pvp seasons. I don’t think conquest is bad, but I like mobility so I get tired of fighting in tiny circles. I do agree with Xillllix that we need more than one stronghold map.

The sustain from Rapid Regeneration using swiftness alone is similar to the sustain from Backpack Regenerator, which was popular before HoT. Do people still use Backpack Regenerator? If so, then Rapid Regeneration is probably also viable, as long as the other two master traits aren’t useful to you, as Mnemesis says.

I have observed this as well. Another similar leap skill which does damage at the end (Engineer’s rifle #5) has the same problem. Does anyone know if similar leaping damage skills (e.g. Warrior’s Sundering Leap) have the same issue?

Thanks everyone.

Hook strike is good too, but it is slow and requires melee range. Some opponents, when they see a stealthed thief, will drop AoEs on themselves to deter the thief from getting into melee range. This can make it dangerous to try a hook strike. But it’s good to have more than one tool in the toolbox, so I’m sure there are circumstances that favor stealth > vault, and others that favor stealth > hook strike > vault.

I am trying out a staff build in WvW which attempts to utilize stealth to make Vault easier to land on enemy players. However, I found that many players would dodge my Vault even if I used it from stealth.

Does Vault give the enemy a red circle on the ground to warn them? Or were these players simply responding to my being stealthed by dodging at the appropriate time?

I’m not sure the SB tweaks need to be so extensive. Another poster (sorry, forgot the name or the thread) suggested that all SB really needs to be competitive is a longer duration of poison application on choking gas, and a a faster projectile speed for cluster bomb. A small increase in auto-attack damage wouldn’t be bad either, but I don’t think it’s necessary.

Someone in a pvp match one called me a Vault spammer…
I said I’d stop spamming it when they started dodging it.

Asrat.2645:

First of all, thieves should be a class that rewards ‘skill’
So if a normal profession was this , a faceroll profession looked more like this (just the graph, not actual numbers), thief should be this.
That is of course a rather rough approximation.

But that does not neccessarely mean that we have to ‘destroy’ everyone on pro level play.
In a perfect world we would start most high level fights with a small advantage, but not one that cant be overcome.
Additionaly there would also be counter guar…classes, that can beat us more easily.
And of course being a stronger class does not mean you have the advantage in 1v1 or in fights in general.
Thieves in duels should be dangerous. At least an equal chance to kill every profession (excluding counter mechanics), but focussing the class entirely on winning every 1v1 would mean to create a moster. We can choose our opponents after all.
So parts of our strenght would include the movement.
A few general guidelines:
-A bad thief will loose most of their duels.
-A good thief will be able to win every fight as long as they make no mistakes (impossible in practice, rather: less mistakes)
-A thief on the offense is in the best possible position
-A thief defending will have a much harder time
(The suprise, the first hit, the dependance on blocking your point)
-A thief is the least desireable class in any fighting scenarios of more than 4 players.
(For teamfights our current role of picking up the weakest link as soon as they retreat is pretty much perfect)
-The thief class should be extremely unforgiving. To both the thief player and their opponent.

I do not agree with the idea that Thieves should reward skill to a greater extent than other professions. Ideally, a competitive player could use any profession and be rewarded at a high level of play -though, of course, roles and build options would be dependent on profession. I would rather see all professions be given access to both low risk – low reward builds and high risk – high rewards builds. This way both highly skilled and newer or less skilled players can use any profession. In other words, the graphs you show should apply, ideally, to different builds available to every profession.

Some of your other guidelines, however, seem to describe more of the flavor or playstyle of the profession, and these are perfectly fine in my opinion (e.g. Thieves should do better on offense than on defense).

Linnael.1069:

I think there is a good reason for weapon swaps having significant cooldown. No CD weapon swaps multiply the number of skills and effects involved in the fight at any given time. If you look at other classes that exceed the normal weapon swap rate, namely elementalist and engineer, you can see that they pay for that power on each individual skill. Ele commonly looks at 30-40 second cooldowns on its weapon skills, and Engie gives up utility slots for its kits.

I wanted to keep quick pockets situated at a reasonable initiative gain rate. 3/8 is already more than any other guaranteed source of initiative gain. Perhaps it could go to 30%, and 50% with warrior runes, but any more than that and it does edge into OP territory, and you would have to take nerfs elsewhere.

I’m not sure that removing weapon swap cooldown will force many skill cooldowns to have a 30+ second cooldown, but I can agree with the validity of your concern. Ultimately I don’t think it’s a huge deal since we can already chain skills from two weapons once every 10-20 seconds limited by the weapon swap cooldown. In the absence of the weapon swap cooldown, individual skill cooldowns of 10-20 seconds would still place this limitation. The only place where I could see it being of a major concern is in potent combo’able skills which have short (<10 seconds) cooldown.

Anyways, I don’t mean to derail your thread by talking about entirely eliminating weapon swap cooldown here. I do agree with your original point that Quick Pockets is a little weak compared to the other Trickery GMs. I certainly don’t swap weapons often in combat unless I need SB (like you mentioned) for some mobility, and buffing this trait might introduce the viability of weapon swap in combat for Thief and make SB less of a requirement for 2nd weapon set.

Kageseigi.2150:

Reduce it by 50% like Warrior’s Fast Hands trait, and you’ve got a deal! ;-)

Personally, I’m for instant-weapon swap (or 1-second cooldowns like Engineer kits) to be baseline. Either replace the Quick Pockets trait or give it a cooldown.

The Thief needs flexibility. Currently, when you have low/no initiative, swapping weapons is a punishment in that all it accomplishes is locks you into another weapon set for 10 seconds. Even with Quick Pockets (a trait that sacrifices a lot), you only gain enough initiative to do 1-out-of-4 skills on a weapon set only one time.

The alternative is to give each weapon set a separate initiative pool, or refill the single initiative pool (completely or significantly) on weapon swap. I’d prefer such a change to be baseline, but even a Quick Pockets that restored 8 initiative ever 10 seconds would be acceptable.

In that case, you would gain one attempt at Infiltrator’s Arrow to Escape, or one Cloak and Dagger/Black Powder+Heartseeker combo to Stealth, or one strong attack.

I like the reduced weapon swap cooldown idea for Quick Pockets, though I think a 50% reduction might be a bit much. I’m not sold on the idea of upping the initiative regen from Quick Pockets – it just turns us sort-of into Revenants who and almost forces us to swap weapons every 10 seconds or we’d be ‘wasting’ potential initiative.

Actually, I like even more your idea of a 1 second cooldown on weapon swapping. I had previously proposed that all professions have the weapon swap cooldown removed completely and replaced with a short cast time (probably 1/2 second) – Warrior’s Fast Hands and maybe Thief’s Quick Pockets could reduce it to 1/4 second.

I liked many parts of the Desert Borderlands – the vertical terrain, a lot of the tricks / traps and terrain obstructions, and of course the graphical improvements.

The main problems I saw were:
1) way too big (hard to find people to fight)
2) confusing terrain, especially in keeps, made it hard to know how to get from point A to point B. This created a learning curve that doesn’t really add to the gameplay, it just separates those who know the convoluted map from those who don’t.

Yeah, I tried Revenant from before HoT release (betas) until about a month ago, then switched. I liked the idea of being energy-limited, but in practice I found the Rev to be managing cooldowns mainly, just like everyone else except Thief … consequently, I switched to Thief.

But by no means did I find the Revenant ineffective. Hammer is devastating in a glassy build, and sword is very good for dueling. I just didn’t find those weapons to be fun to use. I enjoyed the mobility of Shiro but found the Shiro utilities to be fairly situational (PvP/WvW). I played Rev quite a bit from October through February, but I am now very much enjoying Thief. The initiative gives me the ‘energy management’ I wanted in Revenant.

Ragion.2831:

fluidmonolith.3584:

Ragion.2831:

i use sword/sword and staff for pvp a lot of people use Sword/Shield and staff. The two combined have 2 blocks and 2 evades which is extremely important since the class has no escapes. If you delete weapon swap it cuts down defence by a lot, to the point where the class will be helpless in fights.

The worst part of this topic is you think that swapping legends is the only thing the class needs. This comment alone makes me think all you do is PvE and if thats the case then you really have no right to make a suggestion that affects players in PvP and WvW.

Swapping from melee to range is also important in PvP and WvW. Even revenant cannot throw itself head first into a blob of people and auto attack everything. Hammer good for pressuring range if porting with shiro is not a good idea and being able to swap to sword is important for close range.

If this is a troll post, nice one. If it isn’t please just stop.

I don’t think anyone is requesting removal of Rev weapon swapping without other changes.

Since this is your main point i just cut out the rest cuz of length.

That is just the problem. I already know OP means trading weapon swap for something else but what changes will justify cutting the defense and utility by not being able to use another set of weapons. Why exactly should devs complicate things now and redo the entire class just to remove weapon swap?

If weapon swap was removed now, devs would have to change the whole class to compensate for the lost number of blocks, utility, attack flexibility and burst just to get the class to the same level it was with weapon swap. Again, why?

I certainly agree that it would take a lot of work, and this late after release of HoT, it is very unlikely to happen. As to why it could be beneficial? There are a few reasons:

-Revenant has very few weapon options (this would not be a problem if Rev had no weapon swap and/or two autoattacks on each weapon).

-Revenant is largely limited by cooldowns on weapons, whereas I would argue the intent was that Revenant be limited by energy. Removing weapon swap allows cooldowns to be reduced without allowing excessively high uptime of evades/blocks or burst that might be possible if cooldowns were reduced and weapon swap while weapon swap was retained. For example, the healing reduction of shield 5 could be reverted since it couldn’t be chained into staff #3.

-The dual auto-attack tech that ANet has built could be put to good use here, and as long as weapon swap exists, it likely won’t. I admit, however, that this particular claim is more based on theme or aesthetics than function.

Again, I agree that the amount of work required to make this change would be impractical. I am only making this argument because I think that, theoretically, the Revenant could be better if weapon swap were removed.

Ragion.2831:

This OP, i wasnt even going to dignify this suggestion with a response but its still being talked about, why? This type of topic bothers me because i fear with the sort of things Anet has pulled in the past, they might actually take this seriously.

i use sword/sword and staff for pvp a lot of people use Sword/Shield and staff. The two combined have 2 blocks and 2 evades which is extremely important since the class has no escapes. If you delete weapon swap it cuts down defence by a lot, to the point where the class will be helpless in fights.

The worst part of this topic is you think that swapping legends is the only thing the class needs. This comment alone makes me think all you do is PvE and if thats the case then you really have no right to make a suggestion that affects players in PvP and WvW.

Swapping from melee to range is also important in PvP and WvW. Even revenant cannot throw itself head first into a blob of people and auto attack everything. Hammer good for pressuring range if porting with shiro is not a good idea and being able to swap to sword is important for close range.

If this is a troll post, nice one. If it isn’t please just stop.

I don’t think anyone is requesting removal of Rev weapon swapping without other changes. The Devs have created a potentially interesting system which is used on Rev spear, that is two (melee and ranged) autoattacks on a single weapon. This system could potentially be applied to terrestrial weapons if weapon swap were removed. Further, you mention the s/s + staff example which has two blocks and two evades. It is possible that the removal of weapon swapping may allow the cooldowns of these skills to be reduced or the effects to be amplified, since they won’t need to be balanced around what can be done when paired with another weapon.

Whether or not you agree with removing weapon swap is up to you, but I wanted to clarify what seems to be under discussion and reassure others that no one here seems to be asking for (intentional) nerfs or removal of weapon swap without compensation by some other means.

Can staff #3 be used to set up #2 (weakening charge) by setting you up at a good distance to hit with more of #2’s strikes?

I may try this…

I have been using a similar build (staff/sb with trickery and critical strikes, and paladin amulet).

I can agree with OP that the cast time on CV is unfortunate – sometimes I even interrupt it myself if I start channeling but then need to dodge right away, and then it’s on full cd. I’ll probably switch to Withdraw as you use.

The combo of paladin + staff in my experience gives the sustain needed to stay in fights a bit longer than with marauder. I use Invigorating Precision for even more sustain, but I also use a more aggressive rune (Pack).

I haven’t tried out Fist Flurry yet, I’ll need to do that.

Rev can be challenging because if you’re used to cooldowns being your only resource, it’s easy to spend energy too fast, and a Rev with no energy is very dead.

I personally think that the capacity to swap both weapons and legends makes it a bit more challenging as well, but that may be subjective.

I do notice a large variation in Revenants that I fight in PvP – some are hard to kill, while others are very easy, even within a single build type (Power Glint/Shiro). This suggests that Revenant may indeed be challenging to many people, especially if they are new to it. However, it also suggests that once you learn the class, it can be very effective.

I have been playing mostly Thief for ranked, though I’ve primarily played Revenant for PvP and WvW since HoT release.

IMO, Thief cannot really stay in a fight without stealth. I often have to either stealth or flee (temporarily) to recover health and return to a fight, which makes Thief bad for holding points or 1v1s against classes that can outsustain the thief (e.g. Scrapper, good Necros). That said, Thief has unparalleled mobility, even compared to Rev.

Revenant has much better sustain and seems to be able to do as much damage as Thief. Revenant’s attacks are a little more straight-forward (e.g. easier for opponents to avoid), but Rev is also much better at AoE damage against multiple targets.

Overall I think Rev is probably more useful in ranked, but right now I’m having more fun on Thief.

Burtnik, good work on preparing all these changes. I have been thinking about how it feels to play Revenant and I wanted to comment on a specific subject: resource management.

Specifically I am referring to what resource limits your ability to act. With a Revenant we seem to be intended to be energy-limited. However, we often feel cooldown-limited. I think a major cause for this is the high cooldowns on weapon skills. Short cooldowns exist on some utilities, but they generally do not feel as limiting to me. To address this, I would like to see weapon cooldowns reduced significantly in some cases.

I will comment on specific weapon skills Burtnik addresses in his document, with the goal of reducing weapon cooldowns while maintaining balance:

Sword MH
2. Precision Strike – I prefer the current implementation which uses Precision strike for single target burst damage. Obviously, bugs need to be fixed, like prioritizing players over minions or walls… Cooldown here is fine, IMO. Energy cost could be increased to 10.
3. Unrelenting Assault – Again, I like sword as a single target dueling/burst weapon rather than a AoE weapon. I think Staff should be our AoE weapon. Instead, I would like to see UA have a smaller bounce radius and perhaps a longer activation range (e.g. bounce radius = 150, activation range = 600). It would then act as a gap closer and be less likely to bounce off onto secondary targets (though still possible). I would reduce the cd to 10 seconds and maybe reduce damage a bit too. IMO, UA should be used for avoidance and sustained damage rather than burst damage.

Sword OH
4. Duelist’s Preparation – I would like to see a cooldown reduction here. I would prefer a 8 sec cd and 1 sec block duration. I agree with Burtnik’s Shackling Wave changes, but would also like to increase the range to 600, so that it can be used as a gap closer.
5. I agree with Burtnik’s changes here (ranged pull). Cooldown should also be reduced to 12 seconds.

Hammer
2. Coalescence of Ruin – I don’t think Burtnik’s changes are needed here – the skill is fine as is, IMO. Cruel Repercussion is the major problem here. I do agree with increasing the energy cost to 10.
3. Phase Smash – I agree with Burtnik’s changes here.
4. Field of the Mists – I agree with Burtnik’s changes here.
5. Drop the Hammer – I agree with Burtnik’s changes here.

Staff
1. Auto-attack – I agree with Burtnik’s changes here. Healing orbs are an interesting idea, but very cumbersome in practice.
2. Punishing sweep. I don’t think this needs to be removed, as Burtnik suggests. I would like to see the cast time significantly reduced (e.g. to 1/4 second). Debilitating Slam could also use an increased daze duration (e.g. 2 seconds), since the energy cost is very high and it is a conditional (flip-over) skill. I would like to see staff become a defensive AoE weapon, and this would help immensely.
3. Warding Rift – I agree with Burtnik’s changes here (increased energy cost).
4. Renewing Wave – I agree with some of Burtnik’s changes here. I would reduce the cooldown even more – to 8 or 10 seconds, but leave the cast time as-is. The long cast requires that the Revenant create an opening to use the skill, which promotes tactical use rather than ‘use on cooldown’ behavior.
5. Surge of the Mists – I prefer the current camera targeting and would not change, as Burtnik recommends. I think the cooldown should be reduced to 10-12 seconds and the damage reduced by 25-50%. This should be an AoE CC ability, IMO, and not a burst damage skill.

Mace MH – I do not see any need for changes here.

Shield OH
4. Envoy of Exuberance – I agree with Burtnik’s changes mostly, but would decrease cd to 10 seconds and would not increase projectile speed, but the radius could be increased to 300 or 360.
5. Crystal Hibernation – I would not make this a mobile block or decrease the healing – we already have two weapon options for a standard mobile block. I would increase the energy cost to 25 or 30 but decrease the cooldown to 12 or 15 seconds.

nearlight.3064:

claytonmorby.3751:

So are we talking about tactical depth or mechanical skill? Because they are two very different things. GW1 still had people using the best skills available.

Yes GW2 has several low cd skills that could be called “spam able” but they are low impact that add up in combination with each other. Skills like search and reduce, chilled to the bone, slick shoes, wash the pain away are all very high impact skills that can turn the tide of the fight.

Do things need to be balanced? Of course, no pvp game had perfect balance. But it’s not completely braindead, you have to have quick reaction time and knowledge of other classes.

Mechanical skill and tactical depth are very different. To me mechanical skill is all basically being able to juggle those cooldowns in the best way, especially when it comes to stomping, rezzing, or holding a point. Tactical depth is about making moment-to-moment decisions that greatly influence the outcome of a fight. The “high impact” skills you mentioned do have the power to turn a fight, but they are all for the most part AoE CC or AoE support abilities that you simply use when you lock someone down or want to save someone whose dying or down, and honestly they’re just cooldowns that you have to choose when to use. You don’t pay anything for the high impact skill. In fact, the highest risk, highest reward builds are the worst in this game because its fundamentally designed to favor low risk, high reward gameplay, where almost nothing has a cost other than time. and if you manage that time correctly you’ll be able to succeed.

Maybe the AoE is the big problem here. But it could also be the pace of the game. This has to be probably the first MMO where a 1 second cast time is considered almost unbearably long. The best skills are instant or have a very short cast time, so they become set-and-forget.

I don’t think the fact that many skills are AoE instead of single-target makes the game more spammy. AoE’s are used for positional control. Certainly AoE are most spammy when used in conquest maps, but only when that AoE covers most of a capture point, and many AoEs are not the conventional large circle that everyone likes to mention. One could argue that, with some exceptions, single-target is more braindead because you don’t have to worry about where your target is or where your target wants to be. Just hit tab and fire away.

I certainly agree with the low risk you mention. I think GW2 does a lot of things right, but one thing it really needs some improvement on is resource management in combat (e.g. tactical decision-making as we are talking about). There is relatively little cost to using a skill because all skills are governed solely by independent cooldowns. Thief and Revenant are a bit better about this, but even those two are still largely regulated by cooldowns. There is no long term resource management in GW2, so wearing down an opponent over time is not possible in most circumstances. Instead, players try their burst combo, and if it fails, they use their evades/blocks/invulns to buy time until burst cooldowns are up and then try again. Fights can last for minutes and go nowhere because there is no attrition in long battles. It’s really just a test of who can execute their kill combo or defense repeatedly without making a mistake. While this does indeed take focus and skill, it is not particularly tactical.

FYI, you can also use Jalis with Devastation traitline for good self-healing. Vengeful Hammer hits will apply vulnerability and thus life siphon to foes they hit, while also providing -20% damage and condi. damage to you. The more foes you hit with hammers, and the more life leech procs – you will love minion Necros.

Note, however, that this healing does not scale with healing power.

I was previously opposed to the energy gain on legend swapping, but it does offer one thing that Revenants really need. It is an emergency button which can be used while stunned, instant cast. It puts us at 50 energy and can be traited to break stuns, remove a condition, and do damage or healing. Even if not traited to break stuns, I can swap into Shiro, Jalis, or Glint and then instantly stun break with my new energy.

I would rather see some balance changes to the current system. Right now it’s almost always best to spend all your energy then swap to get +50 energy. There are some traits in Invocation that reward keeping high energy, but they are not simply potent enough compared to the advantage of the alternative behavior of spending energy on potent skills then swapping. We could adjust this several ways:

-change the amount of energy normalization on legend swapping (e.g. to 40 energy – of course this would be a nerf and would need to be compensated somewhere else)

-change from an energy normalization to an energy gain (e.g. you always gain 25 energy when swapping legends)

-rework weak Invocation traits to better reward swapping at or maintaining high energy (>50)

I had infact designed my Revenant armor to look samurai-esque.

Armor is:
Oaken Helm (Sylvari only)
Priory shoulders
Whispers Coat, gloves, and boots
Guild defender legs

I don’t have a good weapon skin though.