Guild Wars 2

Adamantium.3682:

I’m going to provide a little pre BWE3 feedback since we won’t have any environment to test out changes before HOT launches.

Hammer:
Awesome! Great job Irenio, seriously. The hammer looks fun and worth using. For an Engineer having a weapon that doesn’t take a back seat to our utilities is a new concept. I hope that I am not wrong, but I see myself using hammer a lot and not just for the big skills before I switch back to a kit like we all do with rifle/pistols. Kudos.

Traits:
I think these look good overall. There are some meaningful choices to be made, and they really seem to change how your build works depending on which way you go. There are 3 pretty distinct and consistent themes in the traits that you can choose, stability, super speed, or tank. I would have prefered to see something a little more varied than stability and tank, something that you could choose for more damage maybe. Before I get my hands on it to play that’s a minor complaint because I do think the trait line is set up well.

Specific thoughts on some traits:
Minors are okay but I am strongly against the 30s cooldown on the function gyro right now. It’s the change to the profession mechanic (and by far the most niche of all the elite specs IMO) and if we have to revive 2 allies we can only use it on one of them? I really would like to see this play in BWE3 with no cooldown and see how that feels. I believe Decisive Renown should be an Adept or merged with the first minor trait, it is a very niche trait. I am currently buying into the whole functional gyro thing right now (even though we haven’t seen it… -.-) but additional effects on revives should be a choice, I don’t want that to take up a slot for something else that should be baseline instead. Like… Shocking Speed. Maybe just swap the two. OH! Super Speed duration should totally be a minor. Totally. 33% or something. This is the solution Irenio. Search your feelings, you know it to be true.

Adepts are great, I like the choice here and I like that you’re starting on the path of some consistently themed choices. Aside from the swap between Decisive Renown and Shocking Speed I have no issues with the Adepts.

Masters look great as well Rapid Regeneration and Mass Momentum are some serious competitors. Expert Examination would be great for a tank.

Grandmasters that are meaningful! Big kudos for that Irenio, I feel that some of the elite specs have really dropped the ball on this one but not the Scrapper. I have one thing that I think needs to change here, and it’s a cooldown reduction to the hammer trait. That’s not just because there’s a hammer trait anyways, or that most weapons have them. It’s because we can’t weapon swap and kits are already so invasive to every Engineer build that if we’re going into Scrapper and choosing the GM trait just for the hammer, it should make us much less reliant on kits by letting us use hammer skills more often. That’s my $.02 on the matter. I’ve seen a lot of suggestions to add a cooldown here, but I think there’s a really good reason for it not just “well it’s the hammer trait”. Let us use the hammer and not be forced back into kits.

Gyros:
Okay Irenio I’ve given you a lot of props so far and I’m going to continue to be honest… I’m willing to give the Gyros a fair try in BWE3 but I am really skeptical on the health bar. I feel that nothing has been learned from turrets which is very disappointing. You said in the POI they had large health pools, but judging from the numbers they were taking and how far their health was going down that’s just not true. Start with doubling the health pools, but even then they’re toast in WvW or boss level PvE. Ideally they would be invulnerable and we could test how that looks, and I really would like to try that direction, but with only one BWE to test in I’m not sure you want to do something that drastic. As the next best thing I think they should receive all control effects and conditions but be immune to direct damage, basically Endure Pain. Sure in PvP that’s an advantage to condi users, but it’s not spike damage which is the real issue with turrets and it looks like it will be with these as well. With this approach instead enemies can still CC them, blind them, slow them, even kill them with the damaging conditions, but they won’t be smashed to bits in 1 second from Hundred Blades or something like that. This proposed change may not even need an increase to their health pool depending on how it tested in BWE3. Also recharge should start on skill use! We’re really right back into turret territory with these effective 30-50s cooldowns. Not cool man, not cool.

Medic Gyro. There’s already a ton of feedback about how this skill just isn’t going to work. A utility that pulses a heal every 3 seconds would be great. A heal skill that pulses every 3s is terrible. Up the initial heal to at least 4k, up the pulse to 1 second intervals. Lower pulse to ~500 if necessary. Maybe just turn it into a Troll Unguent like effect in AOE, stronger for us though of course since it’s our actual heal skill. Maybe add retaliation. I like the toolbelt, good job there.

Bulwark Gyro. Honestly provided gyros don’t die instantly to direct damage like turrets this one looks like the best of the bunch. Love the effect, love the toolbelt. From the POI we’re guessing about 12-15k health? That’s not even close to enough even if they could be made immune to direct damage. Let’s say 15k, using it in a party where everyone is taking damage means each player has 3k damage reduced before this thing dies. That doesn’t seem very meaningful to me. That’s a crit of an auto attack.

Blast Gyro. Maybe the worst one. Maybe. We guess that you had Rabid gear in the POI if so I’m willing to at least see the damage this guy does, but it seems incredibly underwhelming. The toolbelt seems boring. I would like this to be our source of “long” Super Speed (I know due to the nature of the effect it can’t be like Swiftness). 3s is what we’re getting from blast and leap finishers through traits plus all the cool stuff those blasts and leaps do. If we have this as a 30s cooldown that only works in bomb radius for our allies with no other effects, I want to see at least 5s here.

Shredder Gyro I will again have to go with the caveat of “If This Thing Doesn’t Die Immediately Like Turrets”… (ITTDDILT might become my new short hand). Even more applicable to this guy than any other Gyro because you’re always dropping him right on the enemy. Lots of people are excited for this guy. If I’m understanding right he does a whirl finisher every 1/2 second? If so then I can see how he’s worth using, because it sure as heck isn’t for the damage… that’s laughable! I’m not even sure why the damage is there at that amount, maybe it can proc our on hit effects? Toolbelt damage looks really bad and cooldown a bit long, these are things I want to try before suggesting anything though.

Purge Gyro Okay so ITTDDILT… this one had me the most excited and honestly you delivered with the condition removal part of it (I was worried for something like 1 removed every 20s). But that’s all it does you say? Exactly! This is not worthy of standing on its own. I don’t really want to see it attached to the Medic Gyro though because then we just have another Healing Turret situation. If the heal with purge gyro capability out healed and out cleansed the turret, everyone uses it. If not, no one uses it. Let’s not go down that road, let’s make this skill stand on its own. I would rather see this little guy buffed. I’m not sure how to be honest. How about a 3s Resistance boon on the Engi if there are no valid targets with conditions when the pulse comes? Still would be underwhelming though. Retaliation? Super Speed!? I don’t know but this guy really needs something. Maybe he feeds you an elixir to cure those conditions, so you can get all the benefits of those traits? Meh. I don’t know this is a tough one. Toolbelt? Meh. It’s alright I guess, I’m not that excited about it.

Sneak Gyro. Alright so yeah you can see the Sneak Gyro when it stealths us. I want to play with it to provide more accurate feedback. It’s a neat idea. I can see it being really balanced because of this, or just not worth using. I’m thinking the place where I’m going to land is that the gyro should not aggro NPCs. I get the whole visible cloak thing for counterplay, and I get we have to stay close for stealth, but I’m not sure I’m going to like getting into combat when I try to run by stuff. The Thief can already SR + blast through any dungeon mobs that people want to skip so it’s not like we’re breaking things there. The toolbelt rocks, good job there.

Thanks Irenio! By and large you’ve delivered on this elite spec. Let’s whip these Gyros into shape so we don’t have to say “yeah but…. the gyros”. Scrapper hammer is darn near perfect and the traits are really fun looking. Can’t wait to play BWE3 and for you to start interacting with us here!

I initially felt the same about the Medic Gyro, but my impression now, after having more time to think about it, is that the functionality might not be too bad. It’s just the numbers that need to be changed. I would like to see it turn into a sustained heal mechanism (e.g. keep the initial heal where it is but maybe double the pulse heal). This sounds sort of extreme (1.6k party ally healing every 3 sec?), but it’s cooldown is long, doesn’t start until it’s destroyed, and it rewards you for keeping it alive for a long time (the opposite functionality of healing turret). And if it’s destroyed early, you get very little out of it. So the reward would be proportional to the risk.

I do agree with you regarding Purge Gyro. Engi’s were already not taking Elixir C because it wasn’t worth the utility slot, so I don’t think an Elixir C in gyro form is going to be very popular either. The toolbelt poison field is probably okay, but not enough to warrant spending a utility slot on a Purge Bot when we could slot a kit or a stunbreak.

Frightlight.3796:

Was the guy testing the scrapper in rabid gear ? because even with rabid it still had a few hard hits

I think he was. His condi ticks were pretty strong (a little over 100 per bleed stack, I think, which would work out to around 1400 or so condi damage). The hammer damage numbers were pretty low, so I hope it’s because he was using rabid or other condi amulet.

I agree with much of this. The hammer sounds really cool. Sustained direct damage melee weapon is very welcome on Engi, and all of the hammer skills seem to work with this. It has defense, mobility, and CC all in one.

I agree that Gyros are probably not great. Utility slots are very valuable to Engi’s since we have toolbelt skills and don’t have weapon swap, and most Gyro’s are very situational. Combined with the fact that their cooldowns are longish (25-30 seconds) and don’t start until the Gyro is destroyed, and I would be very hesitant to use even one of them (in PvP and WvW, the game modes I play). And Medic Gyro seems exceptionally bad, not just in comparison to Healing Turret (probably the best heal in the game), but also in comparison to every other Engi heal. Even the toolbelts for Gyros are mostly situational and also have long-ish cooldowns.

Stealth Gyro is an exception though – that one sounds awesome.

Overall I look forward to Scrapper, but it does sound like the Gyros themselves need some work to be worth a utility slot.

Most of these changes sound really good and needed.

I’m also not too happy about Mallyx though. These changes do a couple of things that I don’t like:

-Pigeon-hole Mallyx even more as a ‘condi-only’ legend due to the removal of utility and addition of outgoing damaging conditions
-remove mobility, leaving Shiro as the sole source of in-combat mobility available to the Revenant, by putting a 10 sec cd on Unyielding Anguish
-remove the interesting tactical choices by re-balancing the heal and the elite.

I’ll go through each change to Mallyx and explain my thoughts:

Empowering Misery – This skill used to be able to heal anywhere from about 3500 to 12,000, when smartly used. This punished players for using it at a bad time and rewarded them for using it at a good time. With increased weighting on the base heal and decreased weighting on the bonus heal per condition, this skill will be a lot less skillful. I do not like this change.

Banish Enchantment – This suffers from the same general loss in Mallyx’s role as a high-risk high-reward playstyle by accumulating conditions and using them to empower yourself. This role is now gone, and Banish Enchantment suffers for it.

Unyielding Anguish – I completely understand why displacement had to go. However, Unyielding Anguish is now primarily an AoE condition damage skill and offers neither the protection it used to (due to the lack of displacement) or the mobility it used to (due to the 10 second cooldown). I do not advocate for putting the displacement back in, but I do really think the cooldown needs to go. A perma-chill field is not really OP when it costs 35 energy each time and leaves the Rev vulnerable, unlike the displacing version.

Embrace the Darkness – This skill is now primarily useful for condition damage – the 10% stat boost alone is probably not worth it (in PvP / WvW) for the hefty cost of -8 energy. Again, this means that only condition damage builds will find much use for Mallyx, and even moreso, all condition damage builds may require Mallyx. I don’t think this is a good idea. I do not have any recommendations to improve this skill at the moment, but I think it needs versatility and value for something other than condition damage.

Rodrigo.1486:

Drones will more likely be like Mesmer mantras. Charge them up – 3 drones appear. Click the button again one blows up for some effect. Probably traited to heal on explosion like the original healing bombs. Or maybe traited to be blast finishers or both

I really like Mantras, but I really hate Mesmer. So this would be cool. But how would they manage multiple charged mantras (drones) at once? If I charged three mantras and each mantra had three charges … would I have nine drones flying around me?

Nice review and another great video, thanks for sharing.

I also played Rev all beta weekend (mostly hotjoin) and I hate to agree with you about Phase Traversal. It’s a lot of fun, but there is nothing else in the game that even comes close to the mobility you get with this skill. If you equip Shiro, it is impossible for another player to escape from you…

I do agree with Malchior about Jalis taunt – this is really expensive, and when it gets blinded or blocked, it really ruins your day. I think a simple reduction in energy would go a long way with this. Perhaps 35 or 40 energy to cast.

I also agree about Unrelenting Assault needing some tweaking, but this is a well-known topic and I’ve already present my thoughts on that elsewhere.

Anyways, thanks for sharing another Rev video.

Misguided.5139:

fluidmonolith.3584:

I agree that the damage should not be reduced. Another recommendation I have heard from others is to reduce the total cast time of the skill. This would make it more bursty, but would also decrease the Rev’s evasion time and (importantly in 1v1), increase the fraction of the damage avoided by using a single dodge. This would encourage the Rev to bait out dodges before using UA and would reward opponents for saving endurance to dodge UA.

appreciate the thoughtful input. This seems like an interesting option.

My only concern is that if UA were sped up by default, then using it with quickness (e.g with Impossible Odds is toggled on) would probably be nuts. But it would also cost a lot of energy (Impossible Odds has a 10 energy activation cost) and would almost completely eliminate the evasion time of UA.

I agree that the damage should not be reduced. Another recommendation I have heard from others is to reduce the total cast time of the skill. This would make it more bursty, but would also decrease the Rev’s evasion time and (importantly in 1v1), increase the fraction of the damage avoided by using a single dodge. This would encourage the Rev to bait out dodges before using UA and would reward opponents for saving endurance to dodge UA.

Misguided.5139:

Kronos.2560:

He is correct. The hammers double/triple siphon per hit. It’s a fantastic tank build, if only the hammers didn’t randomly disappear when they hit anything cept mobs…

Clarify please. I tried applying vulnerability and couldn’t find indication that either of the siphons from devastation were working. We’re you looking on screen or in the log?

Yeah, I don’t see it in the combat log either, but in heart of the mists on target golems it certainly seems to be triggering life siphoning. Vengeful hammers with about 2k power is hitting for about 97-98 on heavy golem. When I trait Devastation, the golem starts getting vuln stacks and the damage instantly jumps up to 104 or more (7% damage bonus against vuln targets). I also see damage numbers of 63 pop up, which is the listed siphon health damage in the Devastation tooltip. These hits are occurring once per hammer strike. But it’s not showing up in the combat log.

Misguided.5139:

fluidmonolith.3584:

the new hammers are very helpful at providing tankiness and, when paired with devastation, they trigger life siphoning on vulnerable foes which almost doubles their damage output…

I can’t find any evidence of this in the combat log (is neither the damage nor the heal listed?). You sure you weren’t seeing the healing the hammers provide now?

My bad, I have always been running Devastation, so I have have been misinterpreting the hammers’ base heal and damage for life siphon, since the numbers are similar. I’ll check it out later tonight in more detail and see what I can find, but you are probably correct.

I agree with many of these points. I do have a few disagreements, below:

I found Maniacal Persistence a useful alternative to Rolling Mists if you don’t want to go into Invocation.

I like the current implementation of Dismantle Fortifications. I have been using it with Momentary Pacification which, in theory , strips a lot of stability. I haven’t been happy with Momentary Pacification though. Many of our elites have a long cast time, and I’ve noticed the application of the daze is delayed even more, by around half a second or so after the elite cast finished. And, of course half of our elites are CCs better than daze, so Momentary Pacification is useless in many cases, except for stripping stability.

I don’t think that Charged Mists is necessarily bad, but it doesn’t seem worthy of a GM trait, and neither of the Invocation GM traits seem to compete with Rolling Mists.

I forgot to add my thoughts on Shield, but there is already a lot of discussion about Shield#5 being a suicide move. I think Shield #5 either needs to allow movement while channeling, or remove the break bar and give complete full invulnerability. I don’t like the break bar as-is, it seems impossible to balance: either it will be nearly unbreakable 1v1 or it will be trivially easy to break when focused (e.g. in WvW).

King xiuras.3615:

Imo hammer skill 1 can be faster. It really feels too slow vs a D/D ele or D/P thief. Theyre even fighting faster than a revenant.

I don’t think Hammer is meant to be used in close range against mobile opponents. Before ANet added weapon swap I would have agreed, but now we can just swap weapons when forced into close range against these opponents.

Here is my review of Revenant weapon skills from BWE2. I primarily played PvP, and this review will only cover weapon skills.

Staff
I really enjoyed the staff. It provides good sustain and CC as an alternative to the aggressive direct damage of Sword. It has more trouble with gap closing on mobile targets than Sword, but I think that is an intentional limitation of the weapon. Pairing Staff with Shiro can overcome this.
AA – seems solid, no complaints here
skill 2 – I like the effect and it fits with the defensive nature of the staff, but this skill is a little slow. It’s pretty hard to hit enemy players, especially since Rev has so few cripples/chills/immobilizes. I basically use it and hope I’ll get lucky that the opponent is still in melee range when it goes off. I think both skills could be reduced by about 1/4 second (to 1/2 sec. for the first skill and 3/4 sec for the flip-over skill).
skill 3 – Great defensive addition, no complaint here
skill 4 – As others have mentioned, self-root really hurts this. I don’t mind that it’s unusable while moving, but I think the cast time could be reduced to 3/4 sec. to compensate. The energy cost, I think, is also a bit high.
skill 5 – Great. The cooldown is a little high IMO, especially compared to other phase traversal weapon skills. E.g. Sword #3 provides about 2 seconds of evasion on a 10 second cooldown, while the staff, which is supposed to be the defensive weapon, only provides 1 second of evasion on a 20 second cooldown. I think a 15 second cooldown would be more appropriate.

Sword
I think sword is mostly in a good place. It provides good mobility, evasion, and damage.
AA – No problems with this
skill 2 – The increased chill duration and damage really helped this out. Could perhaps be increased to 600 range, but I don’t think it’s absolutely necessary
skill 3 – Probably too powerful now, IMO. It does good damage (against a single target) and provides a long duration evade on a short cooldown. Compiling a list of potential changes I have heard from others and come up with myself to resolve this: (1) increase cooldown to 15 seconds; this makes the Rev think a little more about when to use Sword#3, rather than just getting great damage and evasion every 10 seconds; (2) increase energy cost to 20, with the same rationale as option 1; (3) back load the damage by reducing the first 6 hits and increasing the damage to the primary target on the last hit. This gives opponents more opportunity to mitigate damage by focusing on avoiding the last hit (adds counterplay), and increases the Rev’s damage to the primary target when there are lots of targets around. I don’t think all of these should be implemented, but one or two of them would put Sword #3 in a good place, IMO.
skill 4 – great, no complaints here.
skill 5 – still bugged at times. Maybe a short leap (e.g. 300 range) to help connect Rev with their target for the first hit would help.

Hammer
Hammer is really strong. I found it fairly passive and boring to use, and there are a few difficulties with some skills. But I think effectiveness is just fine.
AA – No problems here. It’s intentionally slow and hard hitting
skill 2 – I have a problem with this skill. Back in BWE1, Hammer#2 did less damage than AA except at maximum range. Now it does more damage than AA at all ranges. On a 5 energy cost with 2 second cooldown. This means your damage will be best if you use Hammer#2 on cooldown, which is not particularly thoughtful. I think the damage needs to be adjusted so that it’s only better than AA at max range, as it previously was. Or, alternatively, make it cost more energy (e.g. 10 energy). The cooldown can be increased a little, but I do like the short cooldowns on Rev, so I don’t think this would be the best method.
skill 3 – The evade frames really helped this out and gave Hammer some defensive capabilities. There are some instances (e.g. elevation changes, or gaps between Rev and target area) such that you can select a target area (green targeting circle appears) and execute the skill, but the Rev will not actually travel to the destination and do damage.
skill 4 – Works great
skill 5 – Works mostly fine. I think the cast time could be reduced a little bit. It should have a long cast, but 1 3/4 sec is probably a bit much – perhaps 1 1/4 sec is better.

Mace
I found condition damage (atleast in PvP) to be a bit over the top. I can’t determine yet whether this is a result of the Mace directly or the Mace when paired with Mallyx and Corruption traitline. I would also like to see some hybrid options for Rev, but Mace is the only weapon with condition damage, and it has very poor power scaling.
AA – Seems fine
skill 2 – I think the energy cost could be increased a bit (e.g. to 10) so it’s not so mindless to simply maintain a permanent fire field.
skill 3 – No problems here

Axe
This is a solid OH weapon.
skill 4 – Solid mobility, helps save energy when using Shiro (don’t need to use Phase Traversal as much) and provides a gap closer when not using Shiro.
skill 5 – Ineffective when there is non-uniform elevation. Can this skill be changed to travel along the ground rather than staying at the caster’s elevation? Alternatively, the vertical range of the pull could be increased.

Invictus.1503:

fluidmonolith.3584:

It appears the game limits you to -10 energy/sec upkeep at the most (-5 pips). The interface isn’t designed to show energy drain at a rate faster than this, so perhaps ANet decided to prevent you from having more than -5 pips at once. I don’t know if this was intentional or not.

This, though I’d like to see Impossible Odds have one less pip of energy drain so it can be used with Facet of Nature.

Facet of Nature has -2 pips, so Impossible Odds would need to be brought to -8. Or brought to -9 and Nature brought down to -1. Unless, of course, this limitation is just a bug and not intentional by ANet.

I agree. It’s great survivability, but if you compare to Warrior’s Defiant Stance, the Glint heal is better in every way.

Because it is instant cast, I have been able to frequently use this while being mobbed (just by 2-3 people in PvP) and still end up with full health at the end. It’s not always l2p on the part of my enemies either – someone may lay down AoE fields or load me up with conditions and then they can’t stop the healing even if they wanted to. This skill would be even more nuts in WvW. I think it really just needs a cast time similar to other heals, then it will be fine.

It appears the game limits you to -10 energy/sec upkeep at the most (-5 pips). The interface isn’t designed to show energy drain at a rate faster than this, so perhaps ANet decided to prevent you from having more than -5 pips at once. I don’t know if this was intentional or not.

JoshuaRAWR.4653:

Energy cost on weapon skills needs to remain simply because of the way Facets work on the Herald now.

BUT, and this is a pretty big but. The energy cost on said weapon skills is way too high, they should be things like 5 to 8 energy, but some of them cost 15+, it’s a bit ridiculous.

There is an unusual disparity in energy costs between weapons.
Mace and hammer are super cheap. Sword and axe are in the middle. Staff is really expensive.

ronpierce.2760:

YuiRS.8129:

The same way you counter Rapid Fire. You double dodge or use invulns/blocks. It’s also considerably weaker if there are any allies near you.

To be fair you can also interrupt or missile block/reflect Rapid Fire, which is pretty often the way you avoid it. Significant difference.

Assault is a rough skill to balance… Unlike blurred frenzy or Pistol whip you can’t just move, but because it travels, having it without an evade is also problematic.

Chances are the best balance route would be to make sure the dmg is higher than Auto-attack so it can be used rotationally and bump the CD.

I haven’t played enough yet to know if Sword 3 is OP. But if it is, I would not be in favor of increasing the cooldown (much). I also agree that removing the evasion would make it much too risky, as it was in BWE1. I think the best balance would be to maybe increase the energy cost slightly (e.g. to 20 energy). This would mean the Revenant has to think a little bit more about using it tactically rather than just expecting a free high damage burst plus evade every 10 seconds.

Kidel.2057:

fluidmonolith.3584:

I don’t mind that the skill roots you because it seems thematically fitting – IF, that is, it can be balanced around the self-root.

theme =/= gameplay.
Shield is an elite spec weapon. It needs to be useful before fitting.

I certainly agree. I think it’s important that Shield 5 provide usefulness to the Revenant as an emergency button, but also that the opponent (in PvP/WvW) has access to counterplay.

If Shield 5 remains unusable while moving, I think that is a good justification to make it provide complete invulnerability (no break bar). In this case the counterplay is the opponent readying actions for when the channel ends (and the Revenant responding to this as well).
If Shield 5 is usable while moving, I think it needs to retain the break bar, otherwise it is probably too strong (short cooldown, decent self-heal, and complete invulnerability). I don’t like the break bar personally because it seems impossible to balance between the game modes (PvE, PvP, and WvW). So that’s why I prefer Shield 5 remain unusable while moving. But in any case, I do agree that it needs some changes.

I haven’t had problems with energy with Glint. It’s tempting, of course, to try to maintain perma might and fury, but the Facet actives (e.g. strength and elements) are really good, and I use them frequently to help with damage. I also try not to keep facet of light passive on unless my build has lots of healing power. This is coming from a PvP perspective, I can’t speak about PvE.

I don’t mind that the skill roots you because it seems thematically fitting – IF, that is, it can be balanced around the self-root.

Atleast in PvP/WvW scenarios, the self-root means that opponents can anticipate and prepare burst against the Rev for when the skill ends. And the defiance bar would probably be difficult to balance – either it will be unbreakable in 1v1 or trivially easy to break in zerg vs. zerg (WvW).

Because of this I agree with JoshuaRAWR, that the defiance bar should be removed and the skill make you completely invulnerable.

Alternatively, the break bar could maybe be kept if movement is allowed while channeling, but I feel this would not be as fitting for the intended aesthetic of the skill (though balance must always come before aesthetics).

I like the Glint skills for the most part, so far. I have mostly been playing PvP and found good use for both the actives and the passives. I would generally run light and elements passives before entering combat, to build up buffs, and then use the actives for burst at the start of combat.

Facet of light passive I generally found to be not worth it unless your build has some investment in healing power. But that’s okay. Active is great, but maybe OP if we compare to Warrior’s Defiant Stance…

Facet of Darkness passive is great when paired with Invocation’s fury bonuses, but I wouldn’t necessarily maintain it permanently otherwise. Of course, the active is great too.

Facet of Strength passive seemed fine to me, and the active is really good at setting up burst. The active cooldown is sufficiently low that you can use it when you need it.

Facet of Elements is fine too, I think. Also due to the low cooldown on the active, it doesn’t feel overly-punishing to use it.

Facet of Chaos passive I will agree seems expensive. But then again, it is instant-cast AoE protection, so I think the cost is justified. It shouldn’t be maintained permanently. On the other hand, the active has such a long cooldown that it feels punishing to use the passive at all, since it won’t be available again for such a long time after using the active. I don’t think the active is so powerful as to warrant a 45 second cooldown. I think the cast time could also be reduced a bit too.

I didn’t check yet – if I turn on the Facet of Chaos passive and then legend swap, then legend swap back to Glint again, will Facet of Chaos be off cooldown? This would lower the 45 second cooldown to just 10 seconds if you can turn it off without cooldown by swapping legends rather than using the active.

I have been playing mostly PvP and have found the following about Jalis, in my opinion:

-taunt is useful when dealing with a ranged opponent if you don’t have Shiro or hammer equipped, but still very costly. I think reducing it to 40 energy would be a good start
-elite is often not worth it. Even if you break stun, you’re vulnerable for more than 1 sec while you cast, and the resulting damage reduction provides no protection from conditions or CCs. I found the elite to have very limited uses.
-agree with the hammers bug (collision with walls), though the new hammers are very helpful at providing tankiness and, when paired with devastation, they trigger life siphoning on vulnerable foes which almost doubles their damage output…
-Inspiring reinforcement seems very slow to put out it’s first application of stability. This coupled with the short duration and the increased energy cost means I generally only used it to secure a stomp. It has been generally worthless anytime that I am moving.
-

Treetoptrickster.4205:

Hooglese.4860:

Momentary Pacification: daze when you use an elite skill (10s CD). Good trait, not in the right place. Why? 3/5 stances do cc already, including ventari. It feels like it should be in retribution or corruption since it doesn’t work with Ventari and doesn’t fit the theme.

I have to disagree with you here. As a pacifist, it makes a lot of sense for Ventari’s favourite trait line to have Daze in it since it’s a pacifying effect. However the problem is that -like you said – you don’t need the Daze with the mostly CC based Revenant Elites. Shiro’s Elite stuns, Daze isn’t necessary here. Jalis’s ult is supposed to make people hit you for less, which will be wasted because they’re not going to be hitting you when they’re Dazed. The same thing goes with Ventari and Glints’ elites. Mallyx doesn’t have that problem though. This trait can stay, but needs to be changed so the Daze is applied after the initial effect. So the Daze will start AFTER the knock back, stun, superprotection. You know, just so you can make use of it. It would probably work the same for Mallyx though.

It sounds like it would be unusual to program Momentary Pacification to daze after the effect ends. For example, this would be a 3 second delay on Jade Winds (3 sec stun), but what would happen if you moved away? Would an AoE daze still erupt from your current or former position three seconds later?

I recall someone recommended in another post that the daze occur at the start of the elite cast rather than the finish. Yes, this means you would have an instant-cast AoE daze (10 sec ICD, but maybe it could be increased a bit for balance), that would combo into making Jade Winds, for example, even harder to escape from. It would also give you a great boost in mitigating damage while CC’ed. But it would come at a pretty big cost in an aggressive build because you would need to take the Salvation traitline, which is otherwise completely terrible for aggressive builds. So, I argue that it would not necessarily be OP. What does everyone think?

I agree, I like the Asura T3 armor. But I have an Asura warrior, and I often find the small size and animations harder to see, which is aesthetically less pleasing to me especially for melee. For now I am deciding between male Sylvari and male Norn.

I am heavily leaning towards maining Rev but am currently undecided.

I really like the energy system and staff melee. But thief will also get melee staff, uses an energy-like resource (atleast for weapon skills), and is more mobile (mobility is important to me). But thief is also more aggressive and I prefer defensive builds. I currently main Engi, and I will need to see what their elite spec is too. I am looking forward to melee hammer, but unless it’s really good I will probably switch mains. Even with melee and the elite spec, Engi would still likely be about managing lots of cooldowns, which I do not like as much as energy / initiative.

I am very interested in melee staff, so I will either main Rev or Thief in HoT (current main is Engi, but I want melee and energy/initiative rather than cooldowns). We’ll see how Daredevil looks tomorrow. I like the mobility of thief but the versatility of Revenant, so I can’t decide yet…

skowcia.8257:

Some people missing the point of Mallyx. Mallyx was supposed to manipulate with conditions and feast on them hardcountering anyone that willing touch him with condi, not get wrecked. How can you even manipulate with condi in current state? All you can do is pain absord pain absord pain absord yoo, so much..reminds me i swung a sword..

I swung pain absord, i swung it again..hey it feels great, lets swung it again..

Glad to hear Roy have plans for him. Espesially considering the fact that we do not gain any benefits for few stacks of the same condi of us and that allies can “nerf” us.Too bad all that stuff is not in current beta making feedback a bit..pointless?

But Rev can already hard-counter conditions with Pain Absorb + Demonic Defiance. It’s not particularly fun for us, since it drains all our energy so we can’t do anything else. It’s probably also not fun for any condi build attacking us without boon removal since there’s nothing they can do about it.

I agree that changes are needed, but I don’t expect that the incoming changes will necessarily be buffs. I expect Roy will probably balance it so that we aren’t energy-locked to maintain resistance, but also that we won’t be able to maintain 100% uptime on resistance anymore either.

I’m going to go with Recursivision on this one – it’s not that Mallyx is too weak without Demonic Defiance, it’s that it’s very strong with it.

Mallyx may be poor at handling conditions without Demonic Defiance, but Shiro and Glint are even worse at dealing with conditions. If it’s okay for Shiro and Glint to be bad with conditions by default, then why is this not the case for Mallyx? I don’t mind that Pain Absorption can result in self-kill because this can be mitigated by being selective about using it.

I really like Demonic Defiance, and I prefer that it be a deliberate choice to take it (e.g. as a major trait) requiring that we sacrifice something else, that way it can stay strong and won’t get nerfed.

This is just my opinion, though, and I do agree that this is an important topic that should be discussed.

draxynnic.3719:

Stinja.9612:

At the very least Resistance should pulse while in embrace the dark to make the trait less mandatory.

That would make Embrace the Darkness a LOT more powerful than it currently is…

I think Replenishing Despair might be what’s intended to offset the conditions you want to collect while running Embrace the Darkness. Of course, that’s competing against Demonic Defiance, which is probably the better choice as it also lets you ignore the debilitating conditions you give to yourself with the other Legendary Demon Stance skills.

I agree, Replenishing Despair and Demonic Defiance in general aim to do the same thing, but Demonic Defiance is much better at it. These two should not be on the same tier.

I personally think that Demonic Defiance is too powerful to be made baseline, I think it needs to remain a Corruption trait. I still propose the trait be a Major Grandmaster, because that gives us the option of choosing to build for maximum condition damage (Diabolic Inferno) or condition tanking (Demonic Defiance) … or whatever the third GM would be.

I have heard claims to make it a minor trait, and this works too, but I don’t think it’s quite as optimal. As a minor trait, it would make Corruption too mandatory for any build running Mallyx, and would also give condi damage builds free condition tanking that I’m not sure is needed.

I would like to see Demonic Defiance be a grandmaster trait and the other grandmasters made sufficiently strong so that there is actually a choice for grandmaster slot.

Demonic Defiance for condition tanking
Maniacal Persistence for direct damage (but needs to be made good)
Diabolic Inferno for condition damage.

Pulsating Pestilence does not seem that good, and could probably move to Adept to replace Demonic Defiance.

Would it be better if they delayed the BWE2 by 2 weeks in order to include Ranger and Engi elite specs?

Energy Expulsion needs a shorter cast time. Ventari is full of healing capacity, so the ranged AoE knockback would add some good versatility in the form of CC. But on a 2 sec cast I just don’t see it working well.

And Revenant’s not racist because we are referring to different species, not different races. Perhaps Revenant is a xenophobe.

I think they could remove the superspeed completely – I can’t think of many situations where I want both a knockback and superspeed at the same time and am also willing to wait for a 1.25sec cast in order to get said superspeed. Then they could lower the cooldown a bit too. Though I do agree that cast time is probably too long.

I also don’t understand the concern over losing the protection bonus when using the active. The protection bonus requires upkeep that completely eliminates our energy regen and can’t be toggled on/off at will, so it’s not like we’re giving up free protection to use the active.

Electro.4173:

I guess I’m in the minority that actually rather dislikes the changes.

I mean, sure. Reducing damage fits much better with Jalis’ overall theme of shrugging off hits, if that’s what you consider to be a “tank”. Maybe its just because I play Pokémon, but I personally I feel that “tank” usually means being able to both take damage and dish it out, not just take hits while hitting like a wet noodle (which would be more of a “sponge” to me). And I feel like having the hammers as a DPS option allowed me to actually use more defensive-oriented weapons (namely staff) without being completely terrible at DPS. In fact, Staff + Jalis was one of my favorite weapon / legend combos period. And I feel like I’m not much going to like it now.

Of course, I’ll have to wait to actually play it before I can say for 100% certain or anything, but I don’t have a great feeling about it in any case.

I agree. I found in BWE1 that I could equip staff and cleric gear and still do decent damage by using Vengeful Hammers or Impossible Odds (in Shiro stance). I will also need to wait to see how this change turns out, but so far it may indicate that Jalis has become less versatile and can only tank, whereas before the Vengeful Hammers change he could tank (well, if the skills were appropriately balanced) or dps. I think Rev strongly needs build diversity, and limiting legends to a single role really limits that diversity.

I prefer the camera-aimed skills like this myself, rather than target-aimed skills. It feels very intuitive to me, and it’s possible to aim at one target while another one is targeted, or while you don’t have a target. I would personally prefer that more skills become camera-aimed rather than targeted.

Aiming like whirlwind is okay too, but relying on the mouse cursor does to point the arrow in your intended direction does slow it down slightly.

Axelwarrior.9084:

Jekkt.6045:

blurred frenzy, pistol whip; same kategory of skills. all of them are evades and all of them have the same counter: retaliation.

Those are stationary. Whole different category. Require stuns/immobilize to land, which can be broken/cleansed.

I agree. The only skill check for landing Unrelenting Assault is (a) using it when in range of opponent and (b) not using it when opponent is blocking or otherwise invulnerable. Even if they decide to dodge, Unrelenting Assault is on such a short cooldown that it won’t be that big of a deal.

So I think the evade on Unrelenting Assault was pretty necessary, but the damage buff along with it might make it OP. We’ll see how the next BWE goes, but if it’s too good I think it may need to either have the damage dropped back down to BWE1 levels, or maybe increase the energy cost to 20 so Rev is really making a choice (payment) for this mid-ranged, high damage evasion skill.

I assume we will be able to use the Herald spec without equipping the Glint legend if we want to. For example, spec into Herald but use Mallyx / Shiro as legends, and then we’d only have one facet (the F2, Facet of Nature). What does everyone think?

Another enjoyable video, thanks for sharing!
Looks like you were pretty good with the energy management most of the time. Maybe other weapons need their energy costs brought in line with Mace/Axe. I mostly played staff and it’s pretty expensive at times.

Great video! Good use of Jade Wind too, it’s nice to see 50 energy well spent.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

fluidmonolith.3584:

Don’t forget Momentary Pacification. It’s useless with most elites. The effect occurs at the end of the cast, making it too slow to use with long cast skills like Rite of the Great Dwarf. Jade Wind stuns anyways, so the daze is useless. Energy Expulsion knocks back anyways, so the daze is less useful. And it’s on a long cast time anyways. It’s good with Mallyx I guess, but 1 out of 4 is not very reasonable.

It’s so funny because you’d think this would be an amazing trait. On pretty much any other profession, this could be very strong, and Revenant’s can trigger it more often than anyone. But it’s just ridiculously redundant on most elites.

I think that maybe, just maybe, if it triggered at the beginning of a cast, it would be usable. It would provide a way to reduce damage and interrupts while using Jalis’s craptastic elite, if nothing else. You’d run into the issue of the trait being cancel-“abused,” but that would cost Revenant players 50 energy per cast, and energy management is difficult enough as is.

This is a great idea (trigger at beginning of cast). That would make Jalis elite more usable (in case ANet is just really against decreasing the cast time), and it would also help somewhat with Energy Expulsion and Jade Winds.

The trait has a 10 sec cd, so it wouldn’t be too abusable. Perhaps with Shiro, where you could start to cast Jade Winds and then cancel for a free AoE daze. But even then it’s not really free because you still have to spec into Salvation to get it…

I definitely agree that Revenant is lacking panic buttons. All they really have is legend swap with Invocation traits (stunbreak + single condi removal). This is fairly weak, but it’s also on a short cooldown.

I don’t have a good suggestion for adding panic buttons though. Adding an invulnerability on a long cooldown, for example, doesn’t fit the Revenant theme which is based around energy costs rather than long cooldowns. On the other hand, if it has a large energy cost then it may not be available when you need it, which would make it a poor panic button.

It should be viable to sit in a single Legend most of the time, with the right build. It should also be viable to swap Legends frequently (e.g. for increased energy and for Invocation traitline on-swap effects). I think it is too limiting to claim that Revenant is only meant to be played one way.

This means that it should be possible to use a single Legend and not be energy-starved all the time. At the same time, builds that swap Legends frequently should also be rewarded for it since they are giving up reliable access to the utility skills they want when they want them.

Revenant right now is lacking in build diversity IMO, so it is very important that both playstyles are viable and balanced.

Don’t forget Momentary Pacification. It’s useless with most elites. The effect occurs at the end of the cast, making it too slow to use with long cast skills like Rite of the Great Dwarf. Jade Wind stuns anyways, so the daze is useless. Energy Expulsion knocks back anyways, so the daze is less useful. And it’s on a long cast time anyways. It’s good with Mallyx I guess, but 1 out of 4 is not very reasonable.

Same here. It seems to jump a short range forward and then shadowstep, but the shadowstep component only occurs if you’re in range of your target.

Legends

Shiro
Works as intended. Jade Winds has a good power to energy cost balance. The heal is a little weak as many have said, but I would rather buff the overall healing (e.g. healing per trigger) than the initial healing because it would fit well with the theme and balance well against other heal over time skills (like Troll Unguent). Furthermore, removing the ICD on the heal triggers might cause too much spike damage – though perhaps this is acceptable. Phase Traversal and Riposting Shadows work well, no complaints here. Overall, the application of Shiro seems limited. It can be used for mobility or spamming CC through Jade Wind, and not much else. Fortunately, mobility is useful in many types of builds.

Mallyx
I really like Mallyx. Mallyx skills are multifunctional and can be applied for condition tanking, boon manipulation, condition damage, mobility, and crowd control. As a result, Mallyx can be used in burst builds, condi builds, and bunker builds. Unyielding Anguish, in my opinion, should remove stability rather than ignore it. Ability costs in general seem appropriate for their effect.

Jalis
I want to like Jalis, but most of the abilities are too weak. The heal is uninspiring but useful and effective. Inspiring Reinforcement is great party support through both stability and weakness, and is great for stomps and rezzing. But the cast time and delayed effect make it impossible to use for personal survivability in an emergency. Forced Engagement is very expensive for the effect, I could rarely justify using it. Vengeful Hammers is good, but bugged (disappears during collision with terrain). Rite of the Great Dwarf is not useful. This is, in my opinion, due to the long cast time, the high energy cost, and the poor defensive support – the damage reduction should be supplemented with condition damage reduction by some means and/or CC protection (e.g. stability). There are not many few scenarios where direct damage reduction alone will save people, especially when it has to be cast 2-3 seconds ahead of the damage. Jalis seems like it could be multifunctional with damage, control, and defensive support all in one package, but most of the defensive capacities are locked behind high energy costs and cast times.

Ventari
I did not use Ventari, so I cannot say much. I do have the impression that Ventari has poor versatility. Almost all of the Ventari skills heal and scale well with healing power – as such, Ventari is only really useful in a healing build (outside of the projectile blocking dome). I would like to see Ventari useful for something other than healing. Energy Expulsion could be used for crowd control, for example, if the energy cost and cast time were reduced. Using the tablet is very slow and, like many of the other skills, not functional to save the Revenant in an emergency.

Traits

Devastation
Not much to say here. Everything seem to work generally pretty well and fit with the theme.

Corruption
This traitline seems plagued by indecision about it’s role and old (weak) traits. It has traits which influence crit rate with very little that synergizes with a high crit rate, it has underwhelming traits (like Frigid Precision), and it has traits that are generally ineffective (Maniacal Persistence).
I’ve said this before, but it also has IMO the most fun trait in the Rev’s kitten nal – Demonic Defiance. This trait needs to be Grand Master. It is solely responsible for allowing Rev to be an almost game-breaking bane of all Necromancers everywhere. In my opinion, the grandmaster should allow the Rev to choose between condition tanking with Demonic Defiance, condition damage with Diabolic Inferno, and one other role

Retribution
Not much to say here. Lots of damage reduction. Redeeming Protection is welcome and much needed, due to Rev’s lack of emergency defenses. May need more access to retaliation to make use of Retaliatory Evasion.

Salvation
Like Ventari, this traitline seems fairly ineffective for all but healing builds. Momentary Pacification is a poor grandmaster since it doesn’t work well with most elites: Jalis’ elite doesn’t trigger it until the end of the long cast. Shiro elite stuns enemies anyways. Ventari elite knocks back anyways, so the daze doesn’t add as much (and it also has a long cast time). It’s great with the Mallyx elite but really needs to be compatible with others as well. The control traits (e.g. Disarming Riposte and Blinding Truths) seem like weak effects behind unncesssarily long cooldowns.

Invocation
Not much to say here. Traits focus on fury and damage, legend swapping, and energy balance, with a trait or two dedicated to healing, which seems a little out of place (e.g. Invigorating Flow).

Here is my review of the Revenant from BWE1. I played Rev in a mixture of new HoT content, WvW, and sPVP.

Summary

What was good
+great animations and smooth gameplay, for the most part
+pretty good versatility; Rev can have unique roles not shared by other professions
+energy mechanic gives the “push/pull” feel intended which is refreshing
+high skill ceiling / low skill floor, so there is always more to learn

What was not so good
-build diversity was pretty poor (I main Engi, so perhaps I am biased)
-multi-target dps is pretty poor
-‘emergency’ buttons almost non-existent; hard to respond to anything without pooling energy for it first
-sluggish, due to long cast times and important skills hidden behind legend and weapon swap

Weapons

Sword (main hand and off hand)
Decent single target dps. The autoattack is great at stacking vulnerability (I had no trouble getting close to 25 stacks in 5-10 seconds with the Devastation traits). #2 is underwhelming. I don’t think it necessarily needs a dps increase, but perhaps greater range, or a longer chill, or 1 sec. slow along with chill. #3 has low damage, it could perhaps be increased since the cooldown and energy cost prevent spamming. #4 is very expensive, IMO, energy costs could be reduced. #5 is underwhelming due to bugs and long cast / short range.

Mace
I didn’t use this weapon, so I will not comment on it.

Axe
Great. #4 is responsive and offers thief-like in combat mobility. #5 works as expected.

Staff
I enjoyed staff and find it’s strengths and weaknesses appropriate. Staff does good AoE damage (but not great) with autoattack, #2, and #5. Block on 10sec cooldown is appropriate. Poor ability to chase a moving target and also hard to hit mobile targets with #2, but this is expected for a defensive weapon.

Hammer
I didn’t find hammer very enjoyable, but it was generally functional. The animations are good and timed well with the damage and sound effects. Most attacks are targeted ranged attacks, requiring very little skill to hit with. #3 and #5 are exceptions, but #3 is still slow and doesn’t work on terrain that the Rev cannot walk across (e.g. gaps), making it unusable in many long-ranged environments.

I prefer a mixture of options (3) and (4). I don’t like (1) because if weapons skills are balanced by energy only, they can be spammed and may be nerfed. Also they could compete even more with utilities for our precious energy. I don’t like (2) because the energy cost really separates Revenant from the non-interactive “use all weapon cooldowns and then weapon swap” method that works well for other professions.

I propose a mixture of (3) and (4) because I think that some, but not all weapon skills may be too expensive. For example, the triggered skills (e.g. staff#2 and sword#4) cost 10 or 15 energy for each activation respectively, totalling 20 or 30 energy. This is too much. Many weapon skills cost only 5 or 10 energy and I think this is reasonable. Even 15 energy is fine, IMO, for some skills. Regardless of which method is used, energy costs on all weapon skills and utility skills should be balanced.

I do agree, however, that heal skills do not necessarily need an energy cost. Their use is not regulated by cooldown but by need, so the energy cost is unnecessary with them.

I played with staff and Zerker/Knight gear in WvW and PvP and found it to be decent, but generally not preferable to sword when it comes to damage. Autoattack and #’s 2 and 5 worked well for damage in PvP, especially combined with quickness from Impossible Odds. But it had poor capacity to stay on a target, even with Phase Traversal in Shiro stance. And staff#2 is slow and not very reliable against moving targets. I used it with sigil of frailty and could keep 3-6 stacks of vuln on the target at all times, to take advantage of the devastation traits.

That said, sword/axe maintains much higher vulnerability, has better burst damage against single targets, and can stay on a target much better. Also the faster attacks mean lots of extra damage through life leeching (if you’re using devastation traits).

I did not compare staff to sword/axe in pve, except checking out the new HoT zone, so I can’t say which is better in a PvE environment. So far, without any math, I would say that staff seems decent for multi-target damage, but sword may be better – and sword is almost certainly better for single-target damage.