Guild Wars 2

Misguided.5139:

savacli.8172:

I elected to go with Berserkyrie Trinkets to make help make sure I didn’t go above the 100% crit. In the world of both Warrior banner and Spotter I went over just a bit (.67%). Though that assumes full Ascended trinkets across the board.

Can someone explain this to me, please? Where is the other 15% coming from? Warrior banner is about 8 percent, right? Is the rest assuming a ranger too?

45% base
65% with Fury
85% with Roiling Mists Fury

Banner is just over 8%
Spotter is over 7%

Edit: this assumes level 80. In lower levels berserker may be better due to lower precision:crit ratios. Berserker may also be more worthwhile in high level fractals were mobs exceed lvevl 80 since crit chance takes your targets level as a factor when resolving the percentage.

Edit 2: In instances where you’re fighting mobs level 84 the build I linked would have crit chance of 96.65%. With full Berserker against the same level 84 target crit chance would be 100.68 (both %’s assume banner and spotter). Though crit chance is a bit more important against higher level targets due to glancing potential (not that we run into that issue too often).

Killyox.3950:

There are some builds here which I have thought about myself

Now for a little support twist!

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vlAQNAsemnnN2gSyJvQRNlbosoyPU4U5IKIs8ElFglh9iNKZNgDSw+2dDG-TxxGABA8EAwTJYunCgEV/Jt9HWS5Hb6DIFgf7tA-e

1756 Healing Power

When using healing skill (like Ventari’s Will) You grant & get Protection from Bolster Fortifications as well as 3 stacks of Might + Fury to allies from Runes.

Sigils for healing on hit/swap

Boon duration 15% Herald + 10% Rune + 50% Facet of Nature

Outgoing Healing 10% food, 15% minor, 25% energy above 50, +20% from health above 75%, +20% after invoking a legend for 10s, 26,34% from Selfless Amplification
Total Outgoing Healing: 116,34%

Lots of boons for yourself and allies as well as CC from Herald Elite & Staff.

Lots of Healing, lots of utility, lots of boons and quite decent dmg for a healer/support.

Estimates on properly used skills with these % increases and stats (on allies).

Regeneration ~700 per second
Envoy of Exuberance ~5600
Ventari’s Will ~3000
Natural Harmony 5300
Purifying Essence (not entirely sure if heal on condi remove is affected by outgoing healing but if it is…) 1300 per condi
Energy Expulsion ~3600 per fragment.
Project Tranquility max of ~835 but more likely around 600 on normal every 3 sec

Keep in mind you cannot have all of these up because of how these % work but you can do huge burst heals for very little costs and then have a bit weaker burst heals but still tremendous.

I almost feel like Monk Runes would work a bit better. Facets are already generating a lot of boons so I feel like the Altruism boons won’t get as much mileage. Monk gives the same Healing power but with more healing potential rather than boons distribution.

General PvE Dungeons build

I went with Glint and Mallyx, but otherwise everything has already been mentioned from posts above. I elected to go with Berserkyrie Trinkets to make help make sure I didn’t go above the 100% crit. In the world of both Warrior banner and Spotter I went over just a bit (.67%). Though that assumes full Ascended trinkets across the board.

Primarily goal is to make sure Facet of Nature is up for high boon uptime and toggling other facets as needed. Otherwise aiming for high damage through Active Facet attacks and Mallyx’s EtD (which unfortunately puts me over 100% crit). A tad bit more heath from the trinkets, and quite a bit of incoming toughness from Hardening Persistence.

EcoRI.9273:

Be the first to leeroy into the mosscave. Thats how you herd your party. It always works.

“Great we got Mossy again. What do our odds of successful look like for this?”
“We got a solid 55.7% chance of success here.”
“There’s a Necro on the team…”
“Shoot that drops us down to 17.3%”
“Better just fight him underwater then.”

The rune set effects thus far from other classes are versatile enough to be usable by multiple classes. So anything dealing with Legend Swap or Energy manipulation is a non-starter since those are unique to the Rev class.

For the most part pug’s are wanting to get through content the quickest and easiest way possible so it’s not at all unusual behavior for lazy players to want to abuse bugs like this. As mentioned before, start your own group if you don’t want to run exploits with very clear directions on your intent. Beyond that, if you are continuously not able to find people willing to go along with you join a guild that fits your playstyle (gasp!).

Saying that the game is complete garbage for exploits like this? Well, that’s personal opinion. The devs have made it pretty clear that their focus has been on other items other than PvE instances. They’re always working on Seasonal Events, Living Story, the new maps, and their entire focus right now is on HoT. So something as small (in their eyes) as exploited encounters isn’t on their radar right how.

However, the next ‘update’ packages we’re getting are going to be Raids and Re-vamped Fractals which means bugs that have been on-going for months/years will finally get the attention they’ve been long overdue in those particular areas.

Personally, I look forward to the Raids given they’re supposed to provide challenging content. I’m sure they’ll be bugs (just like everything else), but the new content hopefully should be able to weed out those who just follow guides/sploits vs those who know the game and can more quickly think on their feet.

I mentioned this in another thread, but Revenants do fall into the category of Jack of all trades, but the other half remains true as well (master of none). Having about 20 hours on my Rev I can say it’s a fantastic class for anyone who wants to be that guy who can adapt to best overcome a situation given how dynamically different the weapons and skills are. Anyway, here’s observation from a PvE Rev

I will say hands-down that the perma-swiftness alone was enough to cue to hallelujah chorus. Might was pretty easy to stack, but I could not get stacks up as easily or as fast as I could as a PS Warrior. In Trash mobs, I generally kept Strength Facet off since our Warrior maintained our might cap (Fire pre-blasting of course). Fury uptime was already 100% due to that same Fire pre-blasting before the fight. Against bosses though I did look out for our boon uptime (particularly might), but we were generally okay to the point to where I could use my active facet skills rather they leaving them toggled for boon up-time. Regen Facet was left untouched for the most part. Protection Facet was used as needed, though the upkeep cost on that really puts a limit on the rest of the skills I could use. If a high uptime of Protection was needed I mostly left that to the Hammer Guards. Facet of Nature was probably the best feature I could offer to the team as ANY boon got a 50% additional duration. So suddenly that Time Warp goes from 10/12 seconds to 15/18 seconds, Fire pre-blasting lasts enough for both trash and boss fights, and I’m free to swap out of Glint to my secondary Legend without worrying too much about dropping a boon.

Mallyx continued to be the powerhouse when I needed raw dps. Given Hardening Persistence from Herald, EtD also added quite a bit of toughness. Mallyx was also the only way to set up a condition build, but it was too dependent on the encounter to be able to manipulate conditions. Otherwise, condi builds were close to non-existent.

Shiro went mostly unused with the exception of boss fights that required a heavy amount of evades. Impossible odds was shelved for the most part as Quickness was plenty in most group. There is a bit of cheese in slotting Shiro for the Enchanted Daggers heal, slot out for another Legend, but still retain the dagger stacks. Phase Transversal was used as a make-shift shadowstep but had the annoying target requirement. Jalis didn’t have many shining moments either. Stab was very odd to set up as the 1 second wind-up time and positioning was the difference from applying the boon vs flying off those darn harpy platforms. The ‘tank’ skills didn’t have much of a place other than delaying my inevitable death at times. I’m sure both of these Legends have niche uses, but I didn’t discover them in my runs this weekend.

Ventari was the only other Legend I used, but it was primarily used for the shield. Though, I only used the shield when absolutely necessary as projectiles are much better dealt by other classes who can reflect rather than absorb. Heals were great, but trying to coordinate a team to catch your tablet heals/cleanses was about as easy as herding cats.

Overall, the selling point in the class was that the class is extremely versatile but not necessarily the best at one particular role over another class.

Minus the “unblockable attacks” feature of the PT skill it’s identical to both Thief’s and Guardian’s shadowstep mechanics. I agree that cheese-ports are an issue in the game overall and needs to be fixed, but that’s no reason to come to the Rev thread and point the finger at a class specific skill when there are already skills out there that we’ve been asking to get fixed for months. That’s why the thread got labeled as a QQ pretty quick.

Because it’s nothing new. This “problem” already exists on other classes. It’s just a little frustrating to this community when players point the finger at Revs.

You’re right teleports don’t go through walls but rather let you move up, down, etc (mild cheese potential there). The skill that the Rev shares with other is more of a Shadowstep; the destination is not so much controlled by point and click but rather the target that’s locked on. In a shadowstep, a player is seemingly able to go through walls and terrains so long as there is an uninterruptible, walk-able path to the target within the range of the shadowstep skill. E.G. Thief shadowsteps, Guard Sword, meditations.

Again, we’re already aware of the “phase through walls tricks”; it’s been in the game for a while now. Though, why is it sudden a new problem when a Rev has a skill that does it?

Both UA and PT both were rolled out with the Shiro package. Shiro…this guy…is a killing machine so of course it makes sense that his skills are focused around chasing and dealing as much damage as possible as quickly as possible. The weaknesses to the package? It requires a target of some sort to be able to make the most use (some require a target, period) of the skills. Beyond that, there’s not much room for disengage. So once a Rev tags its target the only real way to settle it is by death be it him or the target.

A persistence trait of sort would make more sense mechanically (Invocation would be best since it’s the “arcana” line for the Revenant), but that would be another mess of cooldowns/energy to balance.

Currently the Revenant has access to two full weapon sets and two full utility sets. On top of that Weapon skills have a modestly low cooldown but require energy for the more potent skills. Heal, utility, and Elite skills have virtually no Cooldown (Facet active forms and a few utilities are an exception), and a Revenant can use a utility skill back to back if desire much like a Thief’s Initiative mechanic.

Offering them another Mechanic skill (F3) seems like too much especially with the high variability that you’re proposing. You’re basically asking for redundant/lesser versions of skills that are already built into the legends to be accessible even when not ‘attuned’ to the Legend. Again, the class is about being hard locked out of your skills when swapping Legends. Lingering effects are better defined by trait lines. E.G. Even when not attuned to Shiro a Devastation Rev still siphons health each time their weapon attack makes contact with a target, a Corruption Rev can deal more damage when harboring more conditions, etc.

Hammer worked just fine. The damage was high for a range weapon, and the added bonus is the the weapon pierces (5 targets) by default making it a very strong weapon even when firing un-targeted. The AA does seem a bit slow but similar to a Ranger’s Longbow you use the AA when you have to, otherwise, there are much better skills on 2-5.

I don’t really see this working in any form. The whole lack of key utilities when not attuned to a certain Legend is by design. The mechanic of the Revenant is similar to the Elementalist in that swapping your Legend/Attunement is supposed to be a conscious decision of, “I’m sacrificing x to gain x.” So allowing Revs to channel a Legend on cooldown would be similar to allowing an Ele to cast fireballs having already swapped out of Fire attunement.

Eh, I’m not too happy about that change. The Rapid Lacerations variation was more meaningful for builds that did not take Shiro.

Though I guess if it didn’t stack with Quickness I can kinda agree with its uselessness to an extent in organized groups.

Ventari was a very fun Legend to play, and there was a lot of use for it in PvE.

In a typical dungeon where everyone stacks for the most part it was easy to manage heals/cleanses as well as position the tablet for proper projectile coverage. The hard part was in instances (primarily fractals) where the fights take place in more open areas where players are known to run around a bit more. In cases like those it’s really a judgement call. If the rest of the team knows to hug around the tablet when they need support of sort the fight goes fairly smoothly. Otherwise, it can very easily become a full time job chasing down team mates to help them out.

The only difficult/annoying portion of the Legend is that about half the skills have a slight cast time which means the skills will either get queue’d, interrupt a chain, or be inaccessible while cc’d.

Salvation will offer the best Healing modifiers, but Invocation can be used for an additional Healing modifiers and sources of healing. Herald’s Bolstering Fortification works marvellously with the 6 Skill especially if the boon is extended with Facet of Nature.

Overall, the Legend does a great job of filling the recovery/support role, but it’s very easy to get caught in the trap of micro-managing the tablet and feeling unable to contribute otherwise.

600 is fine. As mentioned before Glint is about moving through the front lines and supporting the team from that side. Ranged based fighters are generally missing out on boons anyway due to the nature of their positioning. Yes, they can put distance in between themselves and the enemies, but the frontlines is where the majority of the buffing/booning takes place.

Similar AoE “buffing” also shares the 600 range (E.G. Empower Allies, Banners, Assassin’s Presence, etc) so making Facet’s reach anything beyond 600 would require some sort of compensation for those other similar skills/traits.

Thus far, the changes we’ve gotten from Roy have been either very good or have been fairly justified. We should be okay!

Keep in mind that the protection also triggers when you toggle the Facet of Light’s passive regen buff. So if you just need a few seconds of Protection you can toggle the Regen Facet in stead of the costly Protection Facet and leave the active Infuse light for when you know you’re about to get nuked. Sure, you lose out on 33% of the healing, but the protection also applies to nearby allies which the damage gives them some breathing room.

Overall, it is a weird trait. Ironically, it works better with other Legends’ heals (don’t get me started on Ventari + BF).

What aspect of the game? PvE, PvP, or WvW?

Ironically, Bolstering Fortification works much better with other Legends’ heal (Ventari + BF = whoa), but the traits works on both versions of the Herald heals. If you need the protection you can toggle the passive Regen Facet for a few seconds of Protection rather than toggling the Protection Facet. I agree that BF works against Infuse light, but the Herald seems to play more selflessly than selfishly. So yeah, while the Rev just nerfed his own heal, there’s four other team members that are receiving less damage at the same time.

Ventari felt just about right in PvE. Sure, the range is very small, but I don’t think its radius can be enlarged without promoting lazy-mode.

For the most part though the small radius sufficed. I tested the legend in various dungeon and fractals, and it proved very useful. The only issues I had with it were in situations where my team was scattered throughout the place. Though, that was more or less mitigation with proper movement anticipation or a simple head-ups to the team when I was going to pop a skill.

In world boss events the legend worked wonders. It’s also very easy to trait for sizeable heals through traits alone vs having to go all out on Cleric gear.

As far as conditions are concerned the class seemed to be better at manipulating conditions (primarily through Mallyx and Glint) rather than outright removing them. The direct condi removals are limited though there are sigils, runes, and nourishment that can supplement removal if needed.

It’s a 1:1 ratio for energy costs of all your total upkeeps

Example:
Facet of Energy (1 upkeep) = 1 stack
Facet of Energy + Strength (3 upkeep) = 3 stacks
Jalis Hammers (7 upkeep) = 7 stacks
Embrace the Darkness + Facet of Nature (10 upkeep) = 10 stacks

Upkeep maxes at 10 energy regardless of what combination you activate to achieve that. So at most you can only get 400 toughness (10 stack of 40 toughness).

The Hardening stacks are working as intended. The trait doesn’t mention anything about what upkeeps it will/won’t work with so it’s assumed that the stacks are based on upkeeps from any legends.

The design is very simplistic, but it’s effective.

Yeah, all it does is pulse boons, but the boons that are pulsed are very worthwhile (with the exception of regen, but what else would be the ‘heal’ boon). The lack of mixing utilities is a mechanic of the base class itself so that’s not really applicable to the Spec itself.

The biggest selling point of the Spec is the Facet of Nature (F2) which is an extremely powerful party utility for a very minimal cost. The passive boons allow the Herald to fill the lacks in a group for those that are struggling in the upkeep on certain boons (pun not intended). The active flip on the utilities are okay, and they’re about on par at potential as other class’s signets.

The traits offered in the Spec are also worthwhile ranging from personal sustain to group support.

Overall, the Herald spec does a great job of letting a Rev fill the role of support.

I’m switching to Rev for the fact that their attunements feel more concrete. Mallyx is my favorite particularly for EtD (both thematically and mechanically), but I love the idea that in an instant I can channel Jalis and switch from dealing damage to hard mitigation of damage.

The Legends feel like that operate very uniquely from one another I guess is my appeal to the class.

I can agree that Rune of Rage may be more worthwhile in Solo situations, but that’s about it. In groups 100% Fury uptime is very easy to come by: initial Fire blasts from a traited Fire Ele, “Feel my Wrath”, and the occasional Battle Standard pulsing boons. If needed a Herald can pulse perma Fury as well with a Facet (though that shouldn’t be needed permanently). Nature Facet + Envoy of Sustenance puts the Rev at +65% boon duration so the additional 30% [boon] duration from runes isn’t as necessary as other boon stacking classes. Nature Facet also grants additional boon duration to the whole party so boon uptime will be very high.

Strength Runes may be more worthwhile if you find yourself falling below the 90% threshold where Scholar would be best. Both Rage and Strength offer the same Damage modifier, but Strength offers Power over Rage’s Ferocity.

The one potential problem I see with this build (and potentially other class’s builds) is that it relies heavily on boons and conditions which is fine for the game in its current state, but we really have no idea what the new mobs/bosses are going to look like.

Yes, OP’s build is tanky/Supporty once you’re buffed and have debuffed your target, but on raw stats your build is more or less a DPS focused build. When I think of tank and support I think in terms of WvW. Someone who wants to role support and tank needs both the appropriately slotted skills/traits/etc AND the right stats. Reason being that your enemies can very easily strip us of boons and shake off conditions from themselves. When that happens the game puts emphasis on your raw stats. OP’s build looks more or less like a glass cannon build.

As far as OP’s title goes DPS is clearly in the build, great support in the form of boon distribution, but little to no tanking capabilities.

For current PvE, my evaluation would be based on the goal of the build. If it’s for open world solo-ing I say that it’s a great build that balances damage with self-sustain. If this build is for group content I would argue in that there are traits/skills that would overlap with classes that already do a better job of bring ‘x’ to the team.

Icdan Sevaen.4628:

savacli.8172:

Well, it’s a little tricky.

With the current information we’ve been provided about Raids all players will be considered in combat through the entire instance. Thus, we’re be locked out of re-slotting anything.

Wrong

Ah, perfect!

This makes things easier since you can swap in between encounters. Assuming that the encounters are static (as opposed to dynamic content like the current fractals) Rev will be able to swap roles as needed for the upcoming fights.

The more I read this thread the more it starts to look like Mythbusters. As in, the OP rejects reality and substitutes his own.

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

Erebus.7568:

lol find this funny.
you are angry that some one exploited you because you where exploiting the game system :P

oooh the irony

edit:
scamming is ofcouse not ok and should result in instant ban, repeated offense permaban.
but so should exploiters ^^

And where was I exploiting? Please explain.

I guess the flow of PHIWs from General Discussion never stops now that raids were announced.

Err, you might want to just disregard him, his use of the word exploit is not quite on-point (see his other threads).

While I don’t agree with instance selling, I don’t see it as an exploit since the game allows for hot joins of an instance even after it’s created. Instance selling would instead fall under ‘not being used as intended’.

Back on topic though…

Safety nets. There are a handful of players that are out there to cause chaos. Even though you can’t necessarily full-proof your selling system I’d argue that the scammers would be a lot less willing to go through all the effort of bypassing your safety nets if there’s another selling who is much more easily scammed.

theoutsider.7849:

they are there for the ambience, how would an undead city look without undead patrolling it? gw2 is a game of flair

^This

Example: One of the human personal stories include an orphanage on fire. Now, how dull would the game be if all the devs included were the required content (NPC’s to save, physical checkpoints, etc)? Instead the devs opted to through in a more realistic experience. There are townsfolk in panic; they are showing emotion and reacting appropriately. Can I skip talking to each NPC? Absolutely. So why put the townsfolks there? Because it’s their home, the NPC’s live there.

In the example of Arah, the flavor is in the furnishing of the mobs and the physical environment. Why are all these mobs walking around and aimlessly flailing their arms at everything that approaches them? Because we, the players, are invading their home. Do we need to kill them all. Not really. Our NPC allies have already told us what our missions are (as defined by the paths we choose). How we get to A to B to C? Well, that’s on us as the players to decide.

The game already has barriers in the form of defeat boss or complete event to progress. These are physical barriers that are not designed to be bypassed (doing so would be considered an exploit by most of us on the forums).

Now, filling a route with trash mobs that may or may not drop loot? That’s not required content but rather an obstacle. How a group goes about dealing with the obstacle is up to the group itself. Again, stealth is made readily available so using ‘stealth skips’ is not an exploit at all but rather a tool we have been given for dealing with such situations.

As Robert mentioned in that post linked above the issue isn’t so much as to how the devs can force mobs killing upon players, but rather the fix is in figuring why the player skip the content to begin with.

This is GW2 where the game promotes a PHIW playstyle. Just because the OP feels that skipping is an exploit shouldn’t be a reason to punish players who use skipping as a tool. Legitimate content skipping is just another PHIW, it just so happens to be the most popular and profitable playstyle atm. For those that don’t agree with it they are more than welcome (and encouraged) to form groups that play more to their style.

Well, it’s a little tricky.

With the current information we’ve been provided about Raids all players will be considered in combat through the entire instance. Thus, we’re be locked out of re-slotting anything. So unless you have a general idea of what the content’s challenge contains it will be difficult to pre-slot ahead of time. Since most classes have more focused roles there’s less punishment for them not having the right skills.

However, if the devs do decide for ‘safe zone’ checkpoints to allow you to recover and and re-build then the Rev’s Jack-of-all-trades will be quite handy since the class can fit many roles with a decent utility.

Need a Striker? Check
Need a Healer? Check
Need a Tank? Check

Nothing was designed to be skipped? Have you seen Arah? There are dozens (if not hundreds) of mobs just littered across the dungeon map. With your proposed fixes we would wasting so much time going through the gauntlet of mobs just to get to the next boss/mission.

Even if the rewards were buffed or there was an incentive to kill mobs that’s still a huge time suck mowing through all that trash.

If skipping wasn’t intended (to an extent) why would a feature such as group stealth and stealth-granting consumable items be available? Such utility is generally made available when sneaking around or avoidance is anticipated by the game developers.

Granted, I’ve seen some over the top exploits and ’not as intended" techniques in the game, but issues like those should be patched rather than redo-ing the entire instance engine to make it a grind rather than a run.

Power contributes to the direct damage a skill does. Every skill in the game has what’s known as a Power Coefficient which means some weapons do noticeably higher damage with more power. For comparison, a scepter has a low coefficient so even at large Power values the direct damage output from that weapon won’t seem that great. On the other hand, Dagger has a very high coefficient so any increase to your Power stat will be noticed.

Condition Damage (also known as Malice) is the secondary form of damage. To where Power does immediate direct damage, Condition damages does damage over time. Conditions add ‘damage stacks’ onto your target. So long as they have those stacks your target will continue taking damage (even if you’re not directly attacking them) so long as they don’t do anything to clear the condition, and there is still seconds left on the condition stacks. There are multiple damaging conditions (burns, bleeds, poisons to name a few), and each of them have their own coefficient. For example, Bleeds have a low malice coefficient, but generally you can apply that condition very easily and very readily. Burning has a much higher coefficient, but the methods for applying burning are a little scarce.

Precision improves your chances of delivering a critical strike. For Direct Damage that adds an extra 50% damage to the your attack. Ferocity improves the damage beyond the base 50%. Critical strike do not modify the damage of conditions, but there are a lot of traits that trigger upon delivering a critical strike (a few of them applying conditions).

What stat do you need? Well, that’s kinda up to you. It really depends on what aspect of the game you’re playing (PvE, PvP, WvW), and what role you want to play.

There’s really not much you can do. Instance selling is one of those grey areas of customer support so even if you have all your evidence in order it is unlikely anything will happen to the scammers.

Your best defense is being proactive about your sales and use place holders and requiring payment upfront.

Taku.6352:

Trying to pigeon hole revenant into shiro and mallyx is like saying ele should only use fire or guard can’t use any reflects. The other legends have so much support that it would be dumb not to use them.

Eh, sorta.

Mallyx and Shiro both offer high levels of damge output which is what the Revenant will offer most to the team. The other Legends are to be swapped as needed for their specific utilities.

Jalis offers personal tanking and sustain while offering party wide stab and damage mitigation.

Ventari is a heavy heal/recovery bot. There’s also projectile control, but I would generally let other classes who have reflect abilities take that responsibility before I would want to slot that Legend.

Glint is an amazing boon master. So if there’s ever a situation where you’re in a less than ideal team, Dragon stances can fill in the boons that aren’t already being distributed.

So it’s not necessarily pigeon holing but rather pointing out what’s their most contributive assets.

If by ‘maining’ a toon you mean which will I be logged on for the majority of my LA idle time. Definitely Rev

+1 to Chrono and Reaper. Both of those looks like solid ‘upgrades’ that are compatible in a typical Dungeon run.

Tempest is a giant meh for PvE
Dragon Hunter may be worthwhile to Spec on-the-fly for ranged based fights. Otherwise Core Guardian will still work much better.

It may be too early to tell, but it looks like Berserker and Daredevil will lose out on group utility (more so on Berserker).

Revenants still look like they’ll be offering just raw damage, though our new Herald spec lets us be less selfish and fill in gaps where certain boons aren’t being met.

The build also depends if you’re running open PvE (testing out the new maps), or if you’re going to be running in dungeons/fractals.

Depending on your team you’ll want to take different foods. Dumplings are understandable to use in solo situations, but in an organized group with a PS Warrior the Dumplings will get less mileage. Any food with Precision may lose its usefulness since either a Discipline banner or a Spotter will get a Rev into the 90% for crit chance. Both Banner and Spotter will push Crit cap (if not already surpass it). Salads (or its cheaper variants) will probably be the best as Rev has a lot of non-rooting moves Though, I need to test if ‘mist’ skills (shadowstep-esque skills) count as rooted or moving.

Killyox.3950:

Mace can have 100% uptime on fire field if that counts for something :P

Definitely useful for pre-fight might stacking. Did anyone else have trouble landing the Echoing Eruption on top of the Fire field though?

Wiki has a list of equipment acquisition by stats

I stocked up plenty of those when I found out about then. But man, 10 minutes goes by way too fast for some reason o.O

So, even though it’s more expensive I generally will go with the crafted salad variants for the extra ‘consume and forget’ feel.

Misguided.5139:

@savacli actually, I think the most common usage of Ventari will be for stopping projectiles.

I thought about that too, but then it was one of those “surely someone else on my team can deal with projectiles better than I can”. In a party set I’ll gladly let the reflect bots handle that responsibility more efficiently (looking at you Mesmers and Guards) since absorbing a projectile doesn’t offer as much as reflecting it. If extreme projectile control is needed, such as a handful of fractals, I have no problem slotting in Ventari, but it really feels like wasted potential.

Assuming a typical organized group (PUG mileage may vary).

Facets run into the issue of, yes a Herald can do this, but other classes can do it better.

• Light: Regen is fairly underwhelming and hardly scales with Healing Power
• Darkness: A few blasts from a Fire Ele should provide enough fury to last the fight
• Elements: Great for out of combat use, though less useful in combat due to movement penalty
• Strength: This skill paired with Shared Empowerment could be a great resource for might, but it’s much easier maintained through Fire Blasting or a PS Warrior
• Chaos: Now this is a worthwhile skill. Perma-Protection at the cost of having no energy regen though.

Actives:

• Light: Great heal but is situational (as no incoming damage mean no additional heal beyond base)
• Darkness: AoE blind is good, though very few situations where the reveal can be used (in PvE, at least).
• Elements: The conditions applied by this skill seem somewhat random, weakness being very useful against certain mobs though.
• Strength: Very good opener to a fight while the team is ramping up their more sustained vulnerability.
• Chaos: Very odd to use due to the knockback.

The issue I ran into Shiro is that Impossible Odds was such an energy suck so it was difficult at times to be able to use other utilities or weapon skills without cutting the IA stance short. If the fight is short enough (trash mobs, etc) the party provided quickness should be enough to end the fight. If it’s a longer fight (bosses and such) it may be necessary to preserve energy for other skills. Jade Winds is a stun so it’s best used against trash vs a boss since it’ll affect their defiance. Though if the Beta is any hint to how future bosses work it may be more beneficial to cast JW to intentionally deplete Break Bars.

Mallyx remains quite the crowd favorite due to its Embrance the Darkness. The flat 15% stat boost is an all-around benefit: higher damage, more health, and a tiny bit more armor. Since the current meta prioritizes DPS over sustain in PvE Mallyx still fills a slot; the strategy being time is better spent killing something rather than letting it live long enough to be a problem. Pain Absorption offers an odd form of soft control over conditions.

Jalis and Ventari have very specific uses, tanking and healing/projectile control respectively. Currently PvE instances don’t require such utility on demand as of yet though (HoT may change that). For the most part these two Legends see a lot of shelf time.

Glint falls with the rest of the Legends under ’if certain utility is needed". The Facet of Nature is arguably one of the best features offered in the latest Rev package as boons applied by any team member while this upkeep is active have their duration increased by 50%.

Effectively, Shiro and Mallyx paired with the New Herald traitline (substitute in for Corruption) seems to be the fit for a PvE Rev.

Edit: Added projectile control for Ventari.

Girbilcannon.8259:

“The point to an Elite Specialization is not to solve the ‘needs’ of a class but rather offer an alternative play style…”

This makes me laugh a little bit because from what we can see so far, it doesn’t give us an alternate play style…just an alternate weapon while killing other weapons, so it really doesn’t give us anything. it’s sad really.

Heh, I never said they were doing THAT great a job on their ideology

(All hail Chrono!!)

Edit: The difference so far in DD seems that the Spec is supposed to promote a more in-your-face playstyle rather than relying on smoke and mirrors. Personally, I like the fact that DD shifts its utility focus on evasion rather then relying on Stealth.

The point to an Elite Specialization is not to solve the ‘needs’ of a class but rather offer an alternative play style. Core class issues do definitely need to be addressed but not in the form of a new Spec. If Anet did that then all thieves (and other classes with their E.Specs) would feel more or less obligated to take up the Elite Specialization since it would correct their core needs/issues.

I get that Daredevil looks and feels like a glorified Pre-6/23 Acrobatics, but the ‘alternative play style’ of Daredevil is in the more up-front physical tactics (buffed evade) rather shadow-stepping or stealthing away.

SlyDevil.3952:

I’m pretty sure the flanking doesn’t affect aoe skills, not sure about ground targetted impacts.(thieves/thief rune) Thieves also only have increased crit chance from flanking, but it interferes with the increased 7% crit dmg, and thieves already have plenty of crit chance when buffed, so the crit dmg is more useful, and less situational in groups(assuming you can keep a scholar buff).

Warriors can go 3->4 and drop the bow then use burst skill to get the 20% multiplier for the second half of ice storm.

After 4/3 in melee range, the bow should be dropped unless the target(s) is/are about to die and you need the bow in 20secs. Skill 2 is a filler if you interrupt deep freeze/ice storm by dodging or boss moving out of position.

Can some explain what ferocious strikes on thieves is supposed to be saying? It says it increases crit dmg against foes above 50%, but it shows a straight 10% multiplier. Anyone know which it is actually is doing?

Any attack that strikes an opponent outside of their ‘frontal cone’ is considered flanking. This also applies to AoE attacks that strike simultaneously within and outside of the target’s frontal cone.

Bow should be dropped once its burst skills have been used up. Camping in the bow until 20s have passed for another burst is a terrible loss in damage output.

Ferocious Strikes is misleading. The traits adds a flat 10% damage mod to your base damage.

Can’t say that I agree with separate slots for different infusions on gear. Though, I am absolutely in favor of the consumable idea!

Oh hey, you guys have updated the guides since I last tread ’em (pre June 23).

Great…now I’m losing a weekend to reading those guides all over again.