Hopes for the patch/ State of the Revenant (WvW/PvP)

The time's finally here for ANet to give us another chance at something resembling balance. We expected it last week, but it's coming tomorrow instead. I somewhat wanted to gauge the opinion of the revenant community (the revenant community that's left, anyhow), on what would be good changes for the class tomorrow (as well as its two elite specializations). I personally will be making arguments from the WvW/PvP side of things, although as I understand it, power rev is next to trash in high level PvE too.

WvW zerg perspective: The new staples in zergs, spellbreaker/scourge have knocked the meta condi rev/frontline hammer rev from the very top tier of builds. Condi rev has seen its utility fall down in favor of scourges and spellbreakers, while being countered by those classes in zergs as well. It's definitely a big fall from what was once classified as one of the top and most used WvW builds regardless of class. Same thing's happened to the frontline hammer build since the current meta again favors a pirate-ship kind of approach. This has allowed the hammer Shiro/Glint build to come back with a vengeance in the pirate ship meta. It's back to bombing hard from long range and this build is still well-suited. As for the Ventari Healer build, it's still decent from what I've seen but I can't really comment as I don't play it and I can't gauge the difficulty. Sometimes, you'll see Condi Renegades, but in this revenant's opinion the Mallyx/Glint herald build is still better.

WvW roaming perspective: You pretty much have to play the Glint/Shiro power herald. Suffers from the same problems as always- weak condi cleanse causing you to lose against most condi classes unless outplaying them severely, extremely annoying counters in thief/daredevil , mesmer/mirage, and even dragonhunter to an extent. Power Mirage in particular counters the power herald quite hard- with the innate counter coming from mesmer's clones to split damage and instant burst abilities, now you add absurd mobility and even easier invuln frames, as well as the "dodge stunbreaks" trait to prevent a herald from ever locking the mirage down. Overall, I'd say that in WvW roaming, there are very few revenants out, and even fewer that know what they're doing. Since this is what I play the most, I can offer my own opinion- the appearances of mirage, spellbreaker (in groups only, you should usually win 1v1), and scourge have made roaming on a rev much more difficult, and most people have gone to other classes (namely, scourge and spellbreaker). However, the addition of Deadeye is nice as you can one-shot them fairly easily in a group, and it also leads to less Daredevils.

PvP perspective: It seems again like Revenant is relatively unused in NA PvP compared to EU, where it is still used but less. The reasons behind this are similar to WvW: Scourge and Spellbreaker. Of course, this is why almost every other class is being knocked down a peg (or two, or three), so I won't go through it again. Bottom line is these classes need to be hit hard for Revenant to come back in anywhere.

So, what do you want to see this patch? I'll split it into a couple categories for myself.

More condi cleanse: No matter where it's added, it's hard to argue that Revenant doesn't need more condition cleanse. Note I say CLEANSE, which means resistance from Mallyx doesn't count as cleanse, not to mention it gets stripped by the nearest scourge or spellbreaker in an instant. I don't care whether you add an extra condition to Cleansing Channel, an extra condition to Renewing Wave, or whatever it is- I know Revenant was initially designed to be weak to conditions, but it was also designed to be one of the kings of power-based damage, which as we can see isn't happening anymore. This "design" has plagued Revenant since it came out and we were able to turn a blind eye because its damage WAS brokenly overpowered. Now that almost every one of our damaging skills has received serious nerfs, it's time to overlook that "design" and make revenant more flexible and not reliant on a support for everything.

Herald: I don't think Herald needs a lot of changes on its own. Almost every rev build is a herald, which shows how flexible Glint is, as well as the Facet of Nature and a rock solid trait line. The only thing I'd like to see is a change to Soothing Bastion- perhaps instead of rooting you at 25% health, it could potentially reduce cooldown of shield skills by 20% and remove a condition for each shield skill you use. That said, Herald isn't the problem with Revenant.

Legend flexibility/base revenant: If you don't run Herald, you lose the option of having Glint- and Glint pairs well with pretty much any other legend. You see Glint/Shiro, Glint/Mallyx, Glint/Jalis for tank builds, Glint/Ventari as well. Glint is an example of a flexible legend, one that can help immensely regardless of your build's purpose. I understand that people might think she's too strong- but is this a case of her being too strong or the other legends being too plain weak? I would love to see the other base legends made more flexible.

Renegade: Oh boy where can we even start here? Many Renegade traits are awkward or just plain useless. Endless Enmity? Trash. Brutal Momentum? Meh. Ashen Demeanor? Functionally useless. Shortbow is pretty clunky and makes you an easy focus target. Citadel Orders need their energy costs reduced by over half (I would say 10 energy for F2, 20 energy for F2, and 15 energy for F3 at max). However, the most important thing: Kalla is absolutely terrible. In a zerg, pretty much the only skill that's any good is her heal. The 3 utilities die way too fast. The elite is actually a fantastic design, but considering how energy-hungry the rest of renegade is, there's no way you're going to have it up for any appreciable amount of time. As a renegade it's just best to not even run her in favor of someone like Jalis. Renegade needs a combination of buffs and just straight up design changes to make it viable at all.

So what are your hopes for the patch tomorrow?

I agree with pretty much everything you said, but let’s face it...it’s all been said before. What has ANET’s response been? Nerfing revenants even further into the ground. It’s well documented that ANET has a history of struggling with the balance of expansion classes. As an early adopter of Rev, I had hopes that the new specialization system would help in the sense that every class would get looked at and refined as the game matured.

What we got with the PoF release was piss-poor design confounded with piss-poor execution. Generally speaking, Renegade does not provide the revenant with a new play style. It’s still group support, just like Herald, but severely underperforms in every area except damage. Layer that on top of massive energy problems and a garbage shortbow weapon...what an unmitigated disaster. It’s telling that I’ve only seen one renegade in ranked pvp and wvw respectively since the launch of PoF...

To recapitulate, I too have high hopes, but the past is usually the best indicator of the future.

P.S. long-suffering Rev & Engi main here

My hopes are only that pve is split. I am a pve player (and a little bit of wvw when i get time) and i love where condi rev is atm.

That said i want to see a rev build that isnt hammer come back for wvw. Nothing against it, i Just don't like the play style of the weapon. I know ill get hated on for it, but i love using conditions.

Honestly, I do not think core or herald will see any changes tomorrow. I am expecting them to get some buffs, but not tomorrow.

Renegade will surely get a buff. Though considering that Renegade utilities are mediocre CCeable wells. Renegade has no access to blocks, evasion or any form of mobility. And Renegade sustainability is on the low side. Any changes that do not fundamentally address some if not all of these issues, Renegade will never be usable in PvP.

If we assume energy pre PoF was balanced without F2-F4 skills, I am not sure exactly how the F2-F4 with combined energy cost of 75, are supposed to be used. Though Anet are extremely against changing Rev energy costs. I will be surprised if these get more than -5 energy.

Sadly, I am expecting that it will take 2-3 patches for Anet to sort all of the above. Until then, Renegade is nothing more than 20% condi + 300 ferocity in PvE.

@"Exalted Quality.8534" said:I agree with pretty much everything you said, but let’s face it...it’s all been said before. What has ANET’s response been? Nerfing revenants even further into the ground. It’s well documented that ANET has a history of struggling with the balance of expansion classes. As an early adopter of Rev, I had hopes that the new specialization system would help in the sense that every class would get looked at and refined as the game matured.

What we got with the PoF release was kitten-poor design confounded with kitten-poor execution. Generally speaking, Renegade does not provide the revenant with a new play style. It’s still group support, just like Herald, but severely underperforms in every area except damage. Layer that on top of massive energy problems and a garbage shortbow weapon...what an unmitigated disaster. It’s telling that I’ve only seen one renegade in ranked pvp and wvw respectively since the launch of PoF...

To recapitulate, I too have high hopes, but the past is usually the best indicator of the future.

P.S. long-suffering Rev & Engi main here

You're certainly right about me just airing out all the grievances us Rev players have had over the past year or so. I suppose it's just the frustration that with PoF release, we saw our class1) become far less effective in both PvP and WvW2) continue to be garbage in PvE3) receive an unpolished, clunky elite specializationwhich has led to an even smaller amount of revenants out in all game modes as well as posting on the forum. Revenant seems to be the new Engi- ANet's redheaded stepchild. It's just disappointing to me, I guess, to see the playerbase go to other classes since Revenant is just plain meh nowadays. I learned to play Rev season 2 of PvP and the playstyle of Glint/Shiro automatically stuck with me. It's frustrating to see that build go down in effectiveness and for our "new playstyle" to be an amalgamation of poor design and poor numbers behind the design. Renegade brings nothing unique to the table.

Completely agree with pretty much all you said.

Hammer needs moar damage. I'm going to squish every tear out of them.

@Exalted Quality.8534 said:I agree with pretty much everything you said, but let’s face it...it’s all been said before. What has ANET’s response been? Nerfing revenants even further into the ground. It’s well documented that ANET has a history of struggling with the balance of expansion classes. As an early adopter of Rev, I had hopes that the new specialization system would help in the sense that every class would get looked at and refined as the game matured.

What we got with the PoF release was kitten-poor design confounded with kitten-poor execution. Generally speaking, Renegade does not provide the revenant with a new play style. It’s still group support, just like Herald, but severely underperforms in every area except damage. Layer that on top of massive energy problems and a garbage shortbow weapon...what an unmitigated disaster. It’s telling that I’ve only seen one renegade in ranked pvp and wvw respectively since the launch of PoF...

To recapitulate, I too have high hopes, but the past is usually the best indicator of the future.

P.S. long-suffering Rev & Engi main here

Yep i agree. They will have the time to polish and rework the class for Path of Fire release and the introduction of renegade but they haven't. Right now the revenant is a class that is still at beta state more than 2 years after the release. The fact that revenant was butchered because they need to release Heart of Thorns in time doesn't explain why the class still in such an horrible place. Personnaly, I have slowly move to another main, i have no more hopes with the revenant profession in general. But i would be extremly pleased if i am wrong.

My ideal hope is a total rework of Renegade, but that's not happening. Outside of what you said and is less unrealistic would be a undo on the change to mace, just so its not impossible to hit and projectile speed increases for shortbow.

What I expect is for Anet to nerf renegade because it's what they do. Something like "Kalla summons now have 50% less hp, shortbow skills deal 25% less damage, number of stacks of Fervor reduced to 1, and 2 if you have the trait."

Hope? Oh man, this must the first Anet balance patch for some of you. Just expect nothing, and you'll only be mildly disappointed when we get bug fixes and nerfs instead. Just watch out for key words like "animation fix" which in Anet speak means we nerfed SB damage by 20%.

EDIT: I just read that you are looking at things from a pvp/wvw perspective. I have retracted my prior statement. My apologies.

I... I don't think you know anything about Renegade if you don't think it's viable. It's the best condi spec for revenant right now, and pulls over 36k dps. We're desired in raids now. Herald is actually the specialization that needs help, because as it is, Renegade trumps it in just about every way.

That all being said, Renegade feels clunky in some aspects. If you dodge right at the same time as summoning a Kalla stance spirit, it won't appear and goes on full cooldown as well as costing the full energy cost. Shortbow is undertuned and needs buffs. Spirits get CC'd or killed far too easily.

Power revenant needs substantial buffs to be anywhere near viable in raid scenarios. Ventari revenants need to provide more potent buffs to even dream about filling the spot a druid fills. Sword off-hand is still undesirable to power builds, despite being the iconic power weapon and axe off-hand should not be the best off-hand for both power AND condition builds.

Energy is a problem. Weapon skills should either not cost energy at all and have stance skill energy costs tweaked to compensate, OR every final skill in the auto-attack chain needs to generate energy. Ranged weapon autos would generate a smaller amount of energy every attack.

Revenant is fun, but it has had some design flaws since its inception and really needs tweaking.

I do expect nothing. The "buffs" that would come to the Herald would be just the nerfs in some of the new PoF specs, albeit I would like to see a reduction in the Phase Traversal cost. And for Renegade I really don't care: is useless in PvP/WvW and I don't like to play one build for PvE and other in the competitive game modes, so I'll stick to Herald.

I would like a buff in core Rev, because neither the "tanky" Jalis can tank nor the Mallyx build can deal with condi damage. Would be great to see a hybrid sword+sword/mace axe viable, but probably won't happen.

@otto.5684 said:Honestly, I do not think core or herald will see any changes tomorrow. I am expecting them to get some buffs, but not tomorrow.

This is pretty much my thinking. Tomorrow's patch will probably be focused on the PoF elites, particularly those that are viewed as overperforming. Core and HoT specs probably won't be looked at much until they've got those more-or-less normalised.

Hopefully they'll rework some of the non-PvE meta traits in Renegade to make them more viable for PvP/WvW... i.e. the 1-1-1 and 3-3-3 traits.

Specifically I think changing Righteous Rebel to something like:

"While you have maximum stacks of Kalla's Fervor, receive reduced damage from conditions. Orders from Above lasts longer and affects a larger area. Orders from Above now consumes your stacks of Kalla's Fervor to cleanse conditions."

Condition Damage Reduced: 33%Duration Increase: 50%Radius Increase: 120"1 Stack: 1 Condition2 Stacks: 2 Condition5 Stacks: 3 Condition"

Would make Renegade a very tempting option for some PvP/WvW Revs and fits with the overall Revenant theme of trading offensive charges for defensive skills.

@draxynnic.3719 said:

@otto.5684 said:Honestly, I do not think core or herald will see any changes tomorrow. I am expecting them to get some buffs, but not tomorrow.

Yeah, but took them ~18 months to balance the huge disparity between the HoT specs and the core professions (and without a full success). That pace is utterly unaceptable in a game with competitive and cooperative modes. Maybe can be good (enough) for solo games as Skyrim (which was released with totally broken mechanics) but here people do left their classes or even the game when unfair disadvantage is perceived.

@Buran.3796 said:

@draxynnic.3719 said:

@otto.5684 said:Honestly, I do not think core or herald will see any changes tomorrow. I am expecting them to get some buffs, but not tomorrow.

It is. They've been hiding behind not wanting to shake up the meta midseason, but dropping PoF elite specialisations midseason blew that argument out of the water entirely.

Nevertheless, I'd bet that their focus this patch is going to be on the new elites, so the best revenants can realistically hope for, I think, is renegade buffs and nerfs to some of the specialisations that are currently dominant. The fact that they really SHOULD be doing balance passes more than four to eight times a year is a separate issue.

Duelist's Preparation: This skill is no longer available on the revenant's off-hand sword.

LMFAO.

Shackling Wave: This skill has been reworked and will now deliver up to 5 strikes to random enemies in the area in addition to its initial impact. Immobilize duration has been reduced to 1 second and is increased by 1 second to all targets per target struck. Base damage of this skill has been reduced by 20%. Bonus strikes are equal to 25% of the initial impact each. The cooldown of this skill has been set at 15 seconds, while the energy cost is set at 10.

Grasping Shadow: This skill has been renamed to Deathstrike and has a reworked functionality. Activating this skill will now shadowstep the revenant toward their target, up to a range of 600 away, and deliver a strike that chills and slows the foe for 3 seconds while gaining fury. If this attack successfully lands, the revenant will immediately deliver a second attack that deals large damage. The cooldown of this skill is 20 seconds, with the energy cost being 20 as well.

How to kill sword offhand. Wtb defensive option

I remember the times where they said rev wep skills will have lower cd's due to energy cost.. yes 15 and 20sec +energy is totally lower.

Wow this is worse than I expected...lasting legacy gives less condi damage and ferocity than before, 250 ferocity/15% condi dmg versus 300 ferocity/20% condi dmg previously...how in the world did they think that renegades needed to do less damage and not fix the glaring energy issues with the spec? Horrible...lol

@Burtnik.5218 said:Duelist's Preparation: This skill is no longer available on the revenant's off-hand sword.

LMFAO.

Shackling Wave: This skill has been reworked and will now deliver up to 5 strikes to random enemies in the area in addition to its initial impact. Immobilize duration has been reduced to 1 second and is increased by 1 second to all targets per target struck. Base damage of this skill has been reduced by 20%. Bonus strikes are equal to 25% of the initial impact each. The cooldown of this skill has been set at 15 seconds, while the energy cost is set at 10.

Grasping Shadow: This skill has been renamed to Deathstrike and has a reworked functionality. Activating this skill will now shadowstep the revenant toward their target, up to a range of 600 away, and deliver a strike that chills and slows the foe for 3 seconds while gaining fury. If this attack successfully lands, the revenant will immediately deliver a second attack that deals large damage. The cooldown of this skill is 20 seconds, with the energy cost being 20 as well.

How to kill sword offhand. Wtb defensive option

I remember the times where they said rev wep skills will have lower cd's due to energy cost.. yes 15 and 20sec +energy is totally lower.

Yes... They really did a great job on item diversity by making OH Sword fulfill the exact same roll as OH axe.

Gap closer, check.Slow + Chill, check.CC Skill, check.No Defensive, check.

I am excited to see if Grasping will actually shadow step tho, or if they are just using the term liberally. If it is like a thief SS instead of our axe4 or PT it would be kind of nice to have a mobility skill that doesn't proc every single Trap/Sigil/Ground effect in its path.

@narcx.3570 said:

@Burtnik.5218 said:Duelist's Preparation: This skill is no longer available on the revenant's off-hand sword.

LMFAO.

Shackling Wave: This skill has been reworked and will now deliver up to 5 strikes to random enemies in the area in addition to its initial impact. Immobilize duration has been reduced to 1 second and is increased by 1 second to all targets per target struck. Base damage of this skill has been reduced by 20%. Bonus strikes are equal to 25% of the initial impact each. The cooldown of this skill has been set at 15 seconds, while the energy cost is set at 10.

Grasping Shadow: This skill has been renamed to Deathstrike and has a reworked functionality. Activating this skill will now shadowstep the revenant toward their target, up to a range of 600 away, and deliver a strike that chills and slows the foe for 3 seconds while gaining fury. If this attack successfully lands, the revenant will immediately deliver a second attack that deals large damage. The cooldown of this skill is 20 seconds, with the energy cost being 20 as well.

How to kill sword offhand. Wtb defensive option

I remember the times where they said rev wep skills will have lower cd's due to energy cost.. yes 15 and 20sec +energy is totally lower.

Its like PT and the windup on second strike is so long that i miss on a mob running away from me.. Kek. Why take sword oh over axe now? No reason at all. I was waiting long enough to see changes, back in s2.. time to finally move on. Clueless people will remain clueless no matter what.

@Burtnik.5218 said:

@narcx.3570 said:

@Burtnik.5218 said:Duelist's Preparation: This skill is no longer available on the revenant's off-hand sword.

LMFAO.

Shackling Wave: This skill has been reworked and will now deliver up to 5 strikes to random enemies in the area in addition to its initial impact. Immobilize duration has been reduced to 1 second and is increased by 1 second to all targets per target struck. Base damage of this skill has been reduced by 20%. Bonus strikes are equal to 25% of the initial impact each. The cooldown of this skill has been set at 15 seconds, while the energy cost is set at 10.

Grasping Shadow: This skill has been renamed to Deathstrike and has a reworked functionality. Activating this skill will now shadowstep the revenant toward their target, up to a range of 600 away, and deliver a strike that chills and slows the foe for 3 seconds while gaining fury. If this attack successfully lands, the revenant will immediately deliver a second attack that deals large damage. The cooldown of this skill is 20 seconds, with the energy cost being 20 as well.

How to kill sword offhand. Wtb defensive option

I remember the times where they said rev wep skills will have lower cd's due to energy cost.. yes 15 and 20sec +energy is totally lower.

Actually, I just played a game with it and 1 cool thing you can do is PT + Sw5 to gap close 1800 on somebody since they cost a combined 50 energy and PT can be used with the target out of range.

And Shackling Wave feels good...

But no block still leaves it in "why not just take the axe territory."