In game vs forums

In game: Wow they changed the offhand sword skills. Sword 4 so good.Forums: sword offhand ruined revert now!

It really makes you think doesn't it Kiff.

It's not that good though. the energy costs and cd's are to high.

Compare SB's dagger 4 damage and Revenant sword's 5 damage. And how easy it is to execute Wastrel's Ruin comparing to Deathstrike.

I'm still running S/S build but man I liked old 4 and 5, especially after that buff in prior to their complete rework.

@Lahmia.2193 said:In game: Wow they changed the offhand sword skills. Sword 4 so good.Forums: sword offhand ruined revert now!

It really makes you think doesn't it Kiff.

For PvP in a conformed team the shield is better; for PvP and roaming going solo the axe seems better; for PvE aa s #1 is enough. I'm playing all the Season 9 with sword + axe. What ANet achieved with the change was to rekt the defensive options for core Rev and Renegade, but at the end of the day you are right: Herald is what's played in PvP so no one cares if Rev/Renegade are now in a worse stance.

@Buran.3796 said:

@Lahmia.2193 said:In game: Wow they changed the offhand sword skills. Sword 4 so good.Forums: sword offhand ruined revert now!

It really makes you think doesn't it Kiff.

I gotta disagree with that... Shield is borderline useless in the current meta for team fights. When's the last time that you haven't been facing a team with 2 scourges + a smattering of other prof's with unblockable attacks? It's still okay for holding a point to decap or in a few one v one's matchups like FB or non-s/d Thief, but the amount of plays you can make with it vs the number that you can make with oh sword's damage spike isn't even close.

Axe is still... Okay. Axe was a really good choice compared to shield I think, but there isn't much that axe can do that sword doesn't do better. Frigid Blitz is really good against guardians, and Rift's great for disengaging or making multiple people waste an evade, but that's about it.

@narcx.3570 said:

@Buran.3796 said:

@Lahmia.2193 said:In game: Wow they changed the offhand sword skills. Sword 4 so good.Forums: sword offhand ruined revert now!

It really makes you think doesn't it Kiff.

100% agree with this. Sword is just way better. The damage is too big to ignore. The root can really fuck up thieves. The teleport while short range i find better than axe because even if target is too far it will still port you and then shiro port and boom thats long range. Plus when it crits and hits, rare i know, but the damage is funny.

@Milan.9035 said:

@narcx.3570 said:

@Buran.3796 said:

@Lahmia.2193 said:In game: Wow they changed the offhand sword skills. Sword 4 so good.Forums: sword offhand ruined revert now!

It really makes you think doesn't it Kiff.

yo said it RARE!!!!

@narcx.3570 said:

I gotta disagree with that... Shield is borderline useless in the current meta for team fights. When's the last time that you haven't been facing a team with 2 scourges + a smattering of other prof's with unblockable attacks? It's still okay for holding a point to decap or in a few one v one's matchups like FB or non-s/d Thief, but the amount of plays you can make with it vs the number that you can make with oh sword's damage spike isn't even close.

Axe is still... Okay. Axe was a really good choice compared to shield I think, but there isn't much that axe can do that sword doesn't do better. Frigid Blitz is really good against guardians, and Rift's great for disengaging or making multiple people waste an evade, but that's about it.

Shield in a conformed team with a a Firebrand support cleansing conditions makes you unkillable in even fights, while you are still delivering large amounts of peak burst and AoE cc. Axe doubles your cc pressure. Axe's Frigid Blitz has 50% more range than sword's Deathstrike , a 50% less energy cost and 50% less cooldown and is unblockable. For me the axe is much better tool providing pressure and giving us tools to reach enemies trying to disengage.

I've seen Bryvanent doing fine in platinum with double sword, but man: I've never seen Him dying so much in a season. And recently ditched offhand sword for shield playing with mates in unranked and axe in solo games at ranked, which to me makes sense.

So sorry but I disagree with Lahmia: the off hand sword was a niche weapon which had limited use but still had potential for combos in future specs due it was one of the two only blocks available for core Rev. And now is a weapon which lacks that defensive role (so you need to to spent 5 slots in the staff to get that block back), and which I don't use because axe let's me to spam 3 extra attacks each minute, and that for me matters more than doing a spike with off hand sword and being dead 4 seconds later.

Even worse: this is the first iteration of the new off hand sword, which means that (if as happened with HoT) ANet goes gradually tonning down the PoF specs then a nerf is coming to off hand sword. I'm not in the train of using skills for a class I like which have a high chance of end bodied. I liked in the past using Retribution and condi Revs and they butchered those builds for PvP and roaming. So I no longer play the "flavour of the month" ANets thinks that is good to buff in Revs from time to time. Never played the Ventari healer (seemed both boring and weak, and for sure that is what is now), I leave Renegade in the dust in less than 3 weeks, and drop out the off hand after ~3 hours. I said it the day of the patch: the best buff for Herald in the latest balance patch was the Full Counter nerf. That was great.

@Buran.3796 said:

@narcx.3570 said:

I gotta disagree with that... Shield is borderline useless in the current meta for team fights. When's the last time that you haven't been facing a team with 2 scourges + a smattering of other prof's with unblockable attacks? It's still okay for holding a point to decap or in a few one v one's matchups like FB or non-s/d Thief, but the amount of plays you can make with it vs the number that you can make with oh sword's damage spike isn't even close.

Axe is still... Okay. Axe was a really good choice compared to shield I think, but there isn't much that axe can do that sword doesn't do better. Frigid Blitz is really good against guardians, and Rift's great for disengaging or making multiple people waste an evade, but that's about it.

Frigid Blitz's longer range is almost a non-factor for me tho because nobody is going to let it hit them from max range... It's a huge and suuuuper slow, anyone getting hit by something that obvious you probably would have beat down no matter what you were doing--even just Chaotic Releasing them into oblivion would have worked. Like I said, I do still think it's good against guard's for debilitating them through their aegis, but not from max range. And if you think Rift's cc is great for like stopping rezes and stomps, sw5 is even more effective because they have to either cancel out of their channel to dodge it or just eat the huge hit and then get mega cleaved by your aa--neither of which can be countered by stability.

As for shield + a Firebrand making you invincible, I would say it's 99.9% the firebrand and 0.1% the shield. I still don't see how--except against very rare enemy team comps--you're even able to use the shield at all in a team fight without just being instantly feared/headbutt/galed/all the other unblockable cc random classes have out of the block and instantly downed since you spent half your energy on a skill that just made you more of a target.

Idk how anyone uses shield with staff necros running around rampant. Unblockable marks are easy enough to land on moving targets already.

The reason I still hate the sword off hand change is that it just made it too similar to axe in what it offers. It used to be axe had the gap closer and the aoe cc with decent damage, while sword had a nice block and a melee range pull that was admittedly odd design but could have been tweaked into a normal pull, or made so that you shadow step too target then pull them back to original position. Now axe and sword both offer a gap closer and an aoe lock down skill, people will have their preferences on which is better, but they are basically clones of each other with the main difference being that sword does a bit more damage for power builds while axe does a bit more damage for condi builds. It just makes a very non adaptable class even more cookie cutter.

@narcx.3570 said:

Frigid Blitz's longer range is almost a non-factor for me tho because nobody is going to let it hit them from max range... It's a huge and suuuuper slow, anyone getting hit by something that obvious you probably would have beat down no matter what you were doing--even just Chaotic Releasing them into oblivion would have worked.

Most of characters have limited amounts of dodges (except some thieves) so you can either count how many they did use or just force them to spent their evades avoiding other attacks as UA, Elemental Blast, Temporal Rift, etc. I oftenly cast TR and if the target blocks or evades then I wait a couple of seconds to cast FB: even if the foe evades or blocks again I known that I forced Him to spent tools, so I can try to channel Phase Traversal->Surge of the Mist->legend swap->Chaotic Release, or some other combo. When you cast Deathstrike the one which suffers the most is your energy bar...

If you have no support Firebrand on your team = shieldIf you have firebrand support = axe

As a revenant your primary role is team fighting and damage. Axe provides more group utility than sword, however you can make a judgement call and take sword if you believe your team is lacking damage. If you plan on team fighting and stalling Side node points vs Druids or Spellbreakers then Shield is mandatory. You will lose the trade everytime on axe/sword offhand if you try to 1v1 a semi-competent druid.