Ventari Rework ~ Full Writeup

Playing a Ventari Revenant can both be extremely fun, and underwhelming at the same time. Typically, people would rather have a Druid or Firebrand over Ventari because both offer better support to the team over you; however, nonetheless, a solid Ventari Revenant can absolutely keep up with outputting the same healing potential of that of a Druid and Firebrand. Healing is not the issue at hand, overall impact and viability are. So here are a few key differences that help identify what the Ventari lacks.

Druid

• Great disengage via traiting "Celestial Avatar" grants Stealth and Superspeed, additionally stealths nearby downed allies.
• Damage from pets.

Ventari

• Amazing heals, only if near the tablet. Ventari player must both time the positioning of the tablet, as well as the delayed pulse from Natural Harmony.
• Perma Group Buffs: Protection from Bolster Fortifications OR 3 stacks of Might from Shared Empowerment, and perma swiftness from Rune of the Centaur.
• Little to no disengage, only having Staff 5 "Surge of the Mists" to put distance between the enemy.
• Little to no damage. To keep up with both the Druid and Firebrand's healing output, you have to focus on tablet positioning and tablet abilities.
• Can have two invulnerability bubbles from the trait "Soothing Bastion" and "Crystal Hibernation"; however, they often work against you. Conditions go right through the bubbles, often killing you, and they keep you rooted in place for enemy players to swarm you. You may heal for a moment, only to be killed immediately afterwards.

Firebrand

• Who needs to remove conditions when you can convert every one of them into boons via "Contemplation of Purity"?
• Players are always subject to your heals because they're centered around the Firebrand who's always in battle.

I don't want to suggest normalizing Ventari with the other healers, I feel each healer class has its own playstyle unique to it. This is what balances team composition, having multiple types of healers to choose from. However, I digress, the Ventari class has less of an impact in a team's overall composition in comparison to the other healers. Identifying both the strengths and weaknesses of the Ventari playstyle with that of the two meta healers, here is what I suggest and am open to feedback.

Ventari's Will

• Verdict: Keep mostly the same with a major balance tweek, based on suggestions below.
• Suggestion: After reading the bottom suggestions, I suggest allowing the tablet to be destroyed by players. This raises the skill ceiling of the Ventari player by making them think >about overall positioning of the tablet, and balances it amongst the suggested changes written below. Players can still protect the tablet with "Protective Solace", but cannot self-heal the >tablet. Tablet maintains life, even after moving it from location to location; however, if it's destroyed by the enemy, has a cooldown of 5 seconds.

Natural Harmony

• Verdict: This skill is the main source of healing that the Ventari outputs; however, it's hit or miss at times if the heal even goes off on the player. Not only do you have to position the >tablet near a player, but the player has basically be on the tablet when this delayed heal goes off.
• Suggestion: Rework this skill so that it now has roots that tether to allies, pulsating heals over time to them (Not Regeneration). Instead of destroying the roots that pulse heals to >tethered allies, enemy players will have to attack the source. This suggestion means the Ventari player has to focus less on moving the tablet all over the place hoping his or her heals go >off before an ally engage or disengage from the target location, and instead implores allies to stay within vicinity of the tablet instead of ignoring it.
  1. Cooldown: 5 Seconds, ability can be moved after the elapsed cooldown.
  2. Delay: 1 Second.
  3. Radius: 350
  4. Root the tablet into position so it cannot move while it's healing. From a balancing stand point as well as graphical standpoint, it just makes sense. The tablet is growing roots that >tether to allies.

Protective Solace

• Verdict: This skill is excellent against ranged targets; however offers nothing upclose. This means it's value comes more from comboing with Energy Expulsion.
• Suggestion: Maintain the original intent of Protective Solace, but allow for it to apply "Weakness" to enemies within the dome. The featable trait Planar Protection already does this; however, only after it procs. This additional effect gives new reason to use this outside of >setting up a combo with Energy Expulsion. As it stands, it's more effective to save your energy for pulsing heals via Natural Harmony and not using this at all; it just doesn't add enough >impact to warrant the degeneration of energy. This added effect is also further balanced by the fact the enemy player can end the effect of Protective Solace if they destroy the Ventari's >tablet.

Purifying Essence

• Verdict: This skill seems extremely underwhelming by itself. It only removes 3 conditions and the heal is mediocre at best, even after removing 3 conditions. The only point of this >skill is to set up a full conditions wipe after comboing protective solace with energy expulsion. Nonetheless, that shouldn't be the only importance to this whole skill.
• Suggestion: Rework this skill so that it instead focuses less on condition removal, and more on engagement/disengagement. Have it so the Ventari player can teleport to the tablet on >a 15 second cooldown. Offer three traits, one to choose from:
  1. Support: Teleporting to the Ventari Tablet converts up to 3 conditions from the player and allies near the tablet to boons.
  2. Offensive: Damage nearby targets upon reaching tablet location.
  3. Utility: Stuns nearby enemies for 1.5 seconds within a radius of 240 around the tablet.

Energy Expulsion

• Verdict: Energy Expulsion is good for a multitude of reasons, such as comboing with Protective Solace to remove conditions, as well as both knocking enemies who're finishing >downed allies and allowing them to pick up the healing fragments to bring them back up to full life after being revived. It's also a nice being able to knock players off high-to-reach areas >so your team can deal with them easier. However though, Ventari still suffers from zero damage output...
• Suggestion: Upon activating this elite skill, have it so the shrapnel of shards of stone deal area of effect damage, and apply a bleeding effect to enemies near it. <

In conclusion, I was debating on whether I should write this up and speak my mind. After much deliberation, I decided to write this with the intent of increases the overall viability and impact that the Ventari Revenant offers team composition. I do know there is more than just PvP to consider with this write up, such as how the changes I suggested will impact both WvW and PvE alike. I feel these changes will not only revitalize the Ventari playstyle, but offer additional impact to team comps.

Nice writeup....very intresting, hopefully we getto see a few in game now be nice a change from all the firebrands and druids.

Bump123456

I have made my own suggestions for how to help Ventari become more viable, but I honestly don't think it will ever get to that point because of the design of the class as a whole. They would have to make some drastic changes for it to ever even get near the level of Firebrand. I think that this boils down to three primary reasons:

1.The energy system. You either sustain yourself or you sustain your teammates. If you are focused, it is extremely hard to support others because your own sustain gets pooled from the same resource as team support. With such costly amounts of energy for Ventari skills, it is hard to actually find that proper balance. Hypothetically it can work, and in some situations it sure can, but if the enemy team is actually smart, they will focus you and you're fucked if they continue pressure. Especially with the current meta.

2. The tablet mechanic. Having a healing mechanic independent from your own movement has its benefits, but in a realistic environment, it just doesn't work. As much as I love the tablet, I think it truly needs a way for the player to merge with it. Otherwise, it'll just continue being a game of chase the ally. Great when your buddy stands still, useless when they are moving around everywhere. Not to mention wasted energy.
3. Salvation trait arrangement. As I said in point 1, you either sustain yourself or you sustain your teammates. This can apply to traits as well. Frankly, the tablet heals pretty subpar-ly without any modifiers; its success relies on them. Unfortunately, these modifiers compete with options for self-sustain, and without that self-sustain (blind on heal, fragment on tablet skill), you become an exponentially bigger sitting duck. I personally believe that the traits need to be not only be tweaked, but need to also be arranged differently in order to allow for more choice that would translate to a successful PvP build (see signature).

As far as your suggestions go, I think some of them are interesting, but I don't think they would push Ventari anywhere close to the meta. A couple critques:-Having three trait options revolving around Purifying Essence mean you are taking away three traits, two if there is a default choice. The Salvation line doesn't have room for that. I personally hate 2 of the 3 current GM traits, but I'd rather they be taken in a different direction than to modify a single skill.-Ventari does not need damage. It is not supposed to. It does not fit thematically and it wouldn't increase its viability.

@"Rizz.9830" said:-snip-

Just to add my 2 cents to whole ventari usage thing - protective solace is not only there for comboing with energy explusion. There is staff #4 and mace #3, both blast finishers that can combo off it too, without blowing your energy bank sky high.

Other then that Ventari seems to be a case of "I'm amazing at ....that thing no one has to do".Tablet lets you heal targets way away from self (so you can send it into the hotzone, while staying at range yourself) and heal when you're cc'd and face to the ground. The tablet doesn't care, you can still control it much like ranger can his pet.

That would be a huge advantage vs other healers if we had encouters that would reward ranged healer play, not to mention playing a class that is good at range (hint: rev is not). Not to mention that being cc chained into oblivion...well that may be a thing in competitive, not in pve where "is ventari viable healer" raises most questions.

Ventari still needs a pretty big rework to make it viable, outside of PvE that is.

ppl miss to role of ventarithe role is to heal from range without being or taking the hit. guard ele and ranger must be around allies inorder to heal. ventari doesnt!!! this is huge advantage

the problem is ppl havent adapt to this play role . allies want to go wherever they want but they dont think "i see this square yellowish near me" oh it heals lets stand around it. this behavior force ventari to move all the time

on paper ventari works great on point fights. you put it on the middle and your allies fights around it while you dont have to move it at all.

ventari role is like a commander who shout the location his team needs to go and he knows first where the healing is needed and act by it. his team listen and get healed.

so some of your ideas will ruin the whole concept of ventari.

i found it great role when i play with another team mate 2v2 or 2v3. i stand at range and he is on the point. when i take the focus i stand near him and he cleaves or he come to me to pill off some dmg.

atm the main disadvantage ventari has its lack of condi cleanse. the healing abilities are great but condi cleanse are just too bad to support any team or themself.for some reason anet refuse to give revenant more condi cleanse abilities. this is the main reason revenant push out the meta.

the solution is easy

protective solace - now also cleanse 1 condition every 3 secusually ppl use it for 6 sec which means 3 cleanse

EE - kb enemies and lose all nrg. remove all conditions. gain back 1 nrg for each condition cleansed. 35 nrg , 5 sec cd (pvp)usually you use it when you have already low nrg below 20 so it cleanse 2 conditions.you hardly use it. when you have 25 nrg use PE cleanse 3 while EE needs 30 nrgif you have 40 nrg you will use PE and PS+staff 4 = 6 Cleanseif you have 50 nrg you will use PE and PS+staff 4 +EE = 7 cleanse

so this is the reason while the cleanse abilities is sucks.if EE could cleanse all conditions the cost of 30 nrg means you cannot spamm it as 35 nrg take 7 sec. if you burst with condi bomb you cannot wait 6 sec so it will push you to dodge evade to build nrg to use PE for another 3 cleanse but if you wont be pushed every 10 sec you can negate condi dmg from your teamif you choose to spamm it for the kb with 5 sec cd you wont be able to.

this will counter scourge (they counter boons . we need to counter their dmg)