Power Build for SPvP (Retribution, Invocation and Herald)

en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vlAQNAscmn3guNSuQ7JRboVlsP0rS4IaWJ4EdsklZlxO6r3WNgDWg9lc+B-jpxHQBK7QAIu9H+2DAAAHBgrVGggnAAA

Since you can easily get ccd by all the classes (especially mesmer), I thought I might give the Retribution traitline a try. Even tho the stability you can get from Unwavering Avoidance requires to succesfully evade an attack, that shouldnt be a problem with all the aoe spam, especially in teamfights where power revs should be part in.

Furthermore you get retaliation by dodging, which gives you 10 % more dmg with Vicious Reprisal.

To even increase the duration of those boons, I decided to go with leadership runes (also good condi cleanse on elite skill).

Overall you might lose a bit of dps from the Devastation traitline, but you can get easily 25 might stacks with Incense Response. Sword 4 hits like a truck. The survivability you can get by using Retribution makes up for that dps loss imo.

Let me hear your thoughts :)

Tried it in both WvW and PvP recently, imo it's a no damage potato build still.

Used to play this build a while back in WvW too but stopped when Dwarf GM/Retribution in general got rekt. Was a really balanced build that was great for solo roaming compare to yolo Invocation Devastation.

I think it is solid, i was running that up until a couple days ago, except that i prefer versed in stone and dwarven battle training for retribution.

Imo, Devastation is still better in general, because legend swap and shiro usually provide with enough stunbreak, but there are some situations where this build is a better go, specially vs bursty comps.

This is a good concept but imo it lacks damage far too much. Relying on retal for damage increase isn't really worth it for anyone but a Guardian.

Let's compare relevant traits/access to retaliation from Guardian and Revenant.

Guardian's access to retal: Virtues adept minor (3s on each virtue, flat 25% increase to all retal duration), Radiance adept minor (Light aura upon Justice, which gives retal when struck), Radiance adept major (5s retal on heal skill), leaps in light fields (light aura again), Symbol of Wrath (GS 4 skill, applies retal per pulse). Other options that are less taken include the Virtues adept major Retaliatory Subconscious (a legit option) as well as Zeal adept major (Wrathful Spirit, which no one takes).

Guardian traits that improve retal: Radiance master major (Flat 10% bonus AND 250 Ferocity with retal), Radiance GM major (50% increased crit chance and automatically gives 6s might every 1s when you have retal).

Rev's access to retal: Retribution master major (2s on dodge), Retribution adept major (2s upon a successful taunt), Jalis heal skill (locks you into a legend).

Rev traits that improve retal: Retribution GM major (Flat 10% bonus, 50% increased retal duration, 8s might given only when you actually hit someone, still with a 1s ICD).

So in the end, on demand retal access is easier for a guardian- on today's normal rev build you have to spend a dodge to get it. In addition, buffs while you have retal are as follows:

Guardian: 10% increased damage, passive might given every second, 50% crit chance increase (equivalent to a 1050 point increase in Precision), 250 Ferocity (equivalent to 16.67% flat increased critical damage).

Revenant: 10% increased damage, might given only upon striking enemy.

I won't argue for Rev to have retal traits quite on the same level as Guardian has, since Retribution is primarily intended to be a defensive traitline. But the differences are massive.

only THIShttp://gw2skills.net/editor/?vlAQNAscmn3guNSuQ7JRboVlsP0rS4IaWJ4EdsklNFiNMpZN2BsgLsNAFoBA-jJR6QA1nAA4UA0KDg3fAAbecause its the most rewarding vs blocking and you already have mightgain so use protection trait

@"Xca.9721" said:en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vlAQNAscmn3guNSuQ7JRboVlsP0rS4IaWJ4EdsklZlxO6r3WNgDWg9lc+B-jpxHQBK7QAIu9H+2DAAAHBgrVGggnAAA

Since you can easily get ccd by all the classes (especially mesmer), I thought I might give the Retribution traitline a try. Even tho the stability you can get from Unwavering Avoidance requires to succesfully evade an attack, that shouldnt be a problem with all the aoe spam, especially in teamfights where power revs should be part in.

Furthermore you get retaliation by dodging, which gives you 10 % more dmg with Vicious Reprisal.

To even increase the duration of those boons, I decided to go with leadership runes (also good condi cleanse on elite skill).

Overall you might lose a bit of dps from the Devastation traitline, but you can get easily 25 might stacks with Incense Response. Sword 4 hits like a truck. The survivability you can get by using Retribution makes up for that dps loss imo.

Let me hear your thoughts :)

you already have enough might stacks from fury and invocation trait. so retal buff you dps by 275 per hit taken and 10% more dmg. while devastation gives 10% from swords and 10% from critical hits and life siphon dmg of 398 . which is not losing bit dmg rather about 1k dps while getting what? stability 1 stacks and retal?

@messiah.1908 said:

you already have enough might stacks from fury and invocation trait. so retal buff you dps by 275 per hit taken and 10% more dmg. while devastation gives 10% from swords and 10% from critical hits and life siphon dmg of 398 . which is not losing bit dmg rather about 1k dps while getting what? stability 1 stacks and retal?

Its not all about dps, check the other traits. Your endurance recovery is increased by 25 %, u take less dmg with both having stability (15 %) and players beyond 360 range (10 %). Basically you trade dps for survivability.

@Xca.9721 said:

@messiah.1908 said:

you already have enough might stacks from fury and invocation trait. so retal buff you dps by 275 per hit taken and 10% more dmg. while devastation gives 10% from swords and 10% from critical hits and life siphon dmg of 398 . which is not losing bit dmg rather about 1k dps while getting what? stability 1 stacks and retal?

Its not all about dps, check the other traits. Your endurance recovery is increased by 25 %, u take less dmg with both having stability (15 %) and players beyond 360 range (10 %). Basically you trade dps for survivability.

atm this meta is about pure dps. having 25% endurance is nice for the longer fights not the fast ones. 15% stability when you dodge mean only for 4 sec??!!.if you dont do high dmg the enemy will do and pressure you harder

At the release Rev had a decent access to stability and the best rezzing trait in the game (broken, for sure), so the class was played pretty much as every other one (you finished downed enemies, revided allies, etc.). Then ANet had the strange epiphany that the class wasn't meant to had access to stab and butchered Retribution (which anyway always seemed to me a pretty terrible traitline in terms of sustain enhancement: a way to hurt your damage without being tanky at all).

So one got used to play with no stab, no finishing downeds (only cleaving, which is way worse now due IO doesn't provide quickness) and no rezz (Radiant Revival was good in the pre PoF times of burst physical damage, but is no longer the same with so much pulsating ticks from shades, wells and other crap). Because Rev had never a bruiser build (much less a tanky build), stab is irrelevant (as long as you learn to prevent attacks and/or to save a breakstun or two just in case) and the retaliation time in Rev is laughlable (Guard has 30+ seconds each 50 if traited properly) I always saw Retribution traitline as a monumental waste of space, and the recent patch didn't change that.

Boy this build looks mighty familiar. I wonder where else I've seen it used :^)

@thebatman.6250 said:Boy this build looks mighty familiar. I wonder where else I've seen it used :^)

Well, a similiar build was quite popular before the stab trait got nerfed Kappa

@Buran.3796 said:At the release Rev had a decent access to stability and the best rezzing trait in the game (broken, for sure), so the class was played pretty much as every other one (you finished downed enemies, revided allies, etc.). Then ANet had the strange epiphany that the class wasn't meant to had access to stab and butchered Retribution (which anyway always seemed to me a pretty terrible traitline in terms of sustain enhancement: a way to hurt your damage without being tanky at all).

So one got used to play with no stab, no finishing downeds (only cleaving, which is way worse now due IO doesn't provide quickness) and no rezz (Radiant Revival was good in the pre PoF times of burst physical damage, but is no longer the same with so much pulsating ticks from shades, wells and other crap). Because Rev had never a bruiser build (much less a tanky build), stab is irrelevant (as long as you learn to prevent attacks and/or to save a breakstun or two just in case) and the retaliation time in Rev is laughlable (Guard has 30+ seconds each 50 if traited properly) I always saw Retribution traitline as a monumental waste of space, and the recent patch didn't change that.

Agreed... Retribution's always been terrible.

I guess people liked the stability, but it only worked because there was almost zero boon removal in the game then (just reapers, and they died in less than a second so it didn't even matter) and because SoTM, Precision Strike, and old, old, pre-nerf Equilibrium did so much unbalanced damage that you could get away with taking it and probably even a paladin amulet and still one shot people.

You could add back old-state Retribution, and it wouldn't do a single thing to keep you alive longer... The only reason it might seem like you have better survivability when playing something like Retribution+Jalis is because people see that you're playing it and save you for last since your damage output is so low. rip. :astonished:

@narcx.3570 said:

@Buran.3796 said:At the release Rev had a decent access to stability and the best rezzing trait in the game (broken, for sure), so the class was played pretty much as every other one (you finished downed enemies, revided allies, etc.). Then ANet had the strange epiphany that the class wasn't meant to had access to stab and butchered Retribution (which anyway always seemed to me a pretty terrible traitline in terms of sustain enhancement: a way to hurt your damage without being tanky at all).

So one got used to play with no stab, no finishing downeds (only cleaving, which is way worse now due IO doesn't provide quickness) and no rezz (Radiant Revival was good in the pre PoF times of burst physical damage, but is no longer the same with so much pulsating ticks from shades, wells and other crap). Because Rev had never a bruiser build (much less a tanky build), stab is irrelevant (as long as you learn to prevent attacks and/or to save a breakstun or two just in case) and the retaliation time in Rev is laughlable (Guard has 30+ seconds each 50 if traited properly) I always saw Retribution traitline as a monumental waste of space, and the recent patch didn't change that.

Stability on dodge used to have no CD, retri revs were running around with perma ~4 stacks of it, it used to be OP. Damage was high enough to be able to afford it.

@witcher.3197 said:

@narcx.3570 said:

@Buran.3796 said:At the release Rev had a decent access to stability and the best rezzing trait in the game (broken, for sure), so the class was played pretty much as every other one (you finished downed enemies, revided allies, etc.). Then ANet had the strange epiphany that the class wasn't meant to had access to stab and butchered Retribution (which anyway always seemed to me a pretty terrible traitline in terms of sustain enhancement: a way to hurt your damage without being tanky at all).

So one got used to play with no stab, no finishing downeds (only cleaving, which is way worse now due IO doesn't provide quickness) and no rezz (Radiant Revival was good in the pre PoF times of burst physical damage, but is no longer the same with so much pulsating ticks from shades, wells and other crap). Because Rev had never a bruiser build (much less a tanky build), stab is irrelevant (as long as you learn to prevent attacks and/or to save a breakstun or two just in case) and the retaliation time in Rev is laughlable (Guard has 30+ seconds each 50 if traited properly) I always saw Retribution traitline as a monumental waste of space, and the recent patch didn't change that.

Sort of... The burst of SoTM/PS/Eq was super op at the time and could certainly carry your kills, but by taking retribution you were banking solely on those big moves and combo's to down people. Which I guess is fine, but all those big moves were just as easy to dodge then as they are now and the combo's were little more than one-tricks that anyone who's fought a rev before should know are coming... Compare that to Devastation's huge passive and unavoidable dps spikes and it seems like a lot to sacrifice just to get stability--which is something you barely even need as a rev--especially then when there were far fewer unblockable attacks.

@narcx.3570 said:

@witcher.3197 said:

@narcx.3570 said:

@Buran.3796 said:At the release Rev had a decent access to stability and the best rezzing trait in the game (broken, for sure), so the class was played pretty much as every other one (you finished downed enemies, revided allies, etc.). Then ANet had the strange epiphany that the class wasn't meant to had access to stab and butchered Retribution (which anyway always seemed to me a pretty terrible traitline in terms of sustain enhancement: a way to hurt your damage without being tanky at all).

So one got used to play with no stab, no finishing downeds (only cleaving, which is way worse now due IO doesn't provide quickness) and no rezz (Radiant Revival was good in the pre PoF times of burst physical damage, but is no longer the same with so much pulsating ticks from shades, wells and other crap). Because Rev had never a bruiser build (much less a tanky build), stab is irrelevant (as long as you learn to prevent attacks and/or to save a breakstun or two just in case) and the retaliation time in Rev is laughlable (Guard has 30+ seconds each 50 if traited properly) I always saw Retribution traitline as a monumental waste of space, and the recent patch didn't change that.

It was Devastation/Retri/herald, not Invo/Retri/Herald. When staff5 could oneshot a whole team you could get away with that ;)

@witcher.3197 said:

@narcx.3570 said:

@witcher.3197 said:

@narcx.3570 said:

@Buran.3796 said:At the release Rev had a decent access to stability and the best rezzing trait in the game (broken, for sure), so the class was played pretty much as every other one (you finished downed enemies, revided allies, etc.). Then ANet had the strange epiphany that the class wasn't meant to had access to stab and butchered Retribution (which anyway always seemed to me a pretty terrible traitline in terms of sustain enhancement: a way to hurt your damage without being tanky at all).

So one got used to play with no stab, no finishing downeds (only cleaving, which is way worse now due IO doesn't provide quickness) and no rezz (Radiant Revival was good in the pre PoF times of burst physical damage, but is no longer the same with so much pulsating ticks from shades, wells and other crap). Because Rev had never a bruiser build (much less a tanky build), stab is irrelevant (as long as you learn to prevent attacks and/or to save a breakstun or two just in case) and the retaliation time in Rev is laughlable (Guard has 30+ seconds each 50 if traited properly) I always saw Retribution traitline as a monumental waste of space, and the recent patch didn't change that.

You'd really rather have stability than old broken Equilibrium and Roiling Mists? Wow. 0.o

@narcx.3570 said:

@witcher.3197 said:

@narcx.3570 said:

@witcher.3197 said:

@narcx.3570 said:

@Buran.3796 said:At the release Rev had a decent access to stability and the best rezzing trait in the game (broken, for sure), so the class was played pretty much as every other one (you finished downed enemies, revided allies, etc.). Then ANet had the strange epiphany that the class wasn't meant to had access to stab and butchered Retribution (which anyway always seemed to me a pretty terrible traitline in terms of sustain enhancement: a way to hurt your damage without being tanky at all).

So one got used to play with no stab, no finishing downeds (only cleaving, which is way worse now due IO doesn't provide quickness) and no rezz (Radiant Revival was good in the pre PoF times of burst physical damage, but is no longer the same with so much pulsating ticks from shades, wells and other crap). Because Rev had never a bruiser build (much less a tanky build), stab is irrelevant (as long as you learn to prevent attacks and/or to save a breakstun or two just in case) and the retaliation time in Rev is laughlable (Guard has 30+ seconds each 50 if traited properly) I always saw Retribution traitline as a monumental waste of space, and the recent patch didn't change that.

When thieves were spamming PI headshots for 30% of your HP to which you suddenly became immune to while the taunt trait gave you enough time to 100-0 them, not to mention that everyone and their grandma had AoE CC spam? Yes, I would.