Ventari Revenant

With new forums, we might as well get a new post talking about why this build is so toxic for the game. To be honest, I was hoping to see it nerfed in the August 8th patch. Instead they buffed it by doubling the duration of the shards. It makes me question whether or not ArenaNet really understands how toxic the build is. Multiple teams used it to cheese wins in recent tournaments, and it kills my desire to queue quite frequently.

The main argument you'll see defending it is that it's balanced since you can outrotate it. The problem is, that's only true in five man teams. The game isn't balanced around a competitive structure that barely exists (Automated Tournaments). The fact remains that it isn't balanced for solo/duo queue, since it puts you in a situation where you cannot affect the outcome of the match much more frequently due to poor rotations by your teammates. This is especially true at high tier, since matches tend to include Legend/Plat/Gold players all in the same match. It absolutely ruins games that could otherwise be close. And all of that is assuming it's balanced.

Now here's a question about balance. Just because something has counterplay, does that make it balanced? Balance needs to include a relationship between risk and reward. Skillful gameplay should lead to higher winrates, whereas bad play should cause losses. Ventari Rev breaks that balance. Even when played poorly, it is much more effective than that displayed skill level. There is little risk, but it can be very rewarding. Whether or not it gives it's opponents ways to play around it, it unfairly represents the skill level of the person playing it.

The last point I'd like to make is how unfun it is to play against. Something I'll compare it to is AP Master Yi from League of Legends. The build was fun to play, and could be quite effective, but it was very frustrating to play against. Riot nerfed it for that reason. Then, about a year ago, it came back in another form, one that wasn't so cheesy. Ventari Revenant is the same. The issue isn't that it exists. The issue is how unsatisfying it is to play against. Ventari Revenant can and should exist, but not based around a gimmick that can knock players back more frequently than they can even dodge. It promotes the same style of play that Decap Engi and Bunker Mesmer did. Both of those were fixed. Hopefully Ventari Revenant will be as well.

It's not really toxic if you CC them till they are dead >:)

Retribution gives them four seconds of Stability every eight seconds. If they time their knockbacks and blocks between that, you aren't going to be able to do that. On top of that, unless you're outnumbering them, you won't have enough CC to kill them before they heal up and completely reset cooldowns before your CC is back off cooldown. A lot of the suggestions players give in regard to countering Ventari Revenants comes from their experience fighting ones that still skill click and haven't mastered the dodge roll.

@OlrunTheBlade.1486 said:Retribution gives them four seconds of Stability every eight seconds. If they time their knockbacks and blocks between that, you aren't going to be able to do that. On top of that, unless you're outnumbering them, you won't have enough CC to kill them before they heal up and completely reset cooldowns before your CC is back off cooldown. A lot of the suggestions players give in regard to countering Ventari Revenants comes from their experience fighting ones that still skill click and haven't mastered the dodge roll.

Every 8 seconds on dodge rolling.So unless the rev is Psychic ( doubtful) and dodges preemptively , and perfectly every time you are about to burst AND CC ( becomes much harder to do fighting 2+ competent/ organized people) Then the stability is moot.Blocks can be hit through and become less of an issue depending on what you bring to +1 the bunker.Against new people and people that are absolutely terrible or uncoordinated this build is toxic, and will be nerfed because of that.

If A-net keeps going with decisions like it has done in the past, this build will be nerfed into oblivion, with either an energy increase, a heal effectiveness decrease, or both.Discouraging people to play this build or coming up with similar iterations like it .At this point it's just a matter of time.

Greatest Ventaris weakness are their same point of strength:

• good CC but also suffer from CC
• good healing but tied to fragments (again, weak to CC)
• damage reduction and telegraphed stability (very weak vs boon corruption..) and dealing near to 0 damage

So.. don't eat on heal blinds and CC right after Energy Expulsion to don't let the Ventari pick up his tablet's fragments.Seeing a revenant many necros tend to focus it to make it useless and picking pulsing corruption skills in the pre match

Maybe they'll add a ICD to Blinding Truths and cut the travel distance of Energy Expulsion but other than that the build is fine.The only OP part of Energy Expulsion is that with that its easy to proc allied ToF traps, not that the Revenant i fought were doing it..

How does good dodging require a player to be psychic? If you land a CC and one shot before they've dodged once, that's more surprising than them dodging something and gaining Stability. After that, it's just a matter of chaining together defensive cooldowns. It takes way more coordination and skill to kill a Ventari Revenant than it does to play it, which is the entire reason the build is so toxic. Necromancer is definitely the best way to kill a Ventari Revenant, but no other class requires such specific rotations to be done around it while also winning almost every 1v1 (full capping it eventually counts as winning in Conquest). The closest thing was pre-nerf Condition Warrior, but even that wasn't as bad to fight against... and it was nerfed!

The knockback needs to be changed, give it 10s CD or cut the length to 1/4, idk just do something.

It's like the balance team has amnesia: decap engi was nerfed because it was unhealthy for the game, but now they give us ventari rev which is 10 times worse.

Positioning: decap engi had to position himself in a way in which it knocks people away from the point. The mine cart of legacy was added specifically to "counter" the build. Ventari rev can just stand still and move the tablet to a position where it knocks you off easily.

Investment: decap engi had to sacrifice damage, cleansing, and mobility to work. Ventari rev doesn't do any of that and just spams one button which btw also AoE cleanses and heals.

Delivery: decap engi needed to land some projectiles (which can be countered) and do combos. Ventari rev tablet obviously isn't negated by such effects and it's a 1 button build.

Versatility: decap engi did only 1 thing - decap, and was only useful in 1v1s. Ventari rev can go wherever he wants and he'll be useful, decap against multiple targets, decap 1v1s, and support the team while doing so.

Level of interaction: zero. There are builds where stability is gained by evading attacks, which means against scrapper a good ventari rev will stow his weapon and afk in the middle of the point without attacking, because you don't want to give the engi stability. *It's literally not even using the combat of the game.

It's sad that we have to beg on our knees and hope something happens, this shouldn't have passed testing in the first place.

Something I also forgot to mention is that you can completely delete the cast animation of the knockback by moving it during the waiting period. If the tablet moves, you have no way of knowing if they precasted the knockback or not, so you have to dodge. Also, there's a reason the only other CC with no cooldown is Headshot, a 1/4 second, single target Daze. The knockback is just way out of proportion to the cost and cooldown of the skill.

yep, nothing to see, everythings fine with ventari rev

I honestly didn't realize Ventari rev was considered OP, thought it was people running gimmick builds since all that really happened is they'd get CCed and die, and then we'd move onto the next teammate.

Such a well-written and well-thought out post gets way more thumb down than ups?

Seems it is not the dev's but the community's fault to have a declining PvP scene.

Car crashed even lost to the worst team in the UGO tourny just becasue they were running ventari rev and condi thief.

Lul @ olrun talking about outrotating a ventari rev in a five man team scenario but during the ugo he outnumbered one for awhile and lost and didn't even make top 3 even after banning the abjured. Don't listen to the salty cries of someone who loses to ventari rev in a team setting. Only fix ventari rev needs is a cooldown on the knockback, everything else is fine./downvoted

We beat the Ventari Revenant team, as we did in the previous monthly AT as well. I know how to deal with them. Regardless, a cooldown on the knockback is exactly the kind of change I'm looking for. You're disagreeing and agreeing with me in the same breath, Naru.

so first you state that because its soloq every build which the team cant handle needs to be nerfed?! every time i see my team not targeting the necro should we nerf necros? or when my team dont target the moa should we nerfed this player also?!if the team does bad moves it is bad moves.if the build can handle 1v1 it doesnt mean its OP. it means you need +1. ranger versus ele 1v1 they both cant kill each other so lets nerf them?!yes the kb is here and it always were here but you never see ventari rev. so ask yourself what has changed? the fragment got buffed to 10 sec duration. so if you nerf it back to 5 sec ppl will still complain. why is that? i tell you why. cause ppl havent figure out how to counter it or how to play against it.ranger with lb can kb off the point and immobilize you so he can decap the point. necro can chain fear and decap the point. thief can juke you and decap the point.

send a guard which good one should be able to hold the point and +1 with a thief and rev will die.

if you still insist on nerfing here is my theorycraft

trait momentary pacification (useless now) - icd 10 sec and no fuse time. so when using an elite you can immobilize . than EE can have icd of 10 sec but cleanse 5 conditions (10 sec equal to 50 nrg).with this change a bunker build will choose this trait, and support build will go with natural abundance.

It's just the knockback everyone can agree that it needs a icd of some sorts. Nothing else is actually wrong with the build.

@messiah.1908 said:so first you state that because its soloq every build which the team cant handle needs to be nerfed?! every time i see my team not targeting the necro should we nerf necros?

As a necro player, please dont even say necro and nerf in the same sentence, I dont think the class could take it. lol

@messiah.1908 said:

if the build can handle 1v1 it doesnt mean its OP. it means you need +1. ranger versus ele 1v1 they both cant kill each other so lets nerf them?!

Ppl defending this build keeps ignoring the fundamental difference from other support builds.

In druid vs tempest 1v1, no one will be able to decap or cap nodes. With ventari rev, it is so easy to decap anyone and only a matter of time to cap a node.

@OlrunTheBlade.1486 said:With new forums, we might as well get a new post talking about why this build is so toxic for the game. To be honest, I was hoping to see it nerfed in the August 8th patch. Instead they buffed it by doubling the duration of the shards. It makes me question whether or not ArenaNet really understands how toxic the build is. Multiple teams used it to cheese wins in recent tournaments, and it kills my desire to queue quite frequently.

The main argument you'll see defending it is that it's balanced since you can outrotate it. The problem is, that's only true in five man teams. The game isn't balanced around a competitive structure that barely exists (Automated Tournaments). The fact remains that it isn't balanced for solo/duo queue, since it puts you in a situation where you cannot affect the outcome of the match much more frequently due to poor rotations by your teammates. This is especially true at high tier, since matches tend to include Legend/Plat/Gold players all in the same match. It absolutely ruins games that could otherwise be close. And all of that is assuming it's balanced.

Now here's a question about balance. Just because something has counterplay, does that make it balanced? Balance needs to include a relationship between risk and reward. Skillful gameplay should lead to higher winrates, whereas bad play should cause losses. Ventari Rev breaks that balance. Even when played poorly, it is much more effective than that displayed skill level. There is little risk, but it can be very rewarding. Whether or not it gives it's opponents ways to play around it, it unfairly represents the skill level of the person playing it.

The last point I'd like to make is how unfun it is to play against. Something I'll compare it to is AP Master Yi from League of Legends. The build was fun to play, and could be quite effective, but it was very frustrating to play against. Riot nerfed it for that reason. Then, about a year ago, it came back in another form, one that wasn't so cheesy. Ventari Revenant is the same. The issue isn't that it exists. The issue is how unsatisfying it is to play against. Ventari Revenant can and should exist, but not based around a gimmick that can knock players back more frequently than they can even dodge. It promotes the same style of play that Decap Engi and Bunker Mesmer did. Both of those were fixed. Hopefully Ventari Revenant will be as well.

Rotate around the ventari. Not exactly hard, and there should be more posts on s/d condi since since thats twice as worse :^). Also it is still pretty vulnerable to necro or high power dmg spec (if its already 1v1'ing another damage spec), up to that point the ventari can just kite, but most dont.

Rotate around the ventari. Not exactly hard, and there should be more posts on s/d condi since since thats twice as worse :^). Also it is still pretty vulnerable to necro or high power dmg spec (if its already 1v1'ing another damage spec), up to that point the ventari can just kite, but most dont.

Dude, why would you afk in node? You can just run to every team fight and troll the game. Everywhere you go your team will win the fights, it's not about avoid it, the rev tablet can move just like anyone else.

@OlrunTheBlade.1486 said:With new forums, we might as well get a new post talking about why this build is so toxic for the game. To be honest, I was hoping to see it nerfed in the August 8th patch. Instead they buffed it by doubling the duration of the shards. It makes me question whether or not ArenaNet really understands how toxic the build is. Multiple teams used it to cheese wins in recent tournaments, and it kills my desire to queue quite frequently.I was waiting for tablet and condi thief nerf in 8th august as well,but anet just like to ruins spvp and wvw,they just dont care. 1 year ago they said the wvw community will decide the future of it, but they didnt... they should bring this idea back and make it work for spvp since they cant read and dont play the game

@messiah.1908 No other build is as punishing when your teammates make mistakes. The point also isn't that it doesn't die 1v1. It wins every 1v1. On top of that, it survives way too many 1v2s. Even builds with worse 1v1 matchups lose to more 2v1 matchups. Also, the other decap builds you mentioned die very quickly to plusses from any damage spec.

@Blood.5607 I agree that S/D Thief does need a nerf. However, while more prevalent than Ventari Rev, it doesn't ruin my enjoyment of the match, win or lose. Also, somebody else made a thread complaining about Condition Thief, so I won't post another one. Also, @zHasgard.9827 is correct in that most Ventari Revenants have no idea when to kite off node. It's an issue for inexperienced Scrappers and Druids as well, but all of the current Ventari Revenants lack that experience. It will only become more of an issue as those players improve at their role. Maybe PoF will negate that with the sheer amount of pressure Scourge can put out, though.

To be honest you are describing PvP in a nutshell. Over half the builds from metabattle are anything but fun to play against. After very few fights I think "this was a fun fight". Most builds have too much of something, so it would make sense to rebalance all classes to be less of everything, even if it makes pvp slower paced.

@Malediktus.9250 Most builds do have cheesy aspects, but the central concept of the current Ventari Revenant is cheese. The entire point of the build is to survive and CC.

Yes, but you can play other classes such as druid with glyphs to be similary cheese, it is not unique to ventar rev even if its currently the most prevalent of such bunker builds