PVE Concept Build: Furious Renegade

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vlMQNAscinXMXNSumrJRZz/kst5gSY38QJ4berkFNlitMWj4odACgI4vHPykE-jxRBABWq+zVK/A4JAoxpAoo9HMTJoe6DAA-e

The general idea behind this build is to use Brutal Momentum, Roiling Mists, Runes of Rage, and Sigil of Energy to sustain an almost exactly 100% crit rate with as much uptime as possible.

Legends are Kalla and Jalis on land, Shiro and Jalis when swimming. Because you know...cats and water. Or whatever ANet's excuse is for Kalla being unusable while swimming...

The Inovcation and Renegade trees, along with Deathstrike, provide several means of triggering Fury. The Runes of Rage provide an opening burst of Fury upon entering combat, along with extended Fury duration and a damage bonus while Fury is up.

Brutal Momentum + Roiling Mists + Fury = 73% crit, so a heavy investment into Precision is not required. This allows us to swap some of our Berserker gear for Valkyrie, giving us almost 21K HP. This extra padding is important since this build will try to avoid dodging too much.

When dodging IS necessary, we have two things to help us quickly restore the crit bonus from Brutal Momentum. First simply is that this build is almost constantly triggering Fury, which in turn triggers the Vigor boon from Brutal Momentum. We can also weapon swap to trigger the Sigil of Energy. Between those two things, any downtime on Brutal Momentum should be almost negligible.

Supporting the high crit rate, this build carries a good amount of Power and a frightening amount of Ferocity, with sustained Might, Vulnerability, and damage bonuses from multiple sources. Given what this build can do with its swords alone, AOE attacks like Jalis' hammers and Citadel Bombardment are almost just a bonus gift.

This build also offers a significant amount of both individual and group support, with condition cleansing or reduction from healing skills, and area boons from multiple sources including Alacrity, Might, Protection, and Stability. You also have the area abilities of Kalla's warband.

You can split the swords between hands if you prefer, to be able to swap weapons while needing only two swords. I personally prefer keeping a hammer ready as my second weapon for its range and various abilities. A staff could also be useful if you like that fighting style, or just want the extra bits of healing.

This build rocks in open world PVE (solo, character story, group events) and should be a solid contributor in dungeons and fractals. I'm not a raider, so I don't know how it would perform in that arena, but between its DPS and group functions, I think it could earn its keep.

Constructive thoughts appreciated.

Intriguing power renegade build for sure. Berseker glass Cannon revenants just feels far too fragile.
And sure scholar and rising tide is 'meta', i think the traits are vastly overrated, because you will never be long enough at 90%+ for it to matter. Except perhaps in raids.

Maybe consider Righteous Rebel instead of Vindication to get more use out of Orders from Above to get faster abilities in general?Especially since renegades have one of the few reliable alacrity giving abilities outside chronomancers.Plus better uptime on Orders from Above as well with it lasting 6s instead of 4, which should shave more of its own cd too.

Thanks for the input. :)

I agree about Rising Tide and Scholar runes being overrated. Unless you are in a team situation with a full time healer -- or just a big dogpile open world event where everyone is spamming whatever they've got -- you will seldom be above 90% health for more than a few seconds past your opening volley. Recognizing that was part of why ANet changed Scholar runes to give more stable damage output.

Righteous Rebel boosting Orders From Above is definitely an option if you know you're going to be in a group and needing to provide Alacrity. It could also be useful if you know you're about to be fighting a lot of conditions, since it also reduces condition damage to you.

Another option I thought about is using Charged Mists instead of Roiling Mists, to make your legend swaps more efficient. I've a notion that might be useful in long battles. That would drop your full-up crit chance to "only" 80% but the added sustain and energy to use skills could help make up for that.

If you want to run Charged Mists full time instead of Roiling Mists, you could consider swapping the Valkyrie weapons in this build for Berserker; that would reduce your HP to 19K but bring your crit up to 88%. Alternately, swap the Berserker trinkets for Assassin. You would lose some Power but maintain your HP, with 90% crit.

You may notice I'm avoiding Marauder gear. That's because #1 Marauder gear cuts both Power and Ferocity to over-invest in Precision; #2 I want this to be a build for everyone, so it sticks to the core game prefixes which are accessible to everyone on the TP. I wrote this build with Ascended gear since I have that, but you could gear up this build in exotics from the TP relatively cheap and still get good results from it.

yeah, power renegade builds ive seen pretty much relies on using charged mists in order to run soulcleave or vengeful hammers for a longer up time that gives you more leeway to use Citadel bombardement and shackling wave

Your charged mists build is quite close to the power renegade build on metabattle. But they go full out glass cannon berseker and falling into the trap of rising tide and scholar for openworld builds. As well not using Sigil of Energy. I think your build is much better.

Been toying with the build. Sigil of Energy really makes a serious difference for a power renegade. Though hammer offset feels fairly bad when having to swap weapons to refil energy. Goes much easier with staff offset.

Thanks. I'll try the staff. I just don't like being limited strictly to melee range. Another option would be to put your main hand sword in set 1 and offhand in set 2, so you can "weapon swap" but still just use your two swords.

I was experimenting with this build last night myself. Tried a few of different gear combinations using exotics from the TP. I eventually decided to run full time with Charged Mists, using Assassin weapons and armor, plus Valkyrie trinkets, and Sigil of Accuracy instead of Force. Result: 96%-ish sustained crit with over 20K HP, even using exotics. I went to Silverwastes, Verdant Brink, and Draconis Mons to do some open world testing on events, large packs, and multiple veterans, and was very pleased with the results in both damage and sustain.

It will end up looking like this once I translate it to Ascended...

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vlMQNAscinXMXNSumrJRZz/kst5gSY38QJ4berkFNlqdACgI4vHPykktMWj3A-jxBBQBGZ/BA8EAakSwRq8zQ6DGl6Pb4UAAA-e

My experimentation brought up an economic point. I found that there is practically no statistical or performance difference between using this build, and swapping the Assassin and Valkyrie prefixes in the build. But cost is a factor for some people. So, if you're using TP exotics, two findings...

1. Using Assassin weapons + armor is more gold friendly than Valkyrie weapons + armor.
2. On the TP, the boxed sets of armor (like Box of Valkyrie's Draconic Armor) are about 50% more expensive than buying the pieces individually or making them yourself.

Comparing the ascendenced builds, your new build sacrifices 122 power, but gains 1510 health from the variant I set up. zerk weps, valk armor, zerk accesories save trinkets which is assassin. If i take the crit sigil instead of force I can hit 99% crit.

My problem with the offset weapons is that you are 'compelled' to switch because of sigil of energy. But perhaps I can live without it. Which makes it far less of an issue to have two different weapons, melee and ranged.

I ended going back to herald for a single reason. Renegade encourages you to not dodge which I do not like.

That's OK. I'm starting to become disgusted with Revenant and the grouping game in general. God forbid anyone try to do something outside the accepted "meta" established by a small minority of players for the rest to blindly follow.

@"Jimbru.6014" said:That's OK. I'm starting to become disgusted with Revenant and the grouping game in general. God forbid anyone try to do something outside the accepted "meta" established by a small minority of players for the rest to blindly follow.

Thats why you dont play with pugs, they dont have any original thoughts in their heads and blind slaves of meta builds and dps meters.And what troubles you about revs?

Like I have said other times, I am using a very similar build with crusader gear to have a little bit of healing power too (for the lifesteals and Jalis' hammers).I have never really tried to use this in group content though, so I never checked if it can bring enough DPS.

@LucianDK.8615 said:

@"Jimbru.6014" said:That's OK. I'm starting to become disgusted with Revenant and the grouping game in general. God forbid anyone try to do something outside the accepted "meta" established by a small minority of players for the rest to blindly follow.

That's a hilariously wrong and selfish outlook towards group play... People using a build that is proven by top players and, like math, to be optimized and the most effective for a situation are blind sheep, but the guy who's using an original off-meta build, that's churning out less dps, providing unnecessary buffs, and trodding around a bunch of wasted stat weight is the secret genius of the group--despite making everything take longer for the other 4-9 people?

Really, if your pug group is okay with you playing Herald, they're already being pretty cool about straying off the meta--the least you can do is meet them half way and be the best Herald you can be.

it reminds me a bit to the build i posted here https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/60574/made-a-power-tanky-renegade-build/p1?new=1 however i went with a mix of cavalier/knight/berserker stats. the overall power its similar however the trade off its about 30% of crit damage and 2k of health in favor of 3.4k armor. it makes you quite tanky when you combine it with the protection of renegade legends or the damage reduction of Jalis and still hits hard thanks to the natural dmg amplifiers of revenant and easy 20 might stacking, dodging isnt that really much of a problem either because you still have 75% crit from fury and natural prescicion alone. over 100% when you dont dodge.

the main downside i was able to see though testing this build in open world was stability source. the one from Darkrazor only lasting 1 second without re aply and sacrificing energy for inspiring reinforcement in jalis you eventually need to swap legend. Maybe i was just hoping too much trying to test this to solo dungeons, overall its quite posible to solo tank champs and their adds with this build, but once they stunlock you and several elites start raining down hard on you.... i was able to solo Ascalon but caudecus i just couldnt get pass the part after you leave the tunnel because every encounter from there on are groups of 4-5 elite enemies that, while they themselves were not the problem, atleast 3 of them always focus on spaming stuns/knockdowns/launches/knockbacks that a single player stability source cannot protect agaisnt

@Jimbru.6014 said:Legends are Kalla and Jalis on land, Shiro and Jalis when swimming. Because you know...cats and water. Or whatever ANet's excuse is for Kalla being unusable while swimming...

The animation. It's an AOE summons that has Charr that stands in the center of it. There is no level ground for the ability to manifest in.

@narcx.3570 said:

@LucianDK.8615 said:

@Jimbru.6014 said:That's OK. I'm starting to become disgusted with Revenant and the grouping game in general. God forbid anyone try to do something outside the accepted "meta" established by a small minority of players for the rest to blindly follow.

He's not wrong or selfish. There is nothing wrong using meta builds. The problem is that it's hard to play off-meta builds with PUGS. There are a range of builds that are more than capable of doing the job, but because they aren't deemed meta they are discarded, and the player with them. This problem can be seen most visibly with Necromancer, wherein they can do a lot of the end game content, albeit maybe slightly less efficient, but due to how strictly PUGS follow the meta they get auto kicked even if they could have done the job. The way that PUGS follow meta builds excludes a lot of people from playing on the assumption that a non-meta build is going to "churning out less dps, providing unnecessary buffs, and trodding around a bunch of wasted stat weight is the secret genius of the group--despite making everything take longer for the other 4-9 people." If PUGS allowed for a bit more creativity in play Necromancer players wouldn't be so angry all the time.

However, there isn't anything inherently wrong with using meta builds. The game would just be healthier if people weren't so slavishly locked to meta builds and dps meters. More people would be able to participate in end game content playing the things they want to play.

@LucianDK.8615 said:I ended going back to herald for a single reason. Renegade encourages you to not dodge which I do not like.

Indeed, same reason for me. In open world it might be ok but as soon as you set up foot in a dungeon or fractals you HAVE to dodge pretty often if you do not want to be looking at the floor’s textures all day.