7 Changes I'd Like for Support Revenant (WvW Focus)

It's been a while since I've made a dedicated post to how to bolster support Revenant builds, which is the playstyle that made me fall in love with this class and the aspect of the class that I am most passionate about. This post is given from a WvW perspective, although I don't believe that my suggested changes would cause any already meta builds to overperform in their role. My hopes is that this would positively impact PvP as well, although in my eyes something like Renegade needs a much more thorough re-evaluation in order to gain viability (which I will save for another day). I have posted most of these suggestions before, but wanted to create a consolidated post dedicated to support discussion. Do I think these suggestions are all the class needs to compete with a class like Firebrand? No, not necessarily, but it would undoubtedly be a strong step forward for its viability.

VENTARIVentari's biggest appeal is the sheer strength of its heals, however despite this, it doesn't see as much play as other support specs. In WvW, I see a significantly higher amount of Scrapper and Tempest supports, and an exponentially greater amount of Firebrand supports. Druid is another story and a whole different problem itself. However stubborn I may be in asserting that this legend has potential, it is still lacking a bit in execution. In general, I believe that the skill involved in properly managing the tablet should remain, however I do believe that the skill threshold should be lowered slightly to give it a more fluid and reactive playstyle in order to allow it to actually successfully support. This mostly pertains to enabling better successful landing of its legend skills. Additionally, due to the CC- and damage-creep that has come since Path of Fire, it is important that the spec be given a self-stunbreak.

Ventari’s Will:Cooldown reduced from 3 seconds to 2 seconds.

Purifying Essence:Now breaks stun. Conditions removed increased from 3 to 4. Energy cost increased from 25 to 30.

JALISMy own vision is for Jalis to become a potent secondary legend option for Ventari. The latest change to Inspiring Reinforcement was a huge step in the right direction, and the legend doesn't need too much more work as far as its support strength goes. I have just one suggested change for this legend.

Rite of the Great Dwarf:Now also grants barrier to affected allies.This skill should scale decently with healing power in order to provide a more impactful means of group sustain and provide a fairly moderate amount baseline so as to not be too overperforming for damage-oriented specs as Jalis is already commonly used for Frontline Heralds. The skill has both a long cast time and steep energy cost, so it is not a skill that could be easily spammed unless properly build or conserving energy for it. I would say something like 1.5k barrier baseline with a (1.0 to 1.5) modifier would be fair.

SALVATIONSalvation's rework did a great job at diversifying choice for self-sustain, and I often use it and see it used by others for roaming builds. This is a pleasant surprise for me. However, the healing orbs have fallen short, and could use both more impact and a functionality increase. Giving regeneration to healing orbs is technically a functionality they previously had, although due to their increased potential usage, this sort of trait would have a much stronger impact than the previous staff trait. This means that we would not rely on Glint for its strong regen access, allowing for different options to better compete.

Healer’s GiftThis trait now also causes all healing orbs to travel to the lowest health nearby ally when spawned.

Words of CensureThis trait has been reworked to the following: When cleansing a condition from an ally, spawn a healing orb at their location. Healing orbs now grant regeneration (2s). 1s ICD per target.

HERALDHerald is arguably Revenant's best support spec option due to the sheer potency of Draconic Echo. This was a wonderful addition to its arsenal, and Facet of Nature - Centaur allows for Ventari to provide potent healing over time to help counteract its focus on burst healing via Natural Harmony. This suggestion is simply to allow for more active support usage via Glint, allowing it to better keep its allies alive when under higher pressure.

Shining Aspects:This trait now also modifies the functionality of Elemental Blast.

Using a consume skill heals you. Elemental Blast becomes Purifying Breath.Purifying BreathConsume Facet of Elements to cover the target area in magical dragon breath.Healing: XPulse 1: HealPulse 2: Heal and remove one conditionPulse 3: Heal and convert one condition to a boonNumber of Targets: 5Pulses: 3Interval: 1sRadius: 240
Range: 600

RENEGADEKalla requires a deep reevaluation to ever become a viable support choice in WvW, so I will not touch that at all in this post. To keep things simple, I just have one suggested trait change that has no relevance to Kalla, but is targeted towards bolstering both dedicated support Renegades as well as the Diviner Hammer Alacrigade that is sometimes used in WvW, although much less prevalent than its Herald counterpart.

Righteous Rebel:No longer reduces condition damage per stack of Kalla’s Fervor. Instead, Orders from Above now removes conditions from affected allies with each pulse.No longer increases the number of pulses on Orders from Above from 4 to 6, but instead increases the duration of each pulse to 2.25s, which should yield in the same total amount (if I did my math correctly). This is to reign in the potential cleanse with the skill, as it would still affect 10 allies. and 6 pulses of cleanse would be overkill.

So, with these changes, how would I see it affecting build diversity? Below are some theoretical builds I could see arising.

• Herald: Ventari/Glint - Salvation: 3-3-3/Invocation 1-1-2/Herald 1-2-2.This is a pretty common iteration of the Draconic Echo support Herald that already sees some use, but with a simple modification of selecting Shining Aspects in order to provide better active support while in Glint.
• Herald: Ventari/Jalis - Salvation 3-1-3/Invocation 1-1-2/Herald 1-1-1.This build would use Jalis instead of Glint, supplementing its loss of regeneration through Words of Censure and maintaining moderate healing-per-second via Elevated Compassion, being consistently triggered via Shared Empowerment.
• Herald: Ventari/Jalis - Salvation 3-1-3/Retribution 1-3-2/Herald 1-1-1.A variant to the above build, instead focused around maximizing the impact of RotGD through its traited reduced condition damage. Would provide reliable weakness access as well as additional projectile denial uptime.
• Renegade: Ventari/Jalis - Salvation 3-1-3/Invocation 1-1-2/Renegade 3-1-3.Similar to its Herald counterpart, this build would place bigger priority on maximizing boon duration in order to provide high Alacrity uptime as well as frequent 10-man cleanse. This build would also provide fair group Retaliation, which currently only Renegade has acccess to.
• Renegade: Ventari/Jalis - Salvation 3-1-3/Retribution 1-3-2/Renegade 3-1-3:Like the Herald version, this would place more focus on RotGD reducing condition damage potency.
• Renegade; Mallyx/Jalis (Diviner's): Devastation 2-3-1/Invocation 2-1-3/Renegade 3-1-3.This is essentially the build on metabattle, just with increased viability due to its group cleanse potential. This build is still eclipsed by Hammer Herald, but the cleansing may help it gain traction and see increased usage.
• Core: Ventari/Jalis - Salvation 3-1-3/Invocation 1-1-2/Retribution 1-3-2:While the core variant may appear significantly weaker, going core allows us to choose both Invocation and Retribution, which both are quite impactful traitlines. This also allows for better energy management via Ancient Echo, allowing for more frequent burst heals and RotGD, and in general more fluid play.
  

Ultimately, I would like to see the support builds for this class to become more respected and desired. This is just part of my own vision of how to make this more possible. I would love to hear your thoughts and opinions.

Adding a stunbreak onto Ventari would make it more playable, whether putting it on a 5 cooldown skill is debatable. Upping energy cost means you have less energy to do anything else.

I disagree with adding barrier to Rite of the Great Dwarf, the skill is ridiculously strong and is largely kept in check by the energy and cast time. Adding barrier on it would make +50% damage from warriors running the Warrior's Cunning trait basically nullify the skill. In addition, barriers are getting added everywhere, even warrior warhorn.

Your suggestion for healing orbs traveling seems like it would add to server lag as every 3s each revenant auto-ing on staff will have them recalculated. I don't see a problem with them currently healing in PBAOE.

I don’t like removing condi dmg reduction from Renegade because that’s one of the few benefits it has in pvp lol. I like the other ideas, with the additional idea of making the Ventari tablet radius larger

Seeing how Dwarf IR was able to be buffed to be faster and larger

Why cant Ventari Wil be updated to also be faster now?

Its so clunky to use especially when trying to defend a moving commander.

Also would like Vantari skills to be more useful in terms of healing. The Orb thing should be stock imo. Its great when it works.

Would like a Heal on my Tablet explosion, and not just the seeds.and seeds grow right? what if the explosion seeds grew into some kind of Support planet tree turrets or something that heals allies at a range or something

Another thing in Salvation can we get an addition to a minor that increases Healing of Staff's healing skills, and make Rejuvenating Assault into a AoE heal along side the Orbs, also can reduce the Energy cost of Staff while Tablet is active would be a wonderful trait.

This way Staff can become a actual Support weapon when Revenants build for support, so other specs dont get this same level of support without making sacrifices to their damage by equipping Salvation specialization and Ventari legend.

Also another thing I notice, Retaliation is a big thing with Retribution, But Guardian has way better Retaliation than we do. I mean we kind-of slightly better than Warriors here but no where close to Guardian in this area. Just a thought.

On Staff I would like the chain strike on Mender's Rebuke brought back while keeping the Heal on both strikes since the heal is very weak as is and has a delay.

But I want that CC back on this the most. The healing from this skill is a joke no offense.

First: I see the people running away from the orbs that are chasing alliessecond: I think it would be good enough if they just make the tablet-move hit 10 allies (not op ,not too weak ... just right imo)

I really like the Shining Aspects -> Purifying Breath suggestion. Would certainly make Glint more interesting for healing builds

I disagree with the Righteous Rebel idea. Currently, the condi damage reduction from it is one of the better pvp oriented traits that Renegade has (and it doesn’t have many, so that’s saying a lot). I’d rather see cleanse added somewhere else if it is going to be added if possible, like perhaps on All For One. Or perhaps a trait to add AoE group cleanse when using any of the F2-F4 skills

@Knighthonor.4061 said:On Staff I would like the chain strike on Mender's Rebuke brought back while keeping the Heal on both strikes since the heal is very weak as is and has a delay.

But I want that CC back on this the most. The healing from this skill is a joke no offense.

You are the last person that should be complaining about ventari not being good enough AND complaining about the change made to staff 2.

Freaking called this months ago, Anet cannot buff ventari to ever be good enough.

@Justine.6351 said:

@Knighthonor.4061 said:On Staff I would like the chain strike on Mender's Rebuke brought back while keeping the Heal on both strikes since the heal is very weak as is and has a delay.

But I want that CC back on this the most. The healing from this skill is a joke no offense.

the Paladin effectt.

Revenant gets a buff buts its only ever a minor change in the right direction usually at the expense of something else negating the buff in the first place.

Guardians can dish out both heavy damage, healing, boons and defense all in one, yet you have a problem with me asking for some buffs to Ventari and Staff in general, which really only work well in support when built for it.

@Knighthonor.4061 said:

@Justine.6351 said:

@Knighthonor.4061 said:On Staff I would like the chain strike on Mender's Rebuke brought back while keeping the Heal on both strikes since the heal is very weak as is and has a delay.

But I want that CC back on this the most. The healing from this skill is a joke no offense.

Since when does a minstrel guard do heavy damage rofl.

I don't want to get into a ventari debate since I am not willing to play it but whatever;

When I did mess around with it my conclusion was, delayed ranged support. You try to freecast with tablet and it feels clunky because it has a movement delay. The only way they could bandaid fix that is to have the tablet teleport when using the movement skill but people would then complain that it can't heal as much and has a small aoe. Well they can't give a ranged healer better healing than a pbaoe healer because of obvious reasons.

If you are not playing ventari as ranged you might as well play fb.

@Justine.6351 said:

@Knighthonor.4061 said:

@Justine.6351 said:

@Knighthonor.4061 said:On Staff I would like the chain strike on Mender's Rebuke brought back while keeping the Heal on both strikes since the heal is very weak as is and has a delay.

But I want that CC back on this the most. The healing from this skill is a joke no offense.

OR

OR

ORthey can speed up the movement like they did IR for Dwarf right.....

So we can actually run and use it to stay ahead of the movement.

@Knighthonor.4061 said:

@Justine.6351 said:

@Knighthonor.4061 said:

@Justine.6351 said:

@Knighthonor.4061 said:On Staff I would like the chain strike on Mender's Rebuke brought back while keeping the Heal on both strikes since the heal is very weak as is and has a delay.

But I want that CC back on this the most. The healing from this skill is a joke no offense.

If you are running faster than the tablet can move you need to turn the hacks off.

@Knighthonor.4061 said:

@Justine.6351 said:

@Knighthonor.4061 said:

@Justine.6351 said:

@Knighthonor.4061 said:On Staff I would like the chain strike on Mender's Rebuke brought back while keeping the Heal on both strikes since the heal is very weak as is and has a delay.

But I want that CC back on this the most. The healing from this skill is a joke no offense.

As some one who plays ventari extensively on wvw and sometimes even on spvp I can say that ventari needs small changes for better game adjusting while the latest rework on ventari actually made class worse.

1) I’m fine as vebtari has no stun breaker...

2) Orbs are not good to play in any game mode, most players will actually avoid or dodge as i noticed in some cases... on large gameplay it’s a rng minor heal most players will miss/ignore or catch by chance, this is wrong design due how other classes are design, orbs mechanics and traits need to be removed for something else.

3.a)Tablet has 2 issues, the big heal need to have its range increased to 360-400.

3.b)tablet movement pulses need to be a bit stronger.

4)elitebakill blast... its meh, spamming tablet and destroying it is the best way to get a field of orbs.. still useless.

I'm just here to give a +1 to your idea of Elemental Blast functionality potentially being changed for a support spec. I'd say do it on Elevated Compassion but... would ruin the DE idea.

@Justine.6351 said:

@Knighthonor.4061 said:

@Justine.6351 said:

@Knighthonor.4061 said:

@Justine.6351 said:

@Knighthonor.4061 said:On Staff I would like the chain strike on Mender's Rebuke brought back while keeping the Heal on both strikes since the heal is very weak as is and has a delay.

But I want that CC back on this the most. The healing from this skill is a joke no offense.

^^^^^ not sure I understand

@Knighthonor.4061 said:

@Justine.6351 said:

@Knighthonor.4061 said:

@Justine.6351 said:

@Knighthonor.4061 said:

@Justine.6351 said:

@Knighthonor.4061 said:On Staff I would like the chain strike on Mender's Rebuke brought back while keeping the Heal on both strikes since the heal is very weak as is and has a delay.

But I want that CC back on this the most. The healing from this skill is a joke no offense.

Tablet is really fast, way faster than a player moves.

Right now it's,Use it on stationary targetOrUse premonition

To make it fast enough to feel as smooth as people want it, it would have to be so fast that the tablet might as well not exist and instead ventari be spell casting at target location.

Right now ventari is a support beast master with the pet/tablet having zero ai. The pet/tablet is only as good as the player using it.

If you don't want to play a Beastmaster you might as well play a different support build.

Ventaris Eliteskill should switch over to an Tablet on your position, or 1 tiny tablets thats circling around u in an 240 radius

@Virdo.1540 said:Ventaris Eliteskill should switch over to an Tablet on your position, or 1 tiny tablets thats circling around u in an 240 radius

What would it do????

Imo tablet could be a bond skill providing alacrity pulses to bonded player, and something else like increasing the healing received by x%.

Each bonded player would cost 1-2 pips.

maybe posting this in pvp balance thread in pvp section?!