Jaykay.9641

Awesome! Another Hammer thread. Time for my obligatory post I will keep posting until something is done with Hammer 2 to be changed to the underlined standard below! Look, Hammer 4 is great now; it's an excellent change. But until Hammer 2 is reworked to the above standards, the weapon is going to suffer. It's that simple. This is the biggest issue, so let's get it fixed. My dream scenario would be CoR to create an Ice Field to maximize the AA finishers and dual blasts from Hammer 3, 5. Very unlikely, but I can dream. But your last part about a simple AoE with cripple is in the realm what I was thinking - All I really want is a Mesmer Greatsword Mind Stab (GS 3) variation for Rev Hammer 2. To put some Rev flavor on it, I picture a new Hammer 2 to have the current CoR Animation that does a small amount of PBAoE damage on cast finish and then has a 2nd eruption at the skillshot circle AoE target for additional 1200 ranged damage. Why do I think this is better? The current cast time on CoR and the long travel time of the cascade is so slow and is unreliable at 1200 range. Needs to be more snappy. A quick PBAoE followed by a 240 radius target AoE damage would be faster. A circle AoE can be cast on walls for siege offense. It's so ironic that the only game mode where an AoE weapon like Rev Hammer is truly used in (WvW) cannot use it's 2 ability on wall siege. This blows my mind. Players have asked for Hammer to do some light melee damage for guaranteed damage as all its abilities are skillshots with long cast times. Again, makes the ability more reliable especially in melee. My version listed can also double hit enemies in close range if the get hit in the PBAoE and the delayed eruption. Final thoughts: PvE damage on Hammer? - cool. Hammer 4 changes? - super cool! Hammer 3? - fine as is and I'm starting to appreciate it more. Don't fix what isn't broken. Hammer AA's? - eh, we make it work. Enjoy the 100% finishers Hammer 5? - give us damage back in competitive please? If not, let it inflict like 10-15 Vuln for hitting this to setup follow up. Hammer 2? - Fix Change this broken ability to something RELIABLE! Change Hammer 2 and you change players' perception and usability of this weapon. Get to it Anet.

I think you're right on Hammer 4 being really good now. I rewatched the stream and Roy hovered the tooltip for Hammer 4. The Aegis is great, but the damage from the bolt is similar to auto attack damage and a projectile finisher. Pretty good damage and the lifesteal w/ it. Same CD, duration and cast time.

Revenant This update is focused on improving revenant's short bow, shield, and hammer weapons. We've made piercing part of the short bow's base attacks to make it more appealing to non-renegade users. The shield changes improve its usability as a support weapon, while hammer has gotten some improvements to both its damaging and defensive capabilities. Hammer Bolt: Increased the power coefficient from 1.15 to 1.35 in PvE only. Coalescence of Ruin: Adjusted the damage areas to begin at the player's location instead of being offset from it. Increased the power coefficient from 1.75 to 2.0 in PvE only. Reduced the cooldown from 10 seconds to 7 seconds in PvP only. Phase Smash: Increased the power coefficient from 2.0 to 2.2 in PvE only. Field of the Mists: This skill now grants aegis to the user on activation and will fire a projectile at up to 5 enemies around the target. The projectile destruction wall will now activate immediately. Drop the Hammer: Increased the power coefficient from 2.3 to 2.7 in PvE only. Increased the knockdown duration from 2 seconds to 3 seconds in PvE and PvP. Envoy of Exuberance: This skill now grants protection to allies at its impact point instead of when the projectile passes through them. The impact now also grants aegis to allies. Increased the missile velocity from 900 to 1,200. Increased the healing coefficient from 0.5 to 1.0. Crystal Hibernation: This skill now also heals allies in a radius of 360 around the user. Shattershot: This skill now pierces. Bloodbane Path: This skill now pierces. Sevenshot: This skill now pierces. Inspiring Reinforcement: Increased the duration of the initial stability from 1 second to 1.5 seconds in PvP only. Increased the duration of the pulsing stability from 1 second to 1.25 seconds in PvP only. Spiritual Resolution: This trait now activates when invoking a legend instead of when using an elite skill. Set in Stone: This trait replaces Eye for an Eye. Gain protection when you use profession skill 2. Contained Temper: This trait has been reworked. Gain energy when you break out of stun. Herald Forceful Persistence: Increased the bonus damage from 15% to 20% in PvE only. Increased the bonus damage per herald upkeep skill from 5% to 7% in PvE only. Renegade Bold Reversal: This trait has been reworked. Gain resistance when you use a healing skill. Heartpiercer: This trait no longer causes short bow skills to pierce. Vindicator Reaver's Curse: This trait has been reworked. Reduce the recharge of Energy Meld. Energy Meld enhances the effects of your next dodge. Angsiyan's Trust: This trait has been reworked. Energy Meld no longer has an energy cost and grants energy when used. Song of Arboreum: This trait has been reworked. Energy Meld grants more energy and also grants its energy and vigor to nearby allies. Hammer updates, Shield updates with Aegis and AoE healing pulse, Retribution changes, baseline Shortbow pierce for all, Vndicator Master talent updates... Pros: Overall, sounds good on paper. Shield gonna be better in all modes now. Hammer 4 much more versatile. The Demo by Roy on Hammer two seemed like it cascaded faster. Jalis road wont' have the random interrupts because of duration anymore. Like the Vindi master tier updates. Cons: Slightly concerned that the shortbow pierce will lead to future shorbow damage and CD's nerfs in competetive modes. No word if Hammer 2 is still super buggy on terrain. Really concerned with Condi Rev in competetive with the new Relic that increases Poison effectiveness. Still need a way to deal with Poison in Mallyx. Still no damage back on Hammer 5 in competetive. I don't want more knockdown duration., I want more damage on it. It's one of the longest cast abilities in game and should be rewarding to hit in WvW/PvP.

I'm going to keep linking this quote until Hammer 2 gets reworked to the underlined standards provided by Grouch. A weapon's skill 2 needs to be a RELIABLE skill usage that will almost always be a net-positive during gameplay. Rev Hammer 2 is none of these things. Whether it's bugged, inconsisent, slow, can't hit anything on the Y-axis (elevated ground) or goes the wrong direction, it's always a crapshoot with this ability. With all Rev's getting access to Shortbow in about a month, Hammer will be virutally useless outside of the one specific function of a gamemode it was probably designed for(WvW zerging).

With the announcement of the new expansion Secrets of the Obscure, all elite specializations and core specs will be able to wield any weapon in their professions kit, regardless of the current elite spec selected. This means and Rev spec can use Shield, Shortbow, and Greatsword with any spec (and the new Scepter) and even together. Personally, I'm very excited as we can finally have a viable ranged weapon (shortbow) useable on any spec. On the flipside, the elite specs will only bring three specific concepts to each spec - elite spec mechanics, utilities, and traits. For this reason, I can see some specs dying off in some game content - an example would be Renegade in PvP/WvW as it was only picked because of the weapon; it's traits, utliites and mechanics aren't very suited for those game modes. Now that any spec can use Shortbow, Renegade might be relgated to PvE duty now unless changes to it happen. Another aspect is that Core specs will probably see ALOT more play, especially in PvP/WvW. With no limitation on weapon combos, this will open up alot of theorycrafting. Anyway, what's everyone's thoughts on how this change will affect Rev? I'm very interested to hear some opinions.

I understand the Banish Enchantment CD is tailored to limit boon strip in blob fights, but this change nukes the condi Rev roaming variants even worse. My take is to lower the Banish Ench. energy cost to 25 and have the cooldown scale based on enemies hit, such as 1 sec per enemy hit. If Banish Ench. hits all 5 targets like in a blob fight, the CD goes to 5 secs. If it his one enemy, it's only a 1 sec CD. This allows Condi Rev's to keep the versatility of the low CD and affects the blob fights as it's intended. ANet has already dabbled with these types of abilities such Untamed Unatural Traversal CD reduction if enemy hit, I'm sure they can code something like an ability to scale CD off of multiple enemies hit as well.

I think @Yasai.3549 is smart enough to know that Resistance doesn't 'remove' the conditions, but just puts them on standby. Assuming they just kept the typing short and sweet. But to your point, I agree with you that the duration and activation are absolute key in this. As you mention, 1-2 secs? Probably not gonna cut it. Great than 2 sec would be ideal, but I think we know it will probably be 2 secs. And activation: does Resistance come online during the channel of the ability? After the animation is complete? The reason this is important is that if we gain Resistance after the ability cast, we could get rooted by Druid, use Staff 5 and still be rooted in place, and then gain Resistance after the cast. This is poor design. It needs to be activated at start of cast. Also, one more thing about Aggressive Agility and the Resistance change, is that we can be much more 'proactive' in fights instead of reactive. We can stick to Rangers much better since we don't have to wait to be rooted to use a movement ability to get out. We can teleport and proc Resistance negating their reaction; this in itself is a welcome change. Also, this change gonna make it much easier vs. Necros now - all their soft CC (weakness, cripple, chill, fear) will be much easier to negate AND they lost a substantial amount of boon corrupt. Excited to see this matchup play out now.

What are everyone's thoughts? Seems Rev getting picked apart again for the second major balance update in a row and also the least amount of changes of any class. No Hammer or Shield changes, Empower Misery getting nerfed again in WvW. Support Vindi in WvW in shambles. The Herald changes will be interesting for PvE, but essentially this felt like a big WvW slap in the face for Rev.

Big picture view, this is a very large update to game balance and profession mechanics and should be applauded in it's scope. However, as a mainly Revenant player, I'm very disappointed in basically no changes to the profession outside of some competitive changes. I really hope Revenant is the main focus for the next major balance patch. Personal gripe: I'm very saddened in the Imperial Impact Chill removal in PvP modes. I used this function a lot on a condi-Vindi build to proc Abyssal Chill trait in Corruption. Please find another way to nerf the ability if it's too bloated.

Severely disappointed. Basically every other profession got heavy number changes, ability reworks, and trait updates. Rev got nothing. Nice buff to AlacRev I guess. Celestial Rene will prob see some more play again in WvW. Chill removal from Imperial Impact was unnecessary and very mad about that; Big nerf to condi Vindi playstyles. Summer balance patch better have Revenant as THE premier profession changes. So many things needs adjustments and nothing happened for Rev in this otherwise massive patch for the rest of the game.

It's already been mentioned, but this is really all that is needed in WvW is a change from 30 to 25 energy as it is now in PvP since the Nov. 29th Patch. At 20 energy, Banish Enchantment was borderline spammable and lowkey OP. Even while roaming I spammed this ability constantly. It's unblockable, 900 range, 5 targets, and hits three times (and procs Abyssal Chill each time. Could easily get 9-12 stacks very quickly with that trait). the best part about it, was that you can use it while running away and target enemies behind you; love(d) this ability in WVW. So let's just move it to 25 and call it a day. 30 is too much and 20 wasn't high enough. 25 is the sweet spot. It can give you 2 fresh casts every swap into Mallyx (3 with Charged MIsts). The skills is so good as it is, just lower the energy to 25 and not any changes to Corruption or Mallyx is needed. However, if we're looking for other ways to add boon rip, I would recommend something like Spellbreaker has where using CC on an enemy removes a boon. That could set up Some Call to Anguish/Staff 5/Axe 5 combos but that's probably OP with Absorption sigils even after the ICF fix.

Was in a similar situation as you when deciding on a legendary hammer. In the end, I chose Juggernaut for a few reasons: It was the cheapest option of the three. Hammer is a two handed weapon so there are some decent hammer skins outside of the Aurene variants. By going Juggernaut, I felt I didn't have to keep using the exclusive skins that Sharur or Aurene variants provided. I had one left over Gift of Exploration and had all of the other Gen 1 Legendaries I wanted. Finally, with EoD, there's a total of 6 professions that can use a Hammer so the price point of Juggernaut give me more value as I play all the other Hammer classes frequently. The effects of Juggernaut are sub-par although Rev has an extra animation with it's auto attack which is cool. In reality, I chose Juggernaut because of the value with little care for it's visuals.

Not very consequential from a competitive perspective. I had high hopes for some Hammer changes and Vindicator rework. The double dodge changed so much about the spec that there needs some changes to compensate. It basically feels that the Master traits and and Energy Meld are dead traits/abilities. Would love to see the Mallyx energy reduction on Banish Enchantment brought to WvW. 30 is too much and 20 was almost spammable. 25 seems like a nice balance for both competitive modes. Bring the condition damage increase to Seething Malice in WvW as well 🙂

Wasn't able to watch the stream, can someone explain this in bold/underlined? The underline quote makes it seem we still have 100 endurance bc it doesn't consume all energy, but then it mentions dodge costing 50 endurance. So does it have 2 dodges with 50 endurance each or is it basically a copy of Mirage dodge situation?

It seems like there is some consensus on Hammer 2 being in pretty poor state and I will agree; it's holding back the weapon as a whole. Fittingly, we have a developer response that we can reference as we keep complaining providing feedback about Rev's Hammer 2; emphasis on bold/underlined: With the above statement, every weapon 2 should be a RELIABLE, safe, and positive skill action and should potentially be used off cooldown (my capital emphasis on reliable). Rev hammer 2 is none of these things. It almost feels like a punishment for using it because of some glitchy bug that takes you hours to understand how it works or because it takes 2 secs for the last ground animation to hit. While I have dozens of issues with Rev Hammer as it is (as others have already mentioned like attack speeds, animation locks, etc.), fixing Hammer 2 is a prerequisite before any other changes to Hammer can be made.

Was going to post something similar after the upcoming patch of what OP is saying. The Devastation changes over time have been hurting Rev as OP mentioned. I'd like to echo some of those sentiments Revert Destructive Impluses offhand damage bonus back to 5%. If this is reverted, Herald Reinforced Potency %damage buff to from each boon can be reverted back to 1% (instead of upcoming 1.5%) Herald is poised to be very good after patch. Give a selfish stat buff to the cookie cutter changes that happen to traits like Assassin's Presence (maybe like +150 Ferocity to Rev only. Many professions have self stat buff traits) These traits are to bland and need selfish components to them now IMO I think it would be feasible to just combine the Unsuspecting Strikes and Swift Termination in to one Grandmaster Trait and create a new adept trait. You can call in Ying and Yang or something lol I think we need to see how Vindicator and Renegade shakes out after the Invocation damage buffs. It's interesting how a decent amount of classes don't need to invest so heavily into Diviner/Ritualist gear as much as Rev. Maybe it's to keep their damage in check. But that's why I think we'll have to see how damage is after patch. Like some of you, I've been slowly getting more frustrated with the design choices that have been made regarding Rev. That's why I'm looking forward to their balance/design manifesto that Grouch mentioned in his last forum post. It can't come soon enough.

I made a thread at the beginning of the year about one change I would make to hammer to open up many more options: Here is the thread. You can read the thread, but essentially I would like to remove the Chill from Hammer 3 Phase Smash and move it to Hammer 2 and make it an Ice Field. CD/Damage/Cast time can all be compensated. I list many arguments why this could be a beneficial change. Shao had some good perspective in the thread as well. The most important thing that I think Hammer is lacking is a reliable #2 damage ability and it's the only 1200 range weapon in the game that has very poor self peel/escape. An Ice Field will give it more reliable peel because of the inherent Chill and the potential with 100% AA projectile finishers through the Ice Field creates more Chill. Interestingly, the Herald change to add quickness to Draconic Echo has indirectly buffed Hammer Herald so maybe there are some other ways to indirectly buff Hammer through traits as well (such as a hammer trait in cast speed in Devastation similar to Mesmer Scepter trait or something). Either way, I'm all for discussion on Hammer changes as it's Core Rev's only ranged weapon and should be versatile for all it's specializations.

My initial reactions: The rework to Salvation seems to have fixed one of my 3 biggest problem with Rev. Salvation now looks on paper like you don't have to use Ventari to get value out of it and have some actual choices. Almost fixes another issue I had with Core Rev swiftness access but not quite there yet. Ventari changes seem good as well. No energy on Project Tranquility is huge change. Excited to try this legend again. Empower Misery was low key OP in WvW roaming (and zerg boon stripping if you were good with it) Love that ability. 30 energy is a lot now. 25 would have sufficed. I'm big on the changes to Quickness Herald. Seeing complaints of just the 1.5 sec base duration, but I'm optimistic. Facet of Nature gives pulsing boon duration and gives 3 sec boon duration on activation with trait. My assumption is that the loop for PvE quick Herald - Activate Facet of Nature, spam the normal Facets, and finish with activating Facet of Nature (which keeps ticking boon duration Facet of Nature with Draconic Echo) then legend swap which will give enough quickness until you swap back to Herald. Assassin's Presence is a hit or miss. Power dps decrease for group at the cost of pulsing Fury. This mean power Rev doesn't have to go Invocation for fury access, but fury is pretty accessible for groups that this change actually might be better for solo non-Invocation players. Curious to see if Sanctuary Runes are dead or still good with Rev. Overall, I'm a hopeful for the changes. Now just rework Hammer to be more reliable in dueling and we're in business :) (PS - also give Aggressive Agility a source of swiftness or a perma 25% move speed and I'll be very content!)

Really excited about the Celestial Vindicator options for small scale WvW. The build I'm going to experiment with will be focusing on Chill application and duration. Chill-estial Vindicator I apologize for the corny name, but it was the best I could do 🙂 Anyway, build focuses on the OP celestial stats, high chill uptime with Grenth Runes, and using sword/Axe/GS. Very similar to what @Za Shaloc.3908posted, with a couple tweaks. I messed around with this a lot during beta and had some very good duels with this as the Chill uptime can make kiting easy if players aren't reliably remove the Chill. Notes: Corruption Grandmaster is flexible as usual I'm a big fan of the 10 sec healing skills in Alliance. Saw some feedback during beta that they would like bigger chunk heals with higher CD's. I disagree, the 10 sec CD on Alliance heals allow some new runes to be used other than the usual. There are about a dozen rune sets that activate on healing skills so Vindicator will get some use out of these (Herald, Brawler, Flock, Revenant, to name a few) You can remove Invocation in this build and replace with Retribution and use Centaur Runes for perma-Swiftness without using Rapid Flow (one of my biggest complaints on Core Rev - only source of swiftness in all of core is in 1 trait). Adjust sigils to compensate for removal of Cleansing Channel if needed (and Corruption Grandmaster) I challenge all WvW and PvP'ers to NOT use Vindicator Grandmaster trait Saint of Zu Heltzer. It was way OP in the first beta and even still too good in 2nd beta. I'm expecting another nerf. If not, it's going to be a very big crutch that opposing players will probably complain about 🙂 This is why I'm going to try Vassals of the Empire for more Chill application at the start. Bowl of Orrian Truffle and Meat Stew will seem like the logical food choice but I'm not sold on it due to the 100 energy usage for dodge so the Might generation isn't as impactful as say Mirage. This is why I like the Holographic Super Cake - less energy regen percent, but I like the health regen compensation for might loss instead. (I bought a ton of them right after SAB event for Mirage but never used them and they coming in handy for Vindicator lol) Finally, I chose Sword over Mace for main hand as it's more Chill application, but also another evade as block and dodge uptime isn't the highest without staff. Challenges Mobility isn't the highest - you can spam Nomad's Advance and GS 3 for dashes, but not even close to Shiro. The escape comes from Chill application. Low block/evade frames most Revs are used to

Wow. Wasn't available for a few days so nice to see the discussion. Seems like there is some agreement that CoR needs a change - which I'm in in on. The reason why I recommended the ice field is that Hammer 5 is challenging to land on a single target because of the cast time so an Ice Field would promote self peel in small scale situations. Hammer inherently has 3 combo finishers in it's auto attack and 2 blast finishers but no reliable combo field to use it on. Chill is a great peeling and soft CC and also fits with the Rev theme of a decent amount of Chill application. Another thing to think about is that Hammer is a core weapon, it will affect the elite specializations as well where Herald and Vindicator still only have access to 1 ranged weapon. So some follow questions for anyone: Is the Chill on Phase Smash valuable or unnecessary? Would Drop the Hammer benefit from a lower cast and knockdown time? Or just make it a damage ability again? How can Hammer better benefit from the 100% projectile finisher on the AA? How can Hammer better benefit from the 2 blast finishers? How would you address the challenging or unreliable nature of self peel with Hammer? Great Discussion though. let's keep it going.

Hi all. Hope your new year is going well. With EoD right around the corner, I'd like to discuss a topic that I consider a prime issue with Core Rev - it is the only profession lacking a true ranged duelist weapon. There have been topics in the past that tried to address this issue. Currently, it's really only used primarily in one game mode - WvW - and mainly zerg play. In sPvP it's virtually non-existent. Unranked players may test builds; Shao even made a montage with Core Hammer Rev, but it just isn't good in the game mode. In PvE, it's OK for some functions in Open World, but "anything works" there. In Fractals, Strikes, and Raids - you'll rarely ever see it. So the goal of this post is to create some discussion about how we can make the least amount of changes to Hammer to make it more flexible in other game modes (especially dueling) while still keeping the zerg/siege style of it for it's main function in WvW. My solution: Remove the Chill off Phase Smash (Hammer 3) and move the Chill to Coalescence of Ruin (Hammer 2) and make it an Ice Field IMO, that's all that is needed. The Chill on Phase Smash isn't even that impactful. CD/Damage/Range/Field Duration/Cast time/Effect timing on new Hammer 2 can all be adjusted to compensate. You can even remove Dark Field effect from Field of the Mists (Hammer 4) as it doesn't really add too much. How will this change of having Hammer 2 becoming an Ice Field positively affect Rev and Hammer to be used in other game modes or in other roles? Self Peel - Hammer is poor at making space for itself. Other 1200 range weapons have some form of reliable self peel in escapes/evades/easy CC, etc. Drop the Hammer is such a long cast time it's very hard to use when dueling. Hammer Bolt (Hammer 1) is one of the only auto attack 100% projectile finishers in the game. Hammer 1 through an Ice Field will give 1 sec of Chill on enemy. So a player can semi-kite while laying a Hammer 2 Ice Field an Auto attacking. Whirl Finishers - Staff auto and Sword 2 can give additional Chill procs (even though Sword 2 already gives Chill) after swapping from Hammer. Leap Finishers - Mallyx Call to Anguish can give self Frost Aura as well as new Vindicator Archimorus Dash Nomad's Advance. Blasting Ice Fields - A Rev Hammer player can blast there new Ice Field with Hammer 3 or 5, Mace 3, or Staff 4 to give area Frost Auras creating more peel Group Support As listed above, Blasting Ice/Light Fields - A ranged Ventari Healer building could become viable in some content. Blasting Ice Fields for group Frost Auras with Hammer, Ventari Elite, and Staff 4 would be a thing. Blasting Ventari projectile barrier light fields would add additional cleanse options. Can open up other rune options as a side effect. You could get really crazy and lay a Hammer 2 Ice Field and switch to Mace 3 and get a triple blast finisher. Teammate Ice Field Assists - Other players can use finishers in the new Ice Field Hammer 2 to create their own effects. Other Revenant Side Effects with Proposed Change More Variation of Abyssal Chill Synergy (even though Hammer is a power weapon). Could create some unique builds. Open up some other runes - Superior Rune of Ice, Superior Rune of Grenth, etc. Other Notes and Thoughts There are currently only 4 Ice Fields in the game (Ele - Staff Frozen Ground, Engi - Endothermic Shell, Reaper - Executioner Scythe, and Ranger - Frost Trap) . To my knowledge, none of the new E-Specs were given any. One more Ice Field won't break the game. Endothermic shell could be a good barometer for CD and field duration - 15 sec CD with 5 sec duration. This wouldn't affect WvW zerging as much as you think. Anet changed Fields to be self-prioritized - meaning zergs won't be procing this a lot as most dps are making their own fields. There's so much cleanse from supports that it's still going to get converted to Alacrity like it already does. There's a ton of movement impairing effect removal that some classes will hardly notice this change (Daredevils, Holo's, etc.) These changes could make the Hammer available for the occasional sPvP match or WvW Roaming/Havoc groups. The current Coalescence of Ruin is already buggy as hell, so a change like this may not even have that big of an impact unless in open field. Sorry for the novel, I got carried away. So what are your thoughts? Could this work? Discuss! TL;DR - Move Hammer 3 Chill effect on hit to Hammer 2 and make it an Ice Field. Lots of option open up.

Just watched the GW2 stream and CMC gave some updates coming for next beta for all classes. Seems there are two major changes Vindicator will get: All Grandmaster dodge traits will now be 100 energy (instead of 50, 100, 150 energy) An F3 has been created to lock Alliance stance I'm OK with the 100 energy on dodge. The vigor trait and heal/barrier dodge were broken in PvP. It needed to be fixed and the massive damage dodge wasn't impactful enough. Stamina Sigil will be really good in open world and WvW zerging (since they gave a max of 100 energy on kill) As far as the Alliance Stance F3 lock that @Kidel.2057 advocated for - I'm OK with it as long as there is a function for the F3 when Alliance stance is not used. It needs to have an effect for all legends. I'm sure we'll see some minor tweaking to other numbers, but we'll have to wait until patch notes come out.

Sorry, late to this thread.... Wanted to comment on the Defender Runes. Since this was tagged as WvW, I'm assuming the OP is referring to a roaming role for Virtuoso as a zerg DPS typically wouldn't run Defender runes. Anyway, there is one main function that the OP's proposed build is missing: Swiftness. If we are assuming roaming, a source of swiftness is borderline mandatory. I was in a popular streamer's channel having this discussion while they were testing Virtuoso, and we (the chat) recommended Defender runes because of the block synergy. The streamer tested it out but it was concluded that Virtuoso is too slow without Swiftness so they settled on Fireworks Runes (25% move speed). This is partly why Chronomancer works well with Defender Runes, it has access to permanent 25% move speed (and an off-hand shield for blocks). I suggested Agility Sigils for Swiftness, but it seemed it wasn't enough. This may work with a bunch of concentration though. I'm all for the Defender Runes synergy (they are my favorite runes, especially on Guardian), but we'll have to see how the final iteration shakes out.

I've been reading your idea over your proposed F3 "freeze", looks like you even created a specific thread for it. If I understand your idea correctly, it's that you want to create an F3 to lock in your preferred Archemorous/Saint Viktor utilities so there is no flip over skill. My issue with this design still persists - The F2 (or F3 mechanic in this case) are not affecting all Legends. For example, if I equip Shiro/Jalis, how will this F3 "freeze" affect me? Does it affect me at all? If there is no benefit, the concept should not happen as it pigeonholes us into using Alliance stance, which is the major concern with the current F2 (it has extra benefit to only Alliance Stance). So what would be your idea if your F3 "freeze" is implemented to have it affect all Legends in a meaningful way?

I don't think many are arguing that endurance gain on F2 is a problem. As you said, it connects with the Vindicator dodge mechanic. The issue is that F2 outside of Alliance Stance ONLY gives energy; there is no other benefit. Even Core Rev Ancient Echo F2 has more flavor as it gives energy and a unique boon related to what Legend your currently in. While vanilla, this is more than the Vindicator F2 does. Even Herald, while a little bland as well, is a good example of what F2 could be done (each legend has a unique Facet and activation ability). The simple thing would be do add a boon to each core legend for Vindicator F2. Again, very boring, but more than what there currently is. In the recommendation I made ( F2 a free legend swap with no CD AND 50 endurance), would help alleviate being punished for not using Alliance Stance. While I expect nothing like this implemented, my feedback is that I would like a mechanic that works for all Legends so I don't feel wasteful for using an ability because I happened to be in another stance. What would your suggestion be for making F2 more functional for all Legends? Also, yes, the Vigor master trait combined with the Shield/Healing GM trait is on fence of being broken. Even w/o using Retribution trait line for endurance regen, you can dodge heal/barrier every ~5 secs. I have a feeling this combo will be nerfed before released sadly.