Buran.3796

Is fairly good in WvW roaming since can enter, hit hard and if the things go wrong oftenly can leave and flee, since much of the tragets can't chase him or keep the pressure at range, so essentially works like Thief builds minus the stealth, so is fair. In PvP is a bit squishy tho. Yes, good burst, good mobility, but you won't overcome bruisers and in teamfights you delete and get deleted at the same speed.

Sorry, I thought vuln only affected power damage, but since also improves condi damage, the chose of frailty sigils makes even more sense. Let's talk about the reasoning behind Hizen's build, since in the past its iterations were quite stable, but after SotO they changed a lot: In the past He used to advice runes of tormenting for condi Herald and Vindicator builds, and runes of Nightmare for Renegade; in sigils was usually either Torment, Bursting, Doom or Geomancy, but now most of them are gone. Why? For core Rev, Herald and Vindicator the condition weapons were mace and axe, and Mallyx as the main source of conditions with Embrace the Darkness (torment). So condition damage for those were focused in torment, then burning and everything else at distant third place. Renegade had the short bow which added bleeds in spades and made the mix wider. For that reason runes of Tormenting were the main choice for core, Herald and Vindi: provided a torment duration boost which made easy to cap 100%; the healing x torment ticks were also phenomenal for sustain, and even after the nerfs which replaced them by regeneration they were very good. That made 100% torment duration and ~72% in other condis. With Renegade instead He adviced Nightmare runes for the 20% condi duration because bleeds, torment and burns shared damage, so it reached ~92% condi duration across all condis. SotO radically changed the landscape: 6th rune bonus are gone, which means that the juicy sustain bonus from runes of tormenting are out, and now every spec (even core) can run any weapon of the profession. This means that ouside builds which only deliver a single condition (as burn Firebrand, and even then can be argued that can deliver some bleeding) and could get benefit from the 50% condition duration bonus to a single condi (as runes of Blathazar) for the vast bulk of condi builds in the game going for bonus to all conditions is better. And that's why rune of the Trapped killed rune variety fior condi builds: condition damage + 20% condition duration (shame for the wasted fear duration, tho). With celestial + trapper runes you can reach ~82% condi duration. In the infussions, you can chose to go condition damage, or power, or expertise. The first ones provide 90 raw points, with expertise you'll reach 93% condition duration. There's alternatives: Malice sigil does almost the same, but costs 2 slots in weapons; Aristocracy relic ads up to a 15%, but then you lose the extra procs from Fractal relic or even Akeem. Since they can be expensive for new players, whic choice if better from infussions? Expertise ones are unusual, so oftenly they are not used; personally my gear is legendary so I can experiment... For new players I would advice power since condi could be better at PvE in a condi build but power in celestial gears works in every game mode. So, the reason Hizen moved to expertise infussions was to almost cap the condition duration with every condi, but waht about the sigils? He no longer needs Malice in the weapons; since the Renegade build has plenty of crit chance and fury access (Endless Emnity) one choice is sigil of Torment, now what? Geomancy or Doom to proc one extra bleed or three extra venom stacks each 10 seconds? Bursting for the extra 5% condition damage? Nope: He goes with the extremely cheap, incredibly underrated sigil of Fraility. This sigil is never sused in instanced content becacause in organized groups the 25% vuln cap will be reached even afking, so there is a waste (groups will have specific slots with builds which are good at spaming vuln, the same that others are good at spamming might or cc, etc.). But here He's showcasing a build for soloing in PvE, and let me tell: I've using those 2 fraility sigils in his Spellbreaker (both power and cele) and Berserker (cele) and you cap the 25 stacks and remain there without a problem (by the way, in the video showcasing the build I think Hizen is not running Frailty sigils at all). He incorporated that choice to most of the cele builds which doesn't require other specific things to work (as Mirage running Energy + Cleansing for obvious reasons). So yes, yo lose damage in celestial compared with trailblazer and of course viper/greiever gear, but you get so much tankyness and self sustain in return that it worths it, and also the damage is not bad, since the power creep after EoD + SotO is nuts and you are fighting foes permanently in 25 stacks of vulnerability. Blood Fury: is a good point, I think the three initial traits are strong and any would work; the %25 bleed duration would be a waste as the gear in this build is designed, tho. Why no Vindication trait? I don't known, I always run it unless I want to provide alacrtity with RR. Traitline choices, Salvation vs Devastation: I think Devastation is currently a joke outside instanced PvE. It provides some damage buffs centered mostly in power (which are largely irrelevant in this build) might and extra damage buffs so will do more damage, but Battle Scars isn't even close to the Salvation traits in trems of self sustain and defense: just the fact that you get perma vigor from EE and it sinergies wornderfully with salvation: you heal and clean a condition after every evade and you get small barrier procs every 3 seconds x boon proc makes the traitline if you're playing solo. Yes, well played against some champions and bounties a power or condi build more focused in damage will be better (as the toxic Spider Queen or the Bounty Hunter bandit champios) but try to solo Seneb or Mandulis with a Devastation build and you will be chewed and spit in the floor... I appreciate your insight and different approach, tho, since I've learned things that I've missed.

I think it would help to known which are exactly your preferred game modes, since oftenly a build which works well at PvE doesn't at WvW and viceversa. Celestial berserker with either long bow + hammer or long bow + sword torch work very well at WvW/PvE and has range, which seems to be one of your likes. I run a Vindicator WvW build with tons of mobility and good mix of range and mele using short bow & greatsword; does well at (solo) PvE also: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PmgAEVlxQHsOqhxROMP6hRSfMCKgn1UVsF-D2IY1o6/QiUElpUtXFhIvEkAB29fGCY5RzKA-w

Ok, so: Hizen's build is the right choice: has ~3k armor, near 25k HP, decent condi and power numbers, easily keeps 20-30 stacks of torment on targets (with burst of 45-50 stacks), causes permantent 25 stacks of vulnerability (unless the target moves a lot; notice also that vuln only benefits our part of physical damage since condis already ignore armor), has the right runes (the only ones for condi, lol!) and the perfect relic. It also uses the best weapon sets in terms of damage and the correct sigils and legeds. And thanks to the cele stats + expertise infussions & food peaks 92% of condi duration in everything... Just insane! Now, what I run is a bit different, since I like to use (mostly, there's exceptions) at OW PvE things that work at WvW roaming, since I don't want radically different experiences while running the same spec. So: I keep mostly the same base gear stats and traitlines, but replace mace & axe for staff since is needed to survive at roaming, and I use rune of Surging since I love the mobility now that Fireworks is crap, some sigil changes (again, for sustain) and finally I ditch Kalla for Jalis since I don't like that legend and Jalis works well in WvW, at solo or in chain events. My build does a lot less damage but survives equaly fine and can fight at WvW. When I'm not solo and I chose to do a chain event as Palawadan or Dragonstorm I replace Vindication with Righteous Rebel to provide perma alacrity to the group: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PmgAUZlxQHsOqh5ROMO6hRSfMCKgj0z6bD-DyIY1oi/QiUBkpUoXRgIvEEgA2DPAA-e Both Herald and Vindicator can run very similar builds ro Renegade with the same gear; damage is lower but tankiness even higher (Vindi in particular is near immortal since evades constantly and evading procs vigor and regeneration so you heal faster than Hulk and Wolverine combined). Powre builds as Vindicator can be faster with some champs and bounties that aren't that dangerous or have lower HP or armor values, but when the foe hits hard or has lots of ccs (as the goat bounties or Seneb, Starcaller, etc. ) power is more frail due the lack or extra armor, the shorter boon duration (no cele) and with power when you're interrupted you do no damage whereas Embrace the Darkness and other condi tricks keep hitting as long as you have energy and the foe is close. Take a look at Hizen videos about the gameplay for more info.

Don'r regret going viper instead trailblazer, since the really op performance comes with celestial stats (and the tankiest build is from Vindi). If any, condi Renegade shines in damage more than in self sustain compared to Herald or Vindicator. Hizen's build (I have my preferences, I'll explain later): http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PmzAkeVlhQLsIajJRaMIKjBSjMBygj2z6rF-DyIY1oj/MKUKkrKQhHDChg6P9AaAx0GoC-e

What you need to look? Salvation and Invocation are played due everything else is garbage. Nuke salvation and people will just stop playing Rev (I've already stopped, at some game modes). This is like when people complained about everyone running Divinity runes: was not beacuse they were op but because everything else sucked. Also, they did "so well" with the redesign of runes that in PvE everyone and every spec in the game is running 2 runes (three is you accidentally made a healer). Game had nevel less variety than now.

Maybe, but the real truth is: you don't need to be good at GW2 (or videogames, ingeneral). I like to play for fun, run 1-3 professions and being bad at all of the three. Also: the more I play (>8k matches currently) the more I find out that I get roughly the same results playing a meta build or a bottom crap one.

Then why not just nerf Herald's quickness? Or Renegade's alacrity? Or Vindicator dps? Because decreasing the cleave of gs is unreleated with the unbalances of those specs... Those areas at which "Rev is gud" also, are very niche: instanced content. So since we are talking about minorities, let me write about another niche: PvP. Revenant had no presence at the MATs for over a year. Even players which mained the class and tested Rev in quarters or below sounding the bs random buffs to condi Rev which CmC pushed (and were a complete failure) fastly swapped to another class in finals to not get curbstompeda and embarrased in the fight fora title. For the last 6 months I don't even see Rev mainers streaming in this class anymore. I think is FINE not having Rev in MATs anymore, since Herald was a perennial and dominant force in that game mode for near 7 years. But I don't think is fine that now that belows to the trash can, it keeps getting nerfed in competitive gaming modes at which no longer is meta. Also, I don't see the reason for Vidicator since the main focus with his release was to provide the profession a weapon with good cleave for power builds, and happens that power Revs outside instanced content aren't that great, and now the AoE is again as crappy as were with the swords. So if one asks "which expansion should buy first/spec unlock first" my answer would be "not EoD, since the mount is crap, the masteries are crap and the new weapon and legend irrelevant". That's what happens when instead of nerfing busted things, you chose to nerf random things.

I just finished my last 10 PvP matches as a Revenant. I won't touch again this class in PvP. From there only roaming and OW for Rev.

The counter scalated with the number of hits parried, not the intensity (damage) of the hits prevented, and has a number cap of 5 or 6 hits. Now, please, explain me how you were able to put 25 stats of vulnerability in a target without killing it, and then how was able to ratailate with a 5-6 chain attack, yet failed to react to your slow attack (but after eating your 25 vulns, somehow). Most realistic landscape: you blocked ranged attacks in a zerg vs zerg, and then you landed 30k in a foe which already was in a downstate. But that, like landing 300k in a rabbit, doesn't count. People doesn't get hit for 30k in WvW, unless they go naked vs the legendary sentinels at your respawn node...

So let me recap: EoD was released with the single focus to provide power Revenant with power AoE damage, since swords are crap at dealing dps to multiple targets, and that was the whole maining of introducing the greatsword. Also, pre-EoD Herald and Renegade were conveniently nerfed to ensure Vindi power creep and grant sales. Then, after a few montsh of rollercoaster radom changes and once proved EoD no longer will push sales ANet stablish that Herald in instanced content will provide quickness, Renegade alacrity and Vindicator (bad) dps. Later SotO powercreeps and they start to nerf the shared weapons instead of the specific traitline synergies. Finally, the AoE power weapon (greatsword) gets gets "decleaved", so no longer brings anything special to the profession. ...I'm so done with this game. Also, your argument makes no sense since greatsword in other professions have different qualities, and in every other case it brings a cc (including for Mesmer) whreres Rev's greatsword has none. So there's no burning nail of "logic" to cling on to justify the nerfs. Even worse: the changes aren't solely limited to PvE but to all game modes. which includes PvP at which Rev has been dead for year and lalf. Anyway: only reinforces my feelings about power Rev for the last half year: power is crap. There's no single reason to run a Revenant with power stats in PvE, and hammer, shield, staff, swords and now greatsword are just garbage. If you want a power spec for PvE just run Bladesworn. If don't, just stick to cele Vindi/cele Mirage or any other cele fravour of your taste.

I have no idea how someone could crit you for 30k with ANYTHING in WvW. But the change is good because the counter attack was weak and now it has no use so makes the weapon easier to use. Before was better than staff but harder to use; now is just better than staff.

That's a fair criticims. Sometimes I forget that my over 3k transmutation charges and stacks and stacks of tomes (I could easily level ~30 characters to eighty in a snap) are product of 466 Dragon ranks in PvP and near 1500 ranks in WvW. Still, if you touch those game modes from time to time, I think they are largey uneeded. In AA currency you need 32 to get 4 tomes or 30 to get a gold coin; I have over 9k Spirit Shards despite having 11 legendary weapons, all armors and working in my last trinket (Vision) so my impression is that the game will carpet bombing you with those no matter what you do.

You known that you can copy any of your builds just clicking with rigth mouse + "copy build template" and then paste with ctrl + v in the note pad, Word, Writer or any other text editor? Which means you can label a build in your editor, paste the code just below, save and get access to it at any time with alt + tab and having infinite build templates at 0 cost as many times as you want? Build storage limitations are beyond lame; a problem made to sell you the fix, but since is so easy to circumvent I don't see reasons to byt any unless is your main and you really, really, REALLY swap templates cosntantly. That's why I think that is a waste.

That last part is not mandatory true. Power Bladesworn has stronger build variants for OW than celestial Willbender, because deals more damage and has better sustain tools, at the cost of being harder to use. Celestial Mirage does at least 50% more damage (~22k) than celestial Vindicator and is clearly faster killing less demanding bosses, and yet against the hardest ones is weaker due its lower self sustain and tankyness. So the performance not always favours condi builds and the highest dps is not necesarely the strongest overall choice. On top of that, gameplay, ease of use and tastes are more important than just making the "optimal" choice. For example, after playing extensively power Bladesworn, cele Spellbreaker, power Spellbreaker and cele Berserker the last 15 days I wopuld say that in terms of power I would rank them power BS > cele Zerk > cele SB but in terms of fun to me is cele Zerk > power BS > cele SB. So if a newcomers asks me "which Warrior spec to unlock first?" my answer would be "go berserker". In the case of Revenat my answer would be Vindicator, by the way.

But you already answered in the fourth line. Was the second qeustion from Oheroen what opened the theme to some nuances.

After the WvW clan in which I played for 4 years faded due lack of content after PoF I've became mostly in a roamer. I run Revenent, Guardian and Warrior builds in WvW. Outside marauder Willbender, DH or maybe Bladesworn, the other five builds I run rely in celestial. After the EoD specs, most of the legacy specs are unable to compete, since they lack mobility or the cc/burst combos to deal with the top new specs. Firebrand as a solo roamer without cele is just a joke, as example. What I mean is if cele gets cut out of WvW as happened in PvP, I'll probably cease playing this game mode, since the specs I run are overall unable to deal with EoD specs in WvW roaming if they don't have the extra stats.

It does better damage than hammer in any gear stat combination. If your ranged "condi weapon" does better with berserker stats than your ranged "power weapon" (hammer) then you have to accept that is a hybrid weapon. I think that made it clear that the celestial version would work better than the power version, for the reasons given. But also explained what to expect about the performance of a power version (in which the gratsword and not the short bow would be the star). Finally, I think that the golem test is entirely irrelevant to measure OW performance. I've soleoed/tried to almost every bounty/legendary bounty in the game (which is arguably the worrst case scenario/peak difficulty for solo OW) with condi and power builds and I'm well aware of the handicaps the power Rev builds carry compared to the condi/celestial ones.

Will work. You will have the same vitality and ferocity as with marauder stats, but will lose damage with the greatsword because is mostly a power weapon and you will have less power and precission, but on the other hand your short bow will deliver roughly the same damage as with marauder stats, since you get condition damage and expertise and the sb is a fully hybrid weapon. Finally, you get extra armor and boon duration for free, so your sustain will be higher. Typically a celestial or condition based Revenant build will run Mallyx legend with mace & axe as main weapons to maximize damage, so your weapons of choice (gs and sb) will deliver lower damage (specially the greatsword for the reasons explained), but will work? Absolutely. The only problem is that in this build the gs will be mostly a replacement of the staff: a weapon for blocks and some mobility, since most of your damage will come from conditions from the bow and/or legend, and the greatsword won't deliver impressive numbers with Requiem or other one-shoot hits. IF you want a build with gs + short bow in which the gs really is the protagonist then you will need to move to (at least) marauder stats: with marauder will also be entirely viable for OW solo and you'll hit large numbers with your burst and the gs will one shoot most of regular mobs, BUT soloing some bounties will be way harder because you'll lose damage mitigation (thoughness), self sustain (healing power and boon duration) and because by nature when a power build gets crowd controled or even when tries to avoid damage it oftenly does 0 damage, whereas condi builds can easily defend and deliver damage and there's always condi procs ticking.

Is really easy: Fisrt, lest ditch the items which are entirely a waste, so you never want to purchase them: * Reviving Orbs. * Crafting bags of tier V. * Lesser Esssence of Gold. * Transmutation charges. * Tomes of Knownledge. * Build Storage Expansion. * Essence of Luck. *Obsidian Shards. ...And probably Vision Crystals. Now, things that you should purchase or not depending on your status: * Ascended Armor pieces and Ascended Weapon: buy if you're still not fully in legendary gear. * Skins and animations: purchase only if you really want them since overall they are terrible (poor quality/resolution, no effects, barely dyable...). Finally, things you should purchase from the Wizzard Vault rewards: EVERYTHING ELSE. The amount of AA you get daily and weekly is so high that at this moment most of us already have everything else unlocked so our main purchase is the unlimited bags of 1 gold coin x 30 AA, which means 40 gold coins x 1200 AA, so currently I get easily more than 40 gold coins x week just doing dailies and weeklies which I would have done anyway. That's significatively more than the 14 gold coins with the dailies which the old system prtovided. So, the new system requires a bit more effort but in the mid (very short) run already beats the old one in matter of weeks. To put thing in context: since my main (Rev) is gonna get a scepter and I didn't have a legendary one I purchase the legendary started kt: I crafted Metheorologicus for the sobbering cost of 250 gold coins! That alone was just a massive discount. Really, just avoid spending in the first items of my list and everything else will be fine...

Bladesworn and Berserker are really powerful in solo OW, not top tier but easily no less than one or two steps behind. Berserker absolutely is meta in PvP. At WvW Warrior has solid (but not top) roaming builds and very good in zergs and better in havoc squads. The main weakness in the class is that when specs arrived they started having trade offs (Berserker dealt more damage but had armor debuffs, Spellbreaker had phenomenal defenses but weaker burst, Bladesworn limited your weapon variety and gameplay... Some of those handicaps were reverted when ANet chose to move to a more streamlined design with less debuffs, but for the Warrior some of the changes weren't as easy as removing the -300 thoughness for Berserkers... As result, some specs feels a bit repetitive and Spellbreaker in general seems lackluster and every Bladesworn build is the same and changing traits and weapons doesn't have much effect in its gameplay. Must add, anyway, that is not the only one: Dragonhunter also seems lacking in relation to other Guardian specs, or Tempest, Untamed, Scrapper...

Was the first thing that came to my mind. The best way to train is using free dive in a map with large vertical paths, great open spaces and a teleport waypoint high enough to take advantage of the orography. Draconis Mons has all of that. Now, once you master the griffon Entangled Depths is phenomenal since the starting waypoint is several tiers higher than the last waypoint to Dragon Stand, and albeit the path is sometimes narrow you can effectively go from the start to the end flying in griffon in a single take...

Devastation is PvE trait line that barely anyone uses in PvP. The way PvP choices works is well known and had been a norm for years: you select what seems that works, it get nerfed, you move to another until everything is garbage and then everyone uses rune od Divinity not because was good, but evcause everything else was terrible. With a game mode with no boon duration, barely any variety in gear, boons nerfed to nothingness... For a Rev is hard to run Devastation or Retribution, because those traitlines do nothing. Invocation would probably always be used, because is thematically agnostic, but Salvation was used due was the less bad option. And I say "was" because most Rev at PvP moved to other professions.

Which Vindi players? This thread seems already too long for a spec nobody plays in a prefession largely absent from MATs... I'm not moaning, I think is ok for a Rev to have this low profile in PvP after 7 years of dominance, but feels like we are talking about how Firebrand is broken at PvP.

The main change he made in the power build was replacing sigil of force with sigil of frailty, which makes sense since in solo long fights you will deal more damage over time, but works worse if people arrives and the stacks caps 25. The only problem I had with that build is that I don't think that works against foes with extreme amounts of cc as the goat bounties or the legendary bounty Seneb. The build has very little access to stability and every time you get cced your damage stops and your vuln and might stacks go down. The cele version is not only tankier (higher armor, HP, boon duration and healing power) buil apso keeps delivering damage even cced thanx to things as Embrace the Darkness. Akeem relic also closed the gap in dps since Isgarren only works if you're not interrupted. But for regular foes and most of HPs the power build is faster and I like it more.