Buran.3796

Which class/build do you prefer for Open World and Fractals content between heavy armor classes and Necro? How do you RANK them taking in consideration the sustained damage, burst potential, sustain and mobility? I currently have a legendary heavy armor set + 4 aditional ascended armor sets of plate armors and one set of ligth ascended armor and I'm guessing about moving from my current power Herald build to something different and those seems to have the playstyles I enjoy the most...

Hi. Burn Guardian builds used to be fun and easy to play; did use some variants (burn on block, burn burst...) in the past but I'm not sure which current specs are better/more effective in those game modes: Open World/Fractals: which condition guardian builds are better? Core, Firebrand... Do DH spec provides useful things gainst the AI? How do these builds perform in that environment compared to cookie cutter power DH builds? How good/bad is mobility and survability? Which is the strongest PvP/roaming condi based Guardian build at the moment? Is better going full condi or hybrid builds provide more balanced matchups?

Mesmer is as strong (if not better) as Eles in every game mode (albeit in WvW has a larger role as top roamer than as member of huge teams). But yes, Guardian is one of the two classes I always recomend to new players due how much build variety has and how much relevant is at every game mode.

What makes you think that?When I play my Revenant, I use Hammer on everything that doesn't punish you for being at range. WvW's Rev hammer is currently the only hammer which is meta in the entire game. Sure you can use a Scrapper bruiser build in PvP and works, but is nowhere as powerful as the Holosmith, and you can find some WvW Warriors using GS + hammer, but their survability is way lower than Warriors wielding shields. That makes Rev's hammer the "best in slot" choice for a single portion of the game, and the only hammer which really has presence in the game. There's also no build replacement for hammer Rev if becomes weak enough: zergs will change to "more Necros" or "more Eles" if Rev loses its role as AoE burst dealer. Hammer is terrible in PvE in terms of both sustained damage and burst damage; the only reason I use it sometimes is due the game being DX9 and so weak handling large player number in open PvE events it grants you safety and hits in the boss when the fps fall bellow 20. But completing maps with a sword + sword power build or a mace + axe + short bow condi build is way faster than using the hammer due how awfull is in terms of damage and how painfully slow feels, specially once Impossible Odds combat speed got neutered. I used to like the hammer, but currently feels like fighting underwater (except underwater Rev does a lot more damage). Anyway, as I said: they can just delete the weapon: is "only· used in WvW and they no longer support that game mode.

After the showcase of the last Friday became pristine clear that ANet doesn't really care about WvW/PvP and feels absolute no hurry to enhance those game modes or provide content for them. That's reciprocal and I'll vote with my wallet: I no longer feel myself compeled to invest money in a game which doesn't suits my likes. Now my ultimate goal is to finish the Shinning Blade, and that's unafected by skill balance changes. They can delete the hammer (and the whole class) as far as I care.

A large Cantha expansion with new specs, housing, new PvP game modes and a new WvW map more in the line with the one in ESO (more amount of structures and with deeper construction mechanics), and character platiffs. Only the last piece "was delivered" so the presentation was largely meaningless and irrelevant.

Bolt doesn't look good but the visual and acoustic effects are top notch. Flameseeker on the other hand is perfect, but in Rev remains useless. I have both and I'm now working towards the Shinning Blade, so I'll get the good looking sword on top of having the Bolt effects...

lol wasn't this whole announcement about lw? that's why i'm confused. Why would you hold a big show just to say that we will get plantiffs and some icy maps and (mostly irrelevant) new masteries? You don't need this fanfare for a LW, except maybe if it is placed in Cantha, or includes a new playable race, or new specs, or new weapons. Maybe was only a feble attempt to counter the fact that other MMOs are still releasing expansions.

Fingers chopped off...

1) Arguably, the 4 legendary greatswords are amongst the best looking weapons in the game. In fact most other legendary weapons at the begining were so "low effort" and lacking in terms of effects and implementation that were considered a can of trash near to Surise/Twilight/Eternity. Still today there's at least half dozen of hammers with better looks than The Colossus or Sharur...2) Greatswords are big, two handed swords. In history they (swords) were mainly sidearms, with spears and bows being the real war weapons which did most of the kills along the time until gun powder changed the "game". And swords have attached some mythical and romantic features, like being able to cut chain armor/metal plates and some other ridiculos crap. Full armors turns swords into garbage almost instantly, but swords looks shiny and nice to9 they are cool, despite if the works needs to be done better be sure to have a poleaxe/bec du corbin or just a plain halbard on your hands. But most of people ignore this and want they heroes to wield absurdly over-sized two handed No Dachis which can cut black holes in half.

So... remove conditions from the game? Better first remove stealth from the game.

Jalis is is weak, not as bad as Mallyx but not much reason to use him except maybe in WvW zergs. That's from a perspective of a guy which doesn't do raids.

Is easily the least flexible and versatile class in the game. You can't freely select the utilities you use due the skills from 6 to 10 are linked to an especific legend, which oftenly also dictates which traitlines you should select as "optimal". At the begining the sills needed mostly to pay the energy cost to be casted, but nowadays most of them have time cooldowns on top of that. The class had only one good PvP build in 3.7 years (power Herald), which remains mostly the same but slower and duller to play, with a single dominant WvW build (hammer Herald) whereas in PvE raids uses mostly a condition Renegade build which requires completely different gear stats and weapons. Each one of those three builds performs poorly in their other niches. I would say that Guardians and Mesmers are the most versatile classes; lots of room for customization and plenty of alternative builds to fill different roles.

Of course erreyone agrees in that. Rev arrived lacking underwater skills and weapons, borrowing animations and skill icons from other classes and full of bugs... Everything in the class felt rushed and in competitive PvP it worked just because absurd numbers were put trying to compensate all those holes. But one thing is to lower those numbers and another entirely different to change the gameplay. Anyway, I wouldn't keep too much faith in a potential "GW3": when GW was released MMOs were money powerhouses, whereas in the last five years the genre did prove to be an elephant graveyard, and the cost of making a good MMO is so high that most of the developers end making monetization choices which ultimately hurt their own product. Looking at how reluctanct ANet have been about making nex expansions I don't think that they hve any interest in producing a new GW game. @Lucian: Ventari Bunker wasn't but a hard to kill tank with a lot of spammable cc, perfect to annoy a lot of people in not competitive games. Exactly as the Dragon Hunter trappers became very popular in low to mid tier matches. As happened with the DH, neither of them were popular in elite level teams, and as happened with the DH the Ventari build thank to the incesant moanings in the PvP forum that build was rapidily torpedoed and sinked in the abysal trench in which every Rev build ends (almost instantly). Being said that, never used it due I found the concept just nauseating, and Ventari was my lest favorite/least used legend until the arrival of Kalla.

No. That video you posted is from March 2016, 3 years and 5 months ago, so you struggled to find meaningful examples of condi Revenant being any sort of relevant on recent times. Also, the pool of daily PvP players in GW2 at that date was several times larger than the numbers we have now. The fact that the amount of players is so low also explains why is so easy to reach platinum with joke builds (if wielded by good players). But if we were in the days of Rank 55, Orange Logo, Vermillion, The Civilized Gentleman, Abjured, Ez Pz, etc., at the peak of the ESL Pro League and the ANet big tournaments the mere thought of using anything bur power Herald would be just out of any mind. Condi rev was cornered and quartered after a few months post HoT, and since there the class didn't have a single high level competitive build outside of the progressively rigid and dull Shiro/Glint power build. The last expansion utterly failed to provide anything meaningful to the Revenant in terms of PvP. The main designer of the Rev (which no longer works in the company) didn't even took part in the Renegade design, and the current team is clueless about PvP mechanics.

Revenant have been proved in battle in countless times as useless as a bunker/holder, or in the role of a condi dps or bruiser. Not a sigle time (when ANet used to spent money in PvP tournaments has a team achieved anything employing a Revenant which weren't based around the power Herald build. Equaly, Revenants used in WvW guild vs guild scrims essentially turned around the power hammer build). Shield have been nothing buth trash for longer that half of the life of this class itself, so at this stage is very natural for any Rev player to entirely ignore the existence of the shield, for good reasons. Is a suicidal option which as a peak skill has a block that roots yourself for 3 seconds in a game full of unblockables. I mained a Guardian for years but didn't craft The Flameseeker because at the time Guard's shield was crap (the focus was the Guardian's shield); then I crafted it for my Rev (because baseline HoT Rev shield was amazing) and in less than a year was stacking dust, whereas the Guardian shield became vastly improved... Oh the irony...

How can I be wrong? The class resembles nothing what was at the HoT release. Revenant was supposed to rely on energy to use its skills (as happens with initiative for thieves); now, instead, has cooldowns on top energy cost for almost every skill. The shield was botched long time ago and don't has any use in any game department for 2+ years in a row. Axe is also unpopular, and none of the ranged weapons of the class enjoys any use in PvP. Off hand sword block on move was sacrified to buff the damage, but once was neutered in burst and casting speed what remains useless for condi builds and very predictable for power ones. Frankly the off hand sword was better BEFORE the changes, because albeit Rev was low tier after the PoF arrival, at least was faithful to the roots of the class. What do you do with a class unable to do support, to tank/hold points or to work as condition dps? You keep the damage and the mobility. Power Shiro is now like a pregnant walrus (but the walrus is a better bruiser). And don't talk me about "the problem with some people who main a class"; I mained Warrior and Guardian long before the HoT arrival, and those clasess always had a few functional builds with different degrees of viability. Rev never had an alternative build, and power Herald never was so straightforward, uninspiring, plain and rigid to play as in the current iteration. I can play support Firebrand, dps DH, core guardian bruiser and even meme (but fun) burn Guardian; Rev has 0 options, and now is slow.

Current power Herald is nothing like what the class had when was released in HoT. Over the last year lost more than half of might generation, half of might duration, most of its sources of vulnerability and most of the associated procs. Even worse, Shiro's Impossible Odds, which in the past provided both quickness (for increased attack speed and reduced time cast) and superspeed (for increased mobility) no longer provides any of those. In fact, Shiro is now slow like a slug, and the "legenday assassin" needs a Herald trait (see: not a Devastation trait, but one from a different legend) to get a botched version of swiftness. And that's for the Herald spec, core Rev is just hopeless and Renegade was the worst PvP specialization ever released since PoF, even worse than any core class and has been that way since its inception. So why whould Rev aven appear in that tier list? Hits softer than ever, is suddenly slow and has the same weakness vs conditions which always carried. Sword's nerfs are largely irrelevant: Shiro is now garbage, and the class only had a single functional PvP build in 3.7 years, so killed Shiro, Revenant is dead.

My vote goes... to not chose a class which doesn't use the greatsword as basic weapon. Because Reaper's gs can look cool, but the chances of using it are entirely dependant of Reaper being good. With classes which have free access to a weapon, you have (at least) three chances to find a build somewhat viable. With weapons linked to a class specialization, if the spec fall from grace and becomes useless, you will lose the chance to use it.

Didn't touch the game in 3 weeks; Shiro now truly feels like garbage: we had already lost the quickness from Impossible Odds a lot of time ago, but now also lost the 33% movement speed from swiftness... What the hell is this crap? The Legendary Assasin is now slow like an obese walrus with nothing in exchange! And no, don't even talk me about Rising Momentum: that pile of manure is not from Devastation, but from the Herald traitline. Shiro is now SLOW (and core Shiro a damned slug), this class is unrecognizable from the one which was released at HoT!

Shield #5 should be revamped into a AoE pull (reversing Guardian's effect) and shield #4 should be turned into a forward/backward roll with i-frames to even start to think about using it. Is useless at every department of the game, plain and simple, and is notr very clear it would have a role even revamped due Herald itself no longer has a role as a support: the boon duration it provides is meaningless and lacks in boon sharing compared to other classes. Why would you want better skills in the weapon for a spec that no one uses in raids?

If you remove Herald from the game I'll just stop playing the class (and the game). Core Rev has nothing distinctive compared to other classes: is bad at being a bunker, is mediocre at condition damage and at power dps burst, is weak in terms of support (and at this point is not like Herald is great at support, also). If I want to play condi I can use a burn Guard: lacks balance and isn't a serious build, but is fun; if I want to play a bunker I can go full nomad Guard (again, is meme, but works x4 better than anything related to Jalis, Rev is amongst the worst classes to make a bruiser in the game); if I want to support I'll just run a Firebrand. Nerfing Herald wouldn't make core Rev more appealing, because core Rev is boring and dull.

I love how Rev never requieres to spent a dime in new stats, no matter which changes the patches provides. Makes the legendary gear a bit redundant, but still I can appreciate that aside from being more and more rigid and dumber in gameplay Rev is largely unnafected by the need to grind new crap as other classes do. Think about that: just a couple of patches turned the valkyrie stats for Guardians from godlike to absolute garbage... Glad didn't move from Rev in 2018. Tha's my "ppreciation" for the patch.

RIP, variety. Hardly. The class uses the same build in PvP from 3.75 years ago; everything else remains mostly useless and this patch doesn't change it. If all, widens the gap between power Herald and everything else, but any perceived "variety" related to Revenant in PvP was (always have been) ilusory. You can't "kill" something that doesn't exist.

You're right, the focus of the discussion is not what one plays. But the focus isn't also if people buying gems paids the game for all, but IF opening the gate of an optional monthly fee charge (in form of money x gems) would TEMPT ANet to provide gameplay advantage to those players. And some people are showing concern about that because is exactly what happened in other MMOs. Take in consideration that the initial model of ANet about horizontal progression and cosmetics was partially eroded when they introduced the ascended gear, and recent inclusion of stats combinations which perform better than older ones at raids while they keep nerfing old stuff as runes and skills to make the new gear more impactful in the game keeps pushing in the same direction: this is no longer a pure horizontal game from the perspective of gear grinding.