Za Shaloc.3908

Speaking from a perspective of the other side (fighting Eles as I don't play mine much), Fire Weaver definitely seems to be generally the hardest to fight and overall strongest. With Cele gear they have a ton of sustain, and the cleanse seems to be at a respectable enough level to handle most condi bombs. Their damage is significantly higher than water Weaver and offensive pressure truly does matter when roaming. I play primarily power Rev, so I have to be really careful about even going near them because of how quickly the burns stack up, and can generally only beat them if I get them caught in a nice Jade Winds combo. Truth be told, I am not going to waste my time fighting a water Weaver. As soon as I see Soothing Mist pop and their health go back up to 100, I lose interest and walk away. They are a total bore to fight and I generally don't see them as a threat even if I let them poke at me in at outnumbered fight because their damage at points of engagement doesn't seem to be high enough. With all that said, FA scepter/focus Weaver is one of the scariest builds for me to encounter in WvW. Not saying that the build is better or even good because objectively speaking it seems to have many more flaws, but I kitten my pants when I see them because I know that at any second I can be 100-0'd before I can blink. Honestly I really respect people that use this build because it seems to have an extremely high skill ceiling. When I have given Fire Weaver a spin in the past, I could still win a lot of my fights despite my lack of experience, but when I have tried FA Weaver, I totally crumble. That sort of thing gives me personal incentive to want to try it.

This change was made a long time ago and if was communicated in the patch notes of that time. I believe it is even listed on the minor adept trait for Soulbeast. Not really sure why you bring this up now. I know ANet is not the best at communication, but this is not an example of such.

Yeah, that has been my single biggest complaint with Rev's elite specs as well. It just doesn't feel like a massive difference in playstyle and that leaves me consistently disappointed. The way they have now positioned the current iteration of the Alliance stance is "camp one alliance unless in emergency" which ends up not really bringing much of a difference in playstyle. It seems like they wanted to be a bit more bold with their direction this time around, but ended up kinda backing down on it, leaving it to be something that is more effective but also lacks much complexity. We have the dodge mechanic, so I guess that counts as something, but it follows ANet's questionable decisions of powercrept dodges that handicap one of the core mechanics of the entire game. I always look to Tempest and Weaver as examples of what direction I would have liked ANet to move Rev's elite specs: really leaning into the legend swapping/energy mechanics, which is the core of what makes Revenant a Revenant. Catalyst feels like the same level of inspiration as Herald/Renegade in that it feels flat and lacks depth. At the end of the day I will still play Vindicator and am actually quite eager to play new builds, but I definitely do agree with your point.

I think that Jalis is definitely the safer option, but I'd like to test out Alliance more to see how it feels. Only got to test it for like half an hour or so in open world in the last beta. Alliance has its own set of advantages as well IMO. On demand quickness, CC that gives stab. A heal that is usable every 10 seconds and gives might/vuln. All of its utilities do good damage too. I'd say that is all very good, especially in bigger groups of mobs. It definitely seems to have potential.

Thanks for the response. A bit misleading if that is the case. I thought ANet specifically implemented the term strike damage to clarify when it is one or both types of damage 😂.

This may be a dumb question, but does Forerunner of Death increase condi damage and strike damage, or just strike damage? Tooltip only says "damage" so I assume it's both, but never got around to testing it.

Please no. Honestly, I greatly dislike this direction of ANet superpowering dodges and then putting drawbacks to the specs that take away a lot of the fluidity of the playstyle (Mirage, Vindicator). IMO the game is at its best when a dodge is simply a dodge. Also we already have one kitten pseudo-CC-on dodge trait, Flashbang on Engi, which is absolutely horrible design on ANet's part. Also also what @Lonewolf Kai.3682said: they will nerf the damage in competitive modes if they added CC.

I like your ideas a lot. Would personally give torch 4 2 charges on top of the blindness, but the smoke field is a really neat idea and also "makes sense" for a skill like bonfire. In WvW I almost never see torch used. Would be nice to see it used more.

Same here. Spear not tracking well does not mean it should CC. How would that solve the issue if the CC also needs to...land? My fav idea is still from @Infusion.7149 in that landing the spear would apply a tether-like effect that increases your damage on the tethered target.

Yeah, this is how I see it too. Personally I love playing with new people. It is refreshing to have a whole new group of people to get to know, to fight old friends from my home server, and to see opposing players from an allied perspective. I also got to roam with some friends I haven't played with in ages because of server restrictions. I chose not to rep any guild this time around to shuffle myself a bit and I greatly enjoy the prospect of being able to float between repping my home server guild and detaching from it as I wish. For me personally, as a bit of a floater myself, the beta has been an ideal setup for me. I just hope they don't keep pairings for too long when they actually implement alliances.

I am a longtime Ventari player and made a post showcasing this build shortly after the cele change was made. Yes it is actually pretty competent as a roamer despite the horrible reputation Ventari has, but the legend, traitline, and class a whole has a lot of unhealthy things about it too, and this build kinda embraces all of that plus the busted stats of cele to make it all work. Unfortunately, Ventari does not perform as well as an actual support, which is where the legend could use some more love in terms of its performance in WvW. It would be a shame if ANet chose not to try to make the legend perform better as its primary intended role for the sake of a build like this (which has plenty of counterplay, mind you. And when you get outnumbered by a couple competent players who know how to exploit its weaknesses, the shortcomings of the build become much more pronounced). Ventari does get too harsh of a reputation and has more value than people tend to say, but its lack of presence in WvW should make it pretty obvious that it is not where it should be in terms of effectiveness as a support. To be honest, I don't think it needs that much help, and I think that Ventari is only half of the problem. I also think that Vindicator will greatly improve its presence in the WvW scene, but IMO Ventari could still use some love in terms of reactive speed and reliability, which are ways that wouldn't really boost its ability to self-bunker with builds like Cele Rene. Make it easier to adapt to fast-paced and high-movement fights. I have always said that you can really see how bright Ventari can shine while attacking structures and while in chokepoints, but I would like to see some of its potency better adapted to other contexts.

Just reporting a bug, not sure if this is the place to do it: If partied with allied players from other servers, I cannot see their dots on the map/minimap. I tried this on both my main and my alt and the same issue persisted. Conversely, they could not see my dot. If it matters: I was sorted to First Haven and Griffonfall on NA, and did not choose an alliance guild on either account. I played with friends who both chose and didn't choose alliance guilds and the same issue persisted. This was NOT remedied by repping shared guilds (no yellow dots).

It is interesting seeing the difference in power between Tree Song for Vindicator and Purifying Essence. Unfortunately I see them nerfing Tree Song more than I see them buffing Purifying Essence.

Honestly I think Shiro is fine in WvW. The nerfs are definitely still noticeable on Herald since you can't take Charged Mists, but I never really feel like Shiro is weak or in need of buffs when I play it. I am not opposed to them taking off some of the bloat from RS to bring down its energy cost, but I believe ANet intends on wanting to keep it at 40e to prevent it from being spammed more. It was essentially Rev's version of getting cooldown increases on its stunbreak skills. I imagine the PvE community would riot if IO got changed to lifesteal as that would be a massive dps loss. The current iteration is very strong, especially considering you can stack it with quickness, which was not possible on IO's previous iteration. I don't really have a problem with Shiro's heal at all either since the siphon does a lot of damage and core Rev's heals never got nerfed in the big balance patch, leaving them to be quite respectable. There is counterplay to the heals, but they still add up to a nice amount considering we have 2 heals. Honestly the two things I think the core legends need are: 1. Make Ventari a bit more reactive/fluid in order to make the legend a more reliable support option. 2. Carve out a niche for Mallyx in regards to resistance and its condition management, which has been diluted and muddled since the resistance rework.

If there were 2 things about Specter that I could change, it would be: - Incentivize using Siphon ally as a support skill (currently is suffers from being weak due to such few trait interactions). - Polish the tether ally mechanic and how one supports allies in shroud. If I had it my way, I would give shroud the allied targeting option like scepter has: if targeting an ally, the skills gain a supportive functionality. Additionally, if targeting the tethered ally, the skills gain AoE/additional effects around the tethered ally.

UA has gotta be the singlemost buggy skill in the game. I swear it got even worse like a year or two ago. Half the time I use it I don't expect it to even work anymore. Sad that ANet has taken no time to try to fix it.

I am biased as a Rev main but I would argue the same. The only thing it doesn't flourish at is heal support in PvP and WvW, but that could change come EoD.

If I could have it my way I would revert the change of giving unblockable a set amount of charges. While having so much projectile denial uptime is not fun to fight against, it conversely is not fun to fight against a ton of Rangers doing 3k autos from 1800 range out of harm's way. Sacrificing a utility skill for strictly unblockable attacks is IMO the most balanced way of approaching it. I don't think they could give charges to projectile denial skills because that would be both hard to balance and also how would something like Ventari bubble work when it is an upkeep-based skill? In terms of simple QoL, I still can't stress enough how frustrating I find the icon change to auras. When you are in the heat of combat trying to track multiple things, the icons for the auras don't have the immediate color signifier like they used to. For myself at least, it slows down my split-second reaction time, and also even looking at the player themselves to see which aura they have on them can be deceiving when they have multiple auras stacked. I would deeply encourage ANet to reinstate different colors for each aura icon. Additionally/alternatively, ANet needs to implement an icon that shows when a player is within a projectile denial bubble. In large fights, animations get culled and it is frustrating to throw your full burst into an invisible projectile bubble. In terms of actual balance, I agree with @coro.3176that mag aura and Scrapper bubble are the most egregious. However, I think mag aura is a huge niche for Tempest that it should have, and if you are basing your whole build on this, it is much more one-trick pony and has noticeable sacrifices in its overall versatility. I have no issues with Wall of Reflection or Feedback for the same reasons. With Scrapper, I would prefer ANet to look at the absolute overproduction of group superspeed that the espec produces before touching too much else on it. If there is anything that is unhealthy about the spec, it is the insane uptime on superspeed.

Rev is a fantastic roamer and based on what you say you are looking for, it would be right up your alley. I have been roaming on Rev for many years now and still love it to pieces. The majority of this has been solo roaming. Shortbow Cele Renegade is probably the strongest roaming Rev build out there right now, and is very easy to start up with. Power Herald is a high-skill build with big reward if you play it well. I myself prefer running power core Jalis/Shiro and have played that more than any Rev build since core got Ancient Echo. Core power Rev is easier to play than power Herald but still has a lot of room for skill and success. People sleep on it because "it's core" without understanding the advantages it brings in many matchups.

Alliances on a 3-week rotation.

Didn't the community already have a fit over this before, whining that this was removed and temporarily replaced by Detection Pulse?

What immersion is there left to break? ANet threw that out the window long ago. This game is a hodgepodge of different aesthetics and themes. Honestly I find it kinda cute. I agree with @Mungrul.9358, it gives me major Toy Story vibes. Won't be buying it, but it is very well-executed and the textures are fantastic.

Considering the buff that happened to Cele I very highly doubt any set will ever get nerfed. I am at least grateful for the magnet and moa. Truly god's gift to WvW.

Riiiiiiiiight, because seeing only 5-10 active players NEVER happens in the normal server structure.

The AA animation is what really gets me the most. Here we have a Virtuoso, which (to me) thematically connotes the arguably most refined and elegant of any elite specs. And then they give it a kittening generic melee AA animation. Truly tragic.