Za Shaloc.3908

Well, people come to the forums and can make any sort of claim on performance, so I take such things with a grain of salt. And sure, I also let performance do the talking, I just haven't seen any evidence in game or via stream/video to prove that support Rev is at a strong enough level in WvW. Again, we are talking about support Rev as a whole, not the ability to tank or 1v1. Back when I did fractals (pre-alacrity on Natural Harmony) I was able to complete all T4s with Ventari as well with no issues, but what does this prove? It feels senseless to even mention it. I bring up it not being taken because there is a reason for support Rev not being taken, it is not just a matter of popularity for popularity's sake. Popularity is largely a result of effectiveness. Shill activity? Lol wut? Blind spam is a cheese mechanic and reducing the CD on Ventari's Will means you can spam it 33% more. There's no deeper or ill-intentioned reason beyond that.

But but, how am I gonna IoL my friends then? They'll be dead before I can finish the cast time! ;-;

Ventari certainly is not useless and I don't think it's flawed at its core, which is why I didn't suggest any reworking of the kit. However, my issue with it its adaptability and responsiveness. Having a 3s cooldown in between moving it makes it very restrictive in actually successfully delivering support to allies. I have played Ventari since I started playing Rev shortly after HoT dropped, and even when roaming on it, it feels fine because you can predict exactly where you need to move the tablet. But that isn't as much the case when supporting allies, especially with the insane superspeed uptime nowadays. I don't need to be on the same level of support as a Scrapper or a Firebrand, but certainly there is room for improvement for the class as a whole. There is a reason you don't see them used in serious groups in WvW and I think it's a bit disingenuous to say otherwise, or that it's simply a L2P issue. You having success with it in your context doesn't make the class perfect and in no need of changes. I have roamed almost exclusively on a Ventari build since the Cele update and can only remember losing like 3 1v1s, but I am not going to take that as proof of its support performance being on the level that it should. Regarding healings orbs? I respectfully disagree. Personal opinion is that they overcrowd the traitline and starve the class of more interesting and diverse ways of supporting allies.

Yeah, it is unfortunate that it was hit so hard in competitive modes when it was never even a meta pick to begin with. Unfortunately that is what happens when you get an incompetent dev who thinks blanket numerical nerfs down the board will affect all classes/builds the same. The legend is so unpopular it is sad. Even a lot of Rev players I talk to are only vaguely familiar with what the skills do. I have been playing more PvE meta events lately and at least there I feel valuable, between 10-target facets, good boon output, and big heals. Pre-big balance patch was probably the best Ventari will ever be in WvW sadly.

Gonna bump this because I added some more ideas. The formatting got completely messed up from the new forum update, so hopefully it's all better now. Still no ideas for the healing orb GM or minor trait. @Yasai.3549 it would be nice to see them really expand on the idea of healing orbs some more. Their introduction was completely out of the blue and unfortunately there has been no follow-up to polish the mechanic, leaving them feeling completely lackluster in PvP/WvW.

Some thoughts on changes that could be made. Most of these are my own reused ideas from the past. Maybe I just really like my own ideas and want to push them some more. CORRUPTION Demonic Defiance: Additionally, Frigid Blitz now transfers conditions (1-2) to affected foes. (This would be an attempt to diversify access to transfers to help with the Resistance situation. Additionally, it would give back axe its role as the true condition offhand weapon in competitive modes. Transfers like this are much healthier for the game than True Nature - Demon as there is a significantly larger amount of counterplay and smaller potential for impact. This would give Rev access to quite a bit of transfers, but as Resistance is no longer a way of bypassing condition damage, I think it is warranted and help with Mallyx's currently awkward identity.) SALVATION Vital Blessing: Reworked. Searing Fissure now is a water field that heals and grants regeneration to allies. Renewing Wave gains 2 charges. (A safe choice for any Rev build using staff and would really increase the appeal of taking Salvation for any build, as currently IMO Ret really outshines it for most builds. Condi Revs would stay away from it but Mace/Shield heal Heralds would rejoice.) Words of Censure: Reworked. Executing a blast finisher removes 1 condition from nearby allies. Blast finishers gain increased radius (50%). Not sure what the ICD would be. (Would not synergize with Shiro/Glint builds but provides a lot of opportunity for all other legends, as well as mace/staff/hammer.. Revenant can build for a *TON* of blast finishers so I think this aspect of the class should really be highlighted.) INVOCATION Song of the Mists - Call of the Dragon: No longer chills. Instead, now converts 1 condition to a boon for nearby allies (300-360r). (Glint is all about boon support and this should be carried through on a thematic trait that is very much about capturing the legend's essence. It would also give power Herald builds more access to condi management, which is currently the build that suffers the greatest weakness against conditions.) HERALD Elevated Compassion: Additionally, Elemental Blast is now converted to Purifying Breath. Purifying Breath: Consume Facet of Elements to cover the target area in magical dragon breath. Pulse 1: Heals for X Pulse 2: Heals for X and cleanses 1 condition Pulse 3: Heals for X and converts 1 condition to a boon. Interval: 1s Radius: 240 Range: 600 (I don't think any power or condi Revenant would want to take this because Elemental Blast is a very strong skill for both builds. This is directly targeted at buffing support Heralds.)

Support Rev with no Ventari... ::sad centaur noises::

As much as I would want another excuse to use Verderach, I would prefer 5 new weapon skills over 2.

Yup. IIRC the PoF leaks showed Firebrand as Purifier.

IMO Signet of the Hunt was way overnerfed when it was reduced to 6 hits rather than a flat amount of time. Considering the difference in damage pattern when compared to something like a Gunflame Berserker, it really limits its impact. It should be increased to something like 10-12 hits instead.

To click on an ally to rez them instead of finishing the downed enemy next to them. Can't tell you how many times I have tried to rez but start to finish the enemy instead. Also to see their boons/condis/buffs/etc. I mean why not? It is extremely relevant.

Been dreaming of a Healing ++ Vitality + Concentration + for years. The change to Celestial gives me the impression that nothing is off the table anymore, which gives me hope.

What do you think potential trait candidates would be? IMO Salvation is overcrowded with healing orb traits so I could see it benefitting from a group cleanse trait, and Corruption is now left in a bit of an awkward spot with the resistance rework, so I could see them giving it a personal cleanse trait there too. As for something like a power Herald, I think it having cleanse from traited shield is a very notable addition from ANet and should not be discounted, it is just overshadowed by offhand sword. Would be cool to see SotM - Dragon maybe convert 1 condi AoE instead of chill too.

The scariest core Ele i have come across recently was either hybrid LR or full power LR d/f. Assuming Fire/Air/Arcane. Good spike damage. When I fight core cele d/d Eles, they can be pretty strong in 1v1, but it is rare that I actually feel threatened by them as I can always just disengage from them rather easily. The power spikes from that Ele were actually legit scary though, and I had to play very cautiously. Definitely felt like more of a threat even though it probably dies a lot more often. I wanna say they ran Lightning Flash, Mist Form, and Earth Shield.

I see no issue with maintaining control over the pet while in downstate, but back to the original topic at hand: Soulbeast technically should not have petswap while downed. To my knowledge, any trait that has the potential to interact while in downstate maintains that interaction while downed. Soulbeast's minor adept Elevated Bond explicitly states that you cannot swap pets while in combat, so I see no reason for it to be otherwise. It really is that simple. No need for personal bias and imaginary justification to cloud this argument. Do I actually care? Not at all. It doesn't bug me in the slightest in its current implementation and it wouldn't make me feel any differently if they changed this. The point is that there should technically be consistency here. A Soulbeast is still a Soulbeast while downed; it is unmerged, but remains in combat (I guess techincally if you OOC while downed you should be able to swap pets). If there are any other downstate/trait interaction outliers, please enlighten me, but if all other traits maintain their interaction while in downstate, please tell me why it should be any different for Soulbeast's no-petswap. My guess as to why it is still like this: * Anet never realized this inconsistency. * Anet forgot it was a thing. * Anet doesn't care enough to change it. * This is an unintended bug. * There is some coding issue with changing this so they haven't been able to change it.

I highly doubt the dev(s) responsible for this change had any regard for the impact this would have on the intricacies of certain builds, or were even aware that such builds or skills even existed. It is not just Rev sadly. Look at Signet of Renewal on Ranger, Save Yourselves! on Guardian. There was such little foresight and analysis to the change to resistance. It is embarrassing to see such a massive change to a boon done with such little care and nuance. You can't just ctrl-x past design and ctrl-v a shiny new idea without also changing the pieces around it to fit like they used to.

Just have to point out that *technically* Renegade had access to 10-man Alacrity before Herald had access to 10-man anything. The 10-man boons via Shared Empowerment and Draconic Echo came into existence from the August 28th, 2018 patch, almost a year after PoF had launched. Anyway, I do understand the reasoning behind your desire for Herald to have party-quickness, but honestly I am against it. I agree with @Infusion.7149's overall post that it being a better supplier of 25x might is a better and healthier goal, and perhaps boosting Natural Harmony's ability to provide Alacrity.

Personally I use: Z -> Legend swap/F1 T -> F2 skill F -> F3 skill Alt + 4 -> F4 skill I can't comfortably reach F1, F2, F3, etc. Been using these keybinds for ages and they work for me. It feels awkward on something like a Mesmer admittedly, but it works nicely enough for Rev.

The prot from shield 4 is still nice because in PvP/WvW they nerfed Facet of Chaos' prot duration to 2s, which significantly lowers Herald's prot uptime. It is also really nice if you just so happen to not run Glint. There is a bit of redundancy, sure, but I think it's a pretty important component to the skill, however lackluster it may appear in PvE.

I think your points are fair (though I don't particularly like the idea on Chaotic Release; personally I think it is fine as is). I don't think there is any harm in buffing condi Herald's performance in PvE and it's something that I personally would like to see. I agree that heal Herald needs some loving too as it is not really desired in any game mode. I think to a certain extent, Herald has suffered the issue of identity/role ever since Renegade was introduced. . To me, Glint needs to do a better job a complementing its secondary legend. While a bit of an elusive statement, I believe this would greatly help make the legend feel more complete, multifaceted, and effective. The change to Facet of Nature was a big step in this direction, but it still leaves the rest of the legend/e-spec falling short. IMO, pHerald is the role that is the closest to being complete or "there", aside from some potential numerical tweaks in PvE. It feels good to play and all the skills make sense to press; they seem like they were designed with this playstyle in mind. The other roles though? Not so much. Heal Herald offers strong heals because of the boosted regen & Ventari, but Glint itself offers very little beyond the ability to cast more weapon skills due to the nature of facets. Condi Herald was a behemoth in smallscale WvW for perhaps the wrong reasons, but the most recent big patch left it underperforming if anything (almost all of the pure condi Revs I see now are easy food; most have now switched to either pure power, celestial Herald/Rene with no Mallyx, or a different class). If you consider a tanky Herald a role, well it is pretty much there but its skills could still better complement that. Personally, this is what I would change: TRAITS Shining Aspects: I do like your change and think it would be nice to have an additional option for healing allies. Shared Empowerment provides some synergy for that already as it is an easy way of getting out 10-man Elevated Compassion procs outside of Glint, but there would still be good reason to run Shining Aspects Elevated Compassion: I agree that it could use a boost in strength. Additionally, I am still going to advocate my idea of it also converting Elemental Blast to a supportive skill that pulses healing to allies and removes condis. Forceful Persistence: I would also like to see this increase condition damage. Draconic Echo adds a *ton* of boon uptime without having to invest any boon duration, so I think it's healthy to put the condition damage modifier at competition with it. * I do like @LucianTheAngelic.7054's idea of increasing the potency of SotM, but ideally I think it would be kinda cool to make Charged Mists work for a cHerald to encourage actually managing energy in PvE, but it seems like it'd be tricky for PvE and be really restrictive in its facet rotation. SKILLS Burst of Strength: Basically what I wrote in another post: I would like for this to really enhance the secondary legend in order to make the build more versatile for different roles. Shiro: Current effects Jalis: Grants barrier to allies per strike and decreases incoming strike damage on self for X seconds Mallyx: Bleeds foes on each strike and increases outgoing condition damage on self for X seconds Ventari: Heals allies per strike and increases outgoing healing on self for X seconds Envoy of Exuberance: This skill is just another example of ANet making Rev skills overly complicated. Make it a conal effect like Chaotic Release and also have it provide boon extension.

Not much of an Ele player but I have always felt that it should apply Immobilize on the first strike. And probably make the channel like 33% faster or so.

Lmao I remember playing with this skill to see how much damage it could do as a full zerk Druid. I never actually got around to testing it in the middle of a zerg but I had one Rev hit me with quickness and Impossible Odds and their health went down extremely fast, and that was in the PvP lobby so no busted WvW stats. The problem that I saw with it was that the tether is 360 units and the leash is 600 units, so any tethered enemy that goes beyond the limit simply has the effect removed. Also, the skill is a unique effect so multiple Glyphs of Unity cannot be applied to the same target; the most recently used one simply overrides the other. Cool thing about it though is that it is unblockable (tested earlier today and it went through Aegis every time). If this actually works like you describe it, then that is funny. But honestly I think like 95% of Druid players would be happy if it got completely reworked. The skill is a total joke aside from this sort of incredibly niche hypothetical scenario. Sad to think that it used to be an elite skill.

Wait what? Scorpion Wire, the buggiest pull in the game, has "no counterplay" (lol, see: aegis, bubble, reflect, block, dodge, blade of grass, pebble), but Hunter's Verdict, a pull that is unblockable on the tether, unevadable on the pull, and that you can wait out stab with because of the tether duration, is well designed? Can't believe I am reading this. Scorp Wire works best against wall humpers that go on the ledge, but at that point it is not the skill that is the issue, it is the issue of the player who thinks they can freecast on a wall ledge and actually get away with it against players with even the smallest degree of awareness.

@lodjur.1284 I think at this point you are being overly hyperbolic with your stance. Seems like you have a personal problem with Herald as a whole. I'm like you in that I prefer the core legends (have spent like 75% of my time on core Rev since Ancient Echo), but Mallyx F2 on Herald wasn't/isn't jankier than "lagging people out.." Like, what? It was strongest in group settings in WvW, where your "holding" of conditions could easily be unintentionally cleansed by allies, or on the other side, immediately cleansed by enemies since there is such an overabundance of cleanses in the game. Don't get me wrong, the skill was very broken in the right scenario, but gamebreaking like you seem to be implying? Nah. TN Demon should have been changed a long time ago to 360 radius, blockable, evadable, and should have also been given a more distinct animation. . They changed Shiro (minus the unblockability) way back when, but at that point condi Herald wasn't meta in PvP so of course it wasn't adjusted.

Well, I hate to be that person, but that is the price of taking Draconic Echo. Wonky synergy? Yes I do think so, but at the very least you have the option to trait into something else, or slot a cleanse, shout out for a cleanse to your group, etc. To a certain degree this risk has always existed unless you are specifically building into resistance or planning your energy around using Pain Absorption. As boring as @LucianTheAngelic.7054's idea is about having it reduce condition damage, I do like it, but I just think that your example is a bit too specific and inflexible to warrant them changing it. I personally don't think FoN-D is nearly as much of an issue as Pain Absorption is because it is not attached to a stunbreak, has a very fast cast time, and *guarantees* 2-3 condis will be removed from you regardless of it hitting a target. Although I am not really opposed to a change like Lucian's, I fear that the change to resistance is just a precursor to ANet completely watering down Mallyx's flavor, and IMO Facet of Nature/True Nature - Demon were both really wonderful implementations of giving it some more of that unique flavor and a mechanic that not many classes have access to. I know "but flavor" isn't really a solid argument in itself, but to an extent I think it's still important in order to preserve the identity of a class/build/legend/etc.