It's time to unnerf Shiro in PvE

[Kozumi.5816]

Shiro basically has a single usable button in PvE - Impossible odds. The other three  abilities cost far too much energy to ever be used.

Phase traversal was nerfed in all game modes in 2016 due to PvP. This should be reverted and the energy cost reduced even further.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Phase_Traversal

May 17, 2016

The cost of this skill has been increased from 20 to 35.

Riposting shadows was also nerfed in 2016 due to PvP. This should be reverted and the energy cost reduced.

April 19, 2016

The endurance gain of this ability has been reduced from 50 to 25.

Jade winds costs far too much energy and is basically never usable. This should be reduced.

I'd like to press buttons on Shiro, but I just press impossible odds and it's not feasable to ever use another skill, which makes him a really boring legend.

Edited August 1, 2023 by Kozumi.5816

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

I have to agree, there needs to be some rebalancing in places, not just Shiro but Malyx too. Call of Anguish needs it's energy cost checked again given it's 30 energy per use and the only vortex power in the entire revenant set on a legendary that focuses on condition damage leaving power out to dry. Especially since revenant is heavily melee centric. You would think the Alliance would have some form of vortex skill given the melee centric nature.

[draxynnic.3719]

3 hours ago, Ravenwulfe.5360 said:

I have to agree, there needs to be some rebalancing in places, not just Shiro but Malyx too. Call of Anguish needs it's energy cost checked again given it's 30 energy per use and the only vortex power in the entire revenant set on a legendary that focuses on condition damage leaving power out to dry. Especially since revenant is heavily melee centric. You would think the Alliance would have some form of vortex skill given the melee centric nature.

Melee builds having access to area pulls isn't exactly intended to be guaranteed. Mesmer has one on focus. Guardian has a few that could count. Engineer has a couple. Necromancer kinda does with Spectral Grasp. You could maybe argue axe offhand pull on ranger. And then there's Mallyx rev. Which is not to say that it couldn't have a cost reduction, but it doesn't feel like there's a trend there that melee builds should have vortex skills.

Returning to the original topic, though: yeah, there have been a lot of nerfs made for competitive modes that should really have been reverted for PvE after the split was made. Nerfs made for WvW is what made hammer borderline useless anywhere else...

Edited August 2, 2023 by draxynnic.3719

[Sereath.1428]

For PvE sure, I agree many skills could go a little lower, between 20e and 30e. Anything lower would actually make things braindead.

[otto.5684]

Yes, especially Jade Winds. Its cost is ridiculous for what it does. 

[arazoth.7290]

• Jade Winds/Rite Of The Great Dwarf: 35 energy all modes + 0,75 seconds cast time. PVE Jade Winds=> 15 invurnability + more damage

• Phase Traversal: 25 energy spvp/WvW, 15 energy pve. For Spvp/WvW it still has a good cd that it can't be spammed + higher cost.

• Riposting Shadows: WvW/pvp 30 energy but remove the 15 endurance gain there. Pve stays unhindered

• Impossible Odds upkeep: WvW/spvp 6 upkeep instead. in pve it is already 6 upkeep.

 

Some of these you may think like impossible odds uptime having a lot more for more damage is bad, but it isn't => Because the other abilties energy costs are reduced and will see now more play/being used. Upkeep Impossible odds will not be used forever in WvW/Spvp because the lowered energy cost on other abilities keep it in check. For pve on some lower energy cost + increased effectiveness makes it more desirable too.

Why I chose these energy costs => I based them close on the energy costs of demon stance in Spvp, which is right in the sweet spot for using abilties with 1 stance (not vindicator 2 stances). It still needs to manage your energy well but now every ability gets more use if you like.

 

For people who think otherwise: tell why not on this, try to give a better one ln energy management, tell why it would be like I did and try to simulate how it would play out.

[Kronos.2560]

21 hours ago, Ravenwulfe.5360 said:

I have to agree, there needs to be some rebalancing in places, not just Shiro but Malyx too. Call of Anguish needs it's energy cost checked again given it's 30 energy per use and the only vortex power in the entire revenant set on a legendary that focuses on condition damage leaving power out to dry. Especially since revenant is heavily melee centric. You would think the Alliance would have some form of vortex skill given the melee centric nature.

I would love to have call of anguish pulse chill/torment or whatever for 5 seconds or something at least.

For Shiro I think the skill effects themselves are at least alright they just need a major re-haul on energy costs I would think. 

[ArthurDent.9538]

Honestly only thing I would change on shrio in pve would be jade winds going to ~40 energy.

[Batalix.2873]

Hard agree. In general I think all of the legend costs need rethinking. Shiro needs it because you barely get to use his cool skills. And imo Ventari and Jalis need it now that Herald quickness really limits their options. Mallyx can come too, cuz I think he's a pretty cool guy.

[arazoth.7290]

6 hours ago, Batalix.2873 said:

Hard agree. In general I think all of the legend costs need rethinking. Shiro needs it because you barely get to use his cool skills. And imo Ventari and Jalis need it now that Herald quickness really limits their options. Mallyx can come too, cuz I think he's a pretty cool guy.

reducing centaur energy cost I wouldn't do for core or other legends except herald. Make the energy reduction herald elite spec only WHEN you choose quickness trait.

Otherwise too much imbalance for it and it would probably otherwise get nerfed heavier ik the future because of such and we don't want that

[draxynnic.3719]

20 hours ago, Kronos.2560 said:

I would love to have call of anguish pulse chill/torment or whatever for 5 seconds or something at least.

They had that, but that created a situation of having two skills competing for the function of applying torment, and they wanted that to be the job of Embrace the Darkness.

[Shao.7236]

Then what are you gonna do with those skills? Genuinely curious. What is there to do when the damage comes from weapons and Impossible Odds. Spam evades on Vindicator I guess?

Doesn't sound healthy to have the ability to press Riposting Shadows 3 times in a row on top of a free evade for each cast from the start of combat

Tell me about Phase Traversal, what are you gonna do with the skill itself? Even at 20% cost you'd achieve nothing that could compete without Impossible Odds.

Jade Winds would be the same thing at 40%, by the time you're done casting it in combat, you already have 10% energy back.

You're looking for buttons to press while Shiro in general isn't geared towards that to begin with.

[draxynnic.3719]

54 minutes ago, Shao.7236 said:

Then what are you gonna do with those skills? Genuinely curious. What is there to do when the damage comes from weapons and Impossible Odds. Spam evades on Vindicator I guess?

Doesn't sound healthy to have the ability to press Riposting Shadows 3 times in a row on top of a free evade for each cast from the start of combat

Tell me about Phase Traversal, what are you gonna do with the skill itself? Even at 20% cost you'd achieve nothing that could compete without Impossible Odds.

Jade Winds would be the same thing at 40%, by the time you're done casting it in combat, you already have 10% energy back.

You're looking for buttons to press while Shiro in general isn't geared towards that to begin with.

I can see a couple of possibilities in PvE:

Regarding Phase Traversal: That's where they moved the Quickness to after they changed Impossible Odds. IO post-rework is power-oriented, so in situations where quickness isn't provided, a condi rev might consider using it for the quickness. A cost reduction would also make it less of a hit to your ability to use other skills when used for its primary purpose - mobility.

Regarding Jade Wind: Sure, you get energy back when you cast it, but 10% energy is often when you want to swap legends for more energy anyway. Reducing the cost (as RotGD was reduced) would mean that in situations where you use it from the typically assumed starting energy of 50, you have a bit more left in your tank afterwards to follow up with. Jade Winds is rarely used as it is: that in itself is probably an indication that, in PvE at least, it could use some form of buff.

Regarding Riposting Shadows: I don't really see why, in PvE, using it three times at the start of a fight would be crossing a threshold where it's 'unhealthy'. If you're doing that, you're choosing to use your time and energy avoiding damage rather than doing damage (mirages and daredevils can do both...) unless you're a Vindicator using the endurance for more jumps, and even then... well, Alliance Stance already offers plenty of ways to get extra endurance. 

Ultimately, though, in all of the cases, reduced costs probably don't mean that they're going to get spammed, but do mean that there's more leeway to use them for their intended purposes while also making use of IO. That could be using Riposting Shadows as a dodge, using Phase Traversal to quickly get to a boss that just moved, or having some form of window when using IO at the start of the fight (or after switching without Charged Mists) doesn't immediately lock you out of using Jade Winds if a good opportunity for it comes up.

[Shao.7236]

15 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I can see a couple of possibilities in PvE:

Regarding Phase Traversal: That's where they moved the Quickness to after they changed Impossible Odds. IO post-rework is power-oriented, so in situations where quickness isn't provided, a condi rev might consider using it for the quickness. A cost reduction would also make it less of a hit to your ability to use other skills when used for its primary purpose - mobility.

Regarding Jade Wind: Sure, you get energy back when you cast it, but 10% energy is often when you want to swap legends for more energy anyway. Reducing the cost (as RotGD was reduced) would mean that in situations where you use it from the typically assumed starting energy of 50, you have a bit more left in your tank afterwards to follow up with. Jade Winds is rarely used as it is: that in itself is probably an indication that, in PvE at least, it could use some form of buff.

Regarding Riposting Shadows: I don't really see why, in PvE, using it three times at the start of a fight would be crossing a threshold where it's 'unhealthy'. If you're doing that, you're choosing to use your time and energy avoiding damage rather than doing damage (mirages and daredevils can do both...) unless you're a Vindicator using the endurance for more jumps, and even then... well, Alliance Stance already offers plenty of ways to get extra endurance. 

Ultimately, though, in all of the cases, reduced costs probably don't mean that they're going to get spammed, but do mean that there's more leeway to use them for their intended purposes while also making use of IO. That could be using Riposting Shadows as a dodge, using Phase Traversal to quickly get to a boss that just moved, or having some form of window when using IO at the start of the fight (or after switching without Charged Mists) doesn't immediately lock you out of using Jade Winds if a good opportunity for it comes up.

Well it's been said before but some skills in this game are more useful in a PvP setting than they are PvE. Say reactive rather than pro-active.

Like if Jade Winds granted Quickness all around to self and teammates based on the number of targets hit, it would plug a supportive hole that Shiro lacks not only for the cost but also introduce extra moving parts for the user to save energy for combining IO with it.

THEN I can agree that reducing the energy cost to 40% would do something useful and perhaps even be OP, I'd give it a shot first though.

For the rest though, can't say there's any benefit change energy costs since they are quite nicely tucked together, perhaps making Phase Traversal share it's benefits of Quickness and Unblockable on location to teammates nearby the target would be an insane buff but have people work together also.

Riposting Shadows sharing it's Fury or even also get Quickness slapped into depending on how many conditions gets removed. Problem being the effects are applied the moment you start rolling so I don't think it's that good. The shared Fury should be enough.

The reality of it, Shiro is mega selfish and needs more team effects.

[Kronos.2560]

On 8/3/2023 at 10:31 AM, draxynnic.3719 said:

They had that, but that created a situation of having two skills competing for the function of applying torment, and they wanted that to be the job of Embrace the Darkness.

But isn't that the point that they both contribute? Embrace the Darkness pulses extra torment on use of other skills. I thought the objective was to have both work together? Not pick 1 or the other. I just would like to see it pulse at least a few times for its cost, or change it to like 10.... I find Axe 5 more useful +more DPS for 1/3 the energy cost.

I would say all of Shiro, Mallyx and Dwarf elite need a major looking into reducing costs considering their effects. At least with other stances they have some usability in a group though limited. (stabil with dwarf, heal with vent etc)

[Shao.7236]

1 hour ago, Kronos.2560 said:

Dwarf elite need a major looking into reducing costs considering their effects.

Nobody cares about damage reduction in PvE though. Why would RotGD need to be changed at all? They still forced percentages to be multiplicative which killed the ability to nullify all condition damage with Renegade randomly and nobody batted an eye about it.

[Kozumi.5816]

On 8/4/2023 at 6:01 PM, Shao.7236 said:

Nobody cares about damage reduction in PvE though.

For the rest though, can't say there's any benefit change energy costs since they are quite nicely tucked together, perhaps making Phase Traversal share it's benefits of Quickness and Unblockable on location to teammates nearby the target would be an insane buff but have people work together also.

Do you only raid and do strikes in a full BIS premade or something?

I do mostly open world and duoing t4 fractals/dungeons/strikes and greatly benefit from being able to remove conditions, give myself damage reduction, or break stuns.

[otto.5684]

IMO, all three skills in pve should cost much less energy. There is no reason for them to cost as much as they do. To an extent, same with Jalis and Mallyx. Going Vindicator route, by having low energy paired with a CD, works much better than gating the utilities with energy. We should extend the gameplay beyond pressing one button.

Edited August 6, 2023 by otto.5684

[bruakumfd.4817]

I honestly thought this was going to concern damage. When I used him the first few times I played Revenant, I was very unimpressed in that regard. However, I can definitely see energy cost being a problem since I don't like using Jalis's sole stun breaker. (He's becoming my guy, though.)

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

On 8/3/2023 at 6:27 AM, arazoth.7290 said:

reducing centaur energy cost I wouldn't do for core or other legends except herald. Make the energy reduction herald elite spec only WHEN you choose quickness trait.

Otherwise too much imbalance for it and it would probably otherwise get nerfed heavier ik the future because of such and we don't want that

How is it imbalanced? There are other heal specs other than herald out there, and when it comes to direct healing I would wager vindicator is far better than herald at it, just lacks boons.

 

On 8/3/2023 at 11:31 AM, draxynnic.3719 said:

They had that, but that created a situation of having two skills competing for the function of applying torment, and they wanted that to be the job of Embrace the Darkness.

The logic of this is just lacking. Having methods to apply torment quicker is better, not competing.

 

On 8/4/2023 at 5:01 PM, Shao.7236 said:

Nobody cares about damage reduction in PvE though. Why would RotGD need to be changed at all? They still forced percentages to be multiplicative which killed the ability to nullify all condition damage with Renegade randomly and nobody batted an eye about it.

I am curious what content you play that you think resistance or protection is something not cared about? That's like saying people don't care about aegis, barrier, or healing either.

Edited August 6, 2023 by Ravenwulfe.5360

[arazoth.7290]

1 hour ago, Ravenwulfe.5360 said:

How is it imbalanced? There are other heal specs other than herald out there, and when it comes to direct healing I would wager vindicator is far better than herald at it, just lacks boons.

 

The logic of this is just lacking. Having methods to apply torment quicker is better, not competing.

 

I am curious what content you play that you think resistance or protection is something not cared about? That's like saying people don't care about aegis, barrier, or healing either.

I agree with you on the other 2 you commented, there needs to be more apply then mostly elite only for condi and damage reduction is indeed needed in pve too, the more the less healing is required to heal someone back.

And about centaur getting reduced energy, it is for core fine because it naturaly has more energy gaining. For vindicator and renegade it is fine energy wise too because you can spam your skills more then enough to get the healing out of it and boons from empowerment. Vindicator needs to apply some more boons to allies yes, but alliance stance should do that. 

Herald has less healing output in centaur stance then vindicator, core and renegade because of holding upkeep energy skill for quickness more on. So herald indeed can use centaur stance to be less energy intensive. But tinkering with lowering it for not only herald to be more useable, would give a lot more energy to the others. While they already can use it better because no upkeep energy is required.

So arenanet could see this in longer term then again getting nerfed because the others do too much and Herald build would suffer then at cost of others. So I prefere if it was Herald only because it has this special situation with upkeep skill requiring more energy

 

I am talking here about pve, not Pvp/WvW, because that would affect it too much in pvp/WvW. Because of a thread I made to not clash with ideas, since facet upkeep which I explained in the other one (which I won't do here bc not needed to stray away too much from op)

Edited August 6, 2023 by arazoth.7290

[Shao.7236]

1 hour ago, Ravenwulfe.5360 said:

I am curious what content you play that you think resistance or protection is something not cared about? That's like saying people don't care about aegis, barrier, or healing either.

Never seen anyone focus on damage reduction in open world content if doesn't have healing included because DPS is what get things moving. Out of all the activities I've done I see 1 sustain build out 20 people which is a huge discrepancy considering 1 player can only affect 5 in total.

Because boons can be farted easily and can last like no tomorrow, it's always used as a side benefit rather than the preferred benefit.

RotGD requires timing and coordination, if any of the sustain you mentioned was at the same level of RotGD for it to be effective, you'd hardly see anyone make good use of it.

You know that nobody bothers with Dwarf because Herald exists and can give 33% with zero effort.

You can say it's an energy/duration issue but cutting damage in half for 5 seconds is not small, even though the reason why it exists is to give players the option to be tanky without having to invest in any stats. that's with the added benefits of Ventari now giving better Stability, those two legends can be easily intertwined for good results and we don't see it around either.

[draxynnic.3719]

On 8/5/2023 at 2:03 AM, Shao.7236 said:

Well it's been said before but some skills in this game are more useful in a PvP setting than they are PvE. Say reactive rather than pro-active.

Like if Jade Winds granted Quickness all around to self and teammates based on the number of targets hit, it would plug a supportive hole that Shiro lacks not only for the cost but also introduce extra moving parts for the user to save energy for combining IO with it.

THEN I can agree that reducing the energy cost to 40% would do something useful and perhaps even be OP, I'd give it a shot first though.

For the rest though, can't say there's any benefit change energy costs since they are quite nicely tucked together, perhaps making Phase Traversal share it's benefits of Quickness and Unblockable on location to teammates nearby the target would be an insane buff but have people work together also.

Riposting Shadows sharing it's Fury or even also get Quickness slapped into depending on how many conditions gets removed. Problem being the effects are applied the moment you start rolling so I don't think it's that good. The shared Fury should be enough.

The reality of it, Shiro is mega selfish and needs more team effects.

Yes, some skills are definitely more valuable in a competitive setting than in PvE - but this is exactly where adjustments to energy costs would be a simpler approach than completely changing the functionality of the skill, especially if you take into account that solo play exists. A dodge and a half, stunbreak, fury, and condition removal is going to be worth something in PvE, just probably not 30 energy. Teleporting to a target and a short self-quickness is worth something, but again, probably not 30 energy. Stunning and doing 3.0 scaling damage to up to five targets around you is still going to be useful in some situations, just not 50 energy useful.

Maybe if you only care about pure stack-and-smack encounters it doesn't matter, but I can think of at least some endgame encounters where some of these features would be useful if they were more cost-effective.

From memory, on release, PT was 20 and Riposting Shadows was 15, but PvP concerns pushed them up before ArenaNet relented on skill splitting. That, and reducing Jade Winds to 40 or 35, would probably do the trick.

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

22 hours ago, Shao.7236 said:

Never seen anyone focus on damage reduction in open world content if doesn't have healing included because DPS is what get things moving. Out of all the activities I've done I see 1 sustain build out 20 people which is a huge discrepancy considering 1 player can only affect 5 in total.

Because boons can be farted easily and can last like no tomorrow, it's always used as a side benefit rather than the preferred benefit.

RotGD requires timing and coordination, if any of the sustain you mentioned was at the same level of RotGD for it to be effective, you'd hardly see anyone make good use of it.

You know that nobody bothers with Dwarf because Herald exists and can give 33% with zero effort.

You can say it's an energy/duration issue but cutting damage in half for 5 seconds is not small, even though the reason why it exists is to give players the option to be tanky without having to invest in any stats. that's with the added benefits of Ventari now giving better Stability, those two legends can be easily intertwined for good results and we don't see it around either.

I guarantee you, that people care about it when they are dying less to attacks. Just because you don't see it doesn't mean its not appreciated it. Too many people focused on one thing they forget many other factors. More damage doesn't get the job done and in fact I see more failures as a result of just "more damage" in the end than successes. Hell when a call for a healer goes out it is assumed they are applying these buffs by default.

Your analogy of RotGD is just baffling. It's appreciated when used, but RotGD doesn't get used because it's too expensive, not because it's not useful. Anyone claiming otherwise is just being ridiculous. 40 energy meaning the revenant is powerless to do anything for practically those 5 seconds. The only way to time that is preempt dwarf so you are off CD to swap to a different stance afterwards, but by preempting dwarf that means you aren't doing what you were there to do to begin with. If they are worried about it being spammed then increase the CD and reduce the cost. You would see it used more then. Or better yet, make it a maintain power.

People still bother with dwarf for stability and vengeful hammers when heal tanking. But nobody else bothers with dwarf now because it's guaranteed breakbar effect was nerfed into oblivion and doesn't breakbars anymore.

You don't do a lot out of open world I can tell where every random person is just playing whatever build they slapped together, likely read from a website that got their ideas based around hitting a golem for max deeps but barely pulls 5k because they get flattened. I see ventari getting used quite a lot, did before this update as well because he's a good healing set with great utility. And if you mean using energy expulsion, you actually want to use that regularly, because not only does it give stability, cause defiance break, remove conditions and heal, it also gives empowerment to other ventari effects.

Your post seems to create this weird vacuum that you believe powers are not good enough or being used enough because they just aren't good. You seem to ignore the erroneous cost tied to them that practically leaves the revenant powerless for several painful seconds. Things would see more use if they weren't so expensive. You would see more calls of anguish, more revenants willing to use jade winds, more revenants who use RotGD if they weren't so expensive to use and pretty much putting the rev on the backfoot for using them. If you want a proper analogy, using some of the rev powers would be like every other profession getting a 3 to 6 seconds CD slapped onto their powers for using one of their skills.

Edited August 7, 2023 by Ravenwulfe.5360

[arazoth.7290]

1 hour ago, Ravenwulfe.5360 said:

I guarantee you, that people care about it when they are dying less to attacks. Just because you don't see it doesn't mean its not appreciated it. Too many people focused on one thing they forget many other factors. More damage doesn't get the job done and in fact I see more failures as a result of just "more damage" in the end than successes. Hell when a call for a healer goes out it is assumed they are applying these buffs by default.

Your analogy of RotGD is just baffling. It's appreciated when used, but RotGD doesn't get used because it's too expensive, not because it's not useful. Anyone claiming otherwise is just being ridiculous. 40 energy meaning the revenant is powerless to do anything for practically those 5 seconds. The only way to time that is preempt dwarf so you are off CD to swap to a different stance afterwards, but by preempting dwarf that means you aren't doing what you were there to do to begin with. If they are worried about it being spammed then increase the CD and reduce the cost. You would see it used more then. Or better yet, make it a maintain power.

People still bother with dwarf for stability and vengeful hammers when heal tanking. But nobody else bothers with dwarf now because it's guaranteed breakbar effect was nerfed into oblivion and doesn't breakbars anymore.

You don't do a lot out of open world I can tell where every random person is just playing whatever build they slapped together, likely read from a website that got their ideas based around hitting a golem for max deeps but barely pulls 5k because they get flattened. I see ventari getting used quite a lot, did before this update as well because he's a good healing set with great utility. And if you mean using energy expulsion, you actually want to use that regularly, because not only does it give stability, cause defiance break, remove conditions and heal, it also gives empowerment to other ventari effects.

Your post seems to create this weird vacuum that you believe powers are not good enough or being used enough because they just aren't good. You seem to ignore the erroneous cost tied to them that practically leaves the revenant powerless for several painful seconds. Things would see more use if they weren't so expensive. You would see more calls of anguish, more revenants willing to use jade winds, more revenants who use RotGD if they weren't so expensive to use and pretty much putting the rev on the backfoot for using them. If you want a proper analogy, using some of the rev powers would be like every other profession getting a 3 to 6 seconds CD slapped onto their powers for using one of their skills.

I agree yea, lower the energy enough that it can be used without sitting like a duck waiting for more energy. Depending how much energy cost gets reduced, an appropriate cd. But I wouldn't go above 10 seconds with this. 

While we're at it, lower the cast time to 0,75 seconds, same for shiro elite cast time and energy cost reduced