My Thoughts on the Renegade Changes: March 19 Class Balances

[Letha.4867]

       The ever growing power creep that has been going on lately has had one of my favorite revenant specs feeling pretty lackluster. The silver lining behind running a power build with it was that it still did decent enough damage, especially against enemies with larger hitboxes. It also had great survivability with icerazor's ire, which has been since nerfed into the ground with the march 19 patch. Instead of getting 20 stacks of battle scars from the ability, we now only get 2-3 which we traded for an instant damage payoff, that does just about as much damage as it did before only the payload is dealt instantly now. I think the instant damage from renegade utilities is nice, but the gutting of it's survivability whilst also trying to hamfist a new mechanic that hardly makes up for said loss makes the balance for it feel cheap and unrewarding to play in PvE, even more so than it used to. I also have a problem with the lack of visual feedback for the new "band together" mechanic. They should have at least given the renegade ability icons some new flare to show that they are now enhanced by the "band together" mechanic after using an ability. Overall the spec doesn't feel better to play after the patch, and in some aspects, it feels worse than before march 19. I get that the patch was supposed to "make it a better competitive pvp pick", but overall it felt like it just untintentionally nerfed it in PvE, while not giving it enough to make it a decent pick in PvP. Hoping to see some more updates to it in the future.

       I'd love to hear my fellow Renegade's thoughts on the changes too, and whether or not you feel the same way, or the complete opposite of how I feel the changes effected the specialization.

 

 

 

[Shagie.7612]

the neat things:
soulcleave does the correct damage again plus a little extra per summon
icerazor is pretty bursty and cleaves which is fun in fractals as power, i feel like a bladesworn sometimes just instawiping mobs with soulcleave+icerazor+darkrazor, even though it took a slight nerf to overall damage

the rest is just about as bad/underwhelming as before
still pretty much all the same problems in pvp, cooldowns, energy, range, sustain, condi removal, and so on

 

[Yasai.3549]

The fact that Summons STILL only have 600 cast range and wonky placement on terrain is making me so sadlife about Kalla. 

[Letha.4867]

33 minutes ago, Shagie.7612 said:

the neat things:
soulcleave does the correct damage again plus a little extra per summon
icerazor is pretty bursty and cleaves which is fun in fractals as power, i feel like a bladesworn sometimes just instawiping mobs with soulcleave+icerazor+darkrazor, even though it took a slight nerf to overall damage

the rest is just about as bad/underwhelming as before
still pretty much all the same problems in pvp, cooldowns, energy, range, sustain, condi removal, and so on

 

The trash mob destruction with that triple combo does feel nice, much nicer than it did before. It feels like the whole renegade kit is only really great at wiping out trash mobs, and overall okay at dealing that damage to a single target. Maybe making citadel bombardment projectiles have a larger AoE would make it viable against targets with smaller hitboxes. 

[Letha.4867]

20 minutes ago, Yasai.3549 said:

The fact that Summons STILL only have 600 cast range and wonky placement on terrain is making me so sadlife about Kalla. 

Yeah I feel that on a spiritual level. Those situations where you're trying to drop any of the warband members and being blocked by a pixel of a rock or a small gap in the ground, or even a slight elevation difference can be so infuriating. Would love to see them up the range on it, or at least fix the clunky placement issues. Or both! Both would be nice.

[Angesombre.4630]

The problems have existed for years, so I don't believe they'll fix the soil problems. The solution would be to do what the wells do.

[hash.8462]

2 hours ago, Letha.4867 said:

... Instead of getting 20 stacks of battle scars from the ability, we now only get 2-3 which we traded for an instant damage payoff...

Icerazor's Ire is bugged at the moment, the Vulnerability it give doesn't trigger Dance of Death so you don't get any Battle Scar at all.

By the way, previously this skill produced 40 battle scars (20 attacks with 2 vulnerabity each), 20 were autoconsumed by the skill itself (~2400 heal) and another 20 to be consumed by you with other means.

[Shagie.7612]

I think, in the short term, 900 range on the summons would be really helpful in terms of letting Renegade poke around teamfights or points better. In my greed I'd love to say 1200 to match staff marks, but that's probably asking too much. The game is so incredibly mobile now that trying to sit on the outskirts as a slow, squishy dps doesn't really work anymore, but Renegade doesn't have the bulk to square up either.

As it stands, at 900 via shortbow you're either equal or outranged by a lot of ranged weapons, and at 600 for summons you're getting dangerously close to melee weapons and probably lost the ranged trade an eternity ago just trying to get close enough to throw them.
Like, good luck trying to poke and trade with a mesmer or necro or hammer vindi or whatever, you're in a losing battle both from a distance and arguably up close in many matchups, but having the extra strength of summons at 900 would help towards giving you more favorable trades.

There's a problem with the intended design of Kalla though, in that all of the skills except Icerazor want you and your target to be on top of one another, in order to gain effects.
That's mostly an issue with Razorclaw's buff but Soulcleave wants both you and your target inside the effect too. At 900 range they're conflicting with half the value of the skills, basically.

What I really hope they don't end up doing is just buffing Soulcleave to try and remedy the poor sustain Renegade as an elite has. I don't think anyone wants to see Kalla get to the spot where you run to a point, throw down Soulcleave and then just sit in it healing for a bunch while ignoring the actions of your enemy. What a bunch of reworks did somewhat recently, like druid/zerk/bladesworn.

[yiksing.9432]

Just from short messing with the new changes i feel it's a disguised nerf, loved the old renegade's stunbreak pulsation and in wvw rarely will use renegade utility skills in consecutive ways to run of out energy.

[Letha.4867]

57 minutes ago, hash.8462 said:

Icerazor's Ire is bugged at the moment, the Vulnerability it give doesn't trigger Dance of Death so you don't get any Battle Scar at all.

By the way, previously this skill produced 40 battle scars (20 attacks with 2 vulnerabity each), 20 were autoconsumed by the skill itself (~2400 heal) and another 20 to be consumed by you with other means.

I didn't know this actually haha. 40 sounds sort of absurd, and honestly 20 overall stacks would be more "balanced" in my eyes. Either way missing that survivability is super noticable.

The fact that it's bugged right now too means that hopefully it will see some semblance of it's original survivability increase with battle scars. Hopefully...

Edited March 22 by Letha.4867

[Letha.4867]

27 minutes ago, Shagie.7612 said:

I think, in the short term, 900 range on the summons would be really helpful in terms of letting Renegade poke around teamfights or points better. In my greed I'd love to say 1200 to match staff marks, but that's probably asking too much. The game is so incredibly mobile now that trying to sit on the outskirts as a slow, squishy dps doesn't really work anymore, but Renegade doesn't have the bulk to square up either.

As it stands, at 900 via shortbow you're either equal or outranged by a lot of ranged weapons, and at 600 for summons you're getting dangerously close to melee weapons and probably lost the ranged trade an eternity ago just trying to get close enough to throw them.
Like, good luck trying to poke and trade with a mesmer or necro or hammer vindi or whatever, you're in a losing battle both from a distance and arguably up close in many matchups, but having the extra strength of summons at 900 would help towards giving you more favorable trades.

There's a problem with the intended design of Kalla though, in that all of the skills except Icerazor want you and your target to be on top of one another, in order to gain effects.
That's mostly an issue with Razorclaw's buff but Soulcleave wants both you and your target inside the effect too. At 900 range they're conflicting with half the value of the skills, basically.

What I really hope they don't end up doing is just buffing Soulcleave to try and remedy the poor sustain Renegade as an elite has. I don't think anyone wants to see Kalla get to the spot where you run to a point, throw down Soulcleave and then just sit in it healing for a bunch while ignoring the actions of your enemy. What a bunch of reworks did somewhat recently, like druid/zerk/bladesworn.

I think you make a lot of great points here. 900 to me sounds ideal enough that they might actually implement it. 1200 would be absolutely awesome though. Having tried renegade in PvP, I can attest to how dismal it is trying to fight a lot of other specs that can just outrange and out dps you in the melee. I'd rather not have soulcleave just turn revenant into a bunker-type build like what you can do with druid. Definitely in favor of adding more range to renegade at a baseline.

[hash.8462]

2 hours ago, Letha.4867 said:

I didn't know this actually haha. 40 sounds sort of absurd, and honestly 20 overall stacks would be more "balanced" in my eyes. Either way missing that survivability is super noticable.
The fact that it's bugged right now too means that hopefully it will see some semblance of it's original survivability increase with battle scars. Hopefully...

Well, when some time ago Battle Scars were introduced the healing of each one was 303 + 0.1 x healing power (PvE), in addition you could pair it with Sanctuary runes to get a 20% barrier from every heal recieved, it was a real bliss... after a few years they nerfed them to near nothing (117 + 0.006 x healing power) without anything that can help them to get better, worse then the version before the introduction of that mechanic... very sad.

About the fixing don't get your hopes up too high... at best, against a single enemy (Boss) you would earn 11 Battle Scars (3 auto-consumed by the skill and 8 remaining); however, if you have 5 targets within range of the Skill you would get approximately 15 auto-consumed Battle Scars and 15 remaining... not like before, but better than nothing.

I think the real intention is to force players to place the elite skill, use 2-3 of the other skills and then deactivate the elite in order to get additional healing without too much damage loss from this process... but the gameplay is not very pleasant.

 

[Angesombre.4630]

7 hours ago, Shagie.7612 said:

I think, in the short term, 900 range on the summons would be really helpful in terms of letting Renegade poke around teamfights or points better. In my greed I'd love to say 1200 to match staff marks, but that's probably asking too much. The game is so incredibly mobile now that trying to sit on the outskirts as a slow, squishy dps doesn't really work anymore, but Renegade doesn't have the bulk to square up either.

As it stands, at 900 via shortbow you're either equal or outranged by a lot of ranged weapons, and at 600 for summons you're getting dangerously close to melee weapons and probably lost the ranged trade an eternity ago just trying to get close enough to throw them.
Like, good luck trying to poke and trade with a mesmer or necro or hammer vindi or whatever, you're in a losing battle both from a distance and arguably up close in many matchups, but having the extra strength of summons at 900 would help towards giving you more favorable trades.

There's a problem with the intended design of Kalla though, in that all of the skills except Icerazor want you and your target to be on top of one another, in order to gain effects.
That's mostly an issue with Razorclaw's buff but Soulcleave wants both you and your target inside the effect too. At 900 range they're conflicting with half the value of the skills, basically.

What I really hope they don't end up doing is just buffing Soulcleave to try and remedy the poor sustain Renegade as an elite has. I don't think anyone wants to see Kalla get to the spot where you run to a point, throw down Soulcleave and then just sit in it healing for a bunch while ignoring the actions of your enemy. What a bunch of reworks did somewhat recently, like druid/zerk/bladesworn.

The biggest problem with renegat is the floor. If I'm not mistaken, we're the only profession with floor markings that we can't put everywhere. No access path works, no wall works, no ledge works. So the real problem, which has always been with the renegat, is also this. When you're in a small area and you can't put the kalla troop down, that's the biggest problem in years, not to mention the nerves.

The renegat model has now been modelled on the engineer's shortbow.

And with the so-called redesign that I'd hoped would correct this hasn't been done, to mask a nerve once again.

Between the Vindicator and renegat nerves, we've been served. And a sceptre as useful as the vindicator was when it came out.

Edited March 22 by Angesombre.4630

[arazoth.7290]

Renegade plays the floor is lava 

[Lucy.3728]

I played renegade in wvw this weekend (solo, small teams, zergs organised/unorganised), since it was listed to make it attractive for pvp, but it was underwhelming.
Anyone else?

Renegade got buffed, and a new mechanic was added but in the same breath it got nerfed as well.

My usual power herald (gs+hammer) is still better to play in wvw, and it fell out of meta months ago.

Edited March 24 by Lucy.3728

[Angesombre.4630]

In any case, even on the snow crow site, the renegat no longer appears since the update.

[Angesombre.4630]

Here's what it says on the snow crow site before the patch and for the PvE version:

"You might be wondering how these changes affect the playstyle of Renegade builds—well, not much.

As far as the preview can tell us, the general damage of the skills stay the same for the Condition Damage variations. They may come out to a total difference of ±300 DPS.

The fan-favourite Power variant of Renegade, however, seems to have been all but forgotten about. The changes do not seem to be in its favor and may now be lower in damage output than ever before. If that wasn't enough, Darkrazor's Daring's Defiance Break reduction cuts down on the build's greatest strength."

[Za Shaloc.3908]

I've run Kalla for a bit in WvW and overall I much prefer this iteration over the previous, but I admit I was a huge hater of the dumb killable AI mechanic. My biggest complaints are that the Band Together mechanic is slightly clunkily implemented and could use a small bit of refining, and that the spirits still need a valid path, which I'd hope to see corrected in the future. I've run it a bit in roaming and in smallscale (5-7) comped stuff with my guild and it felt pretty good. In comp I was playin it on Cele with Jalis for alac/stab-slaving, and it felt pretty good (but hard to compare because I generally play heal Vindi when comped). The damage felt pretty decent and the AoE resistance is fantastic on top of everything else Rene offers. I think a Diviner variant would be good too but I haven't gotten around to trying.  

 

Hard to really make any conclusions after just one night of running it seriously, but what I do know for sure is that I like this version much better.

Edited March 24 by Za Shaloc.3908

[Yasai.3549]

On 3/22/2024 at 11:20 AM, Letha.4867 said:

 I'd love to hear my fellow Renegade's thoughts on the changes too, and whether or not you feel the same way, or the complete opposite of how I feel the changes effected the specialization.

Most important and desired change for me:

Increase casting range for the Summons and also get rid of their NPC model. I feel like the NPC model is still coded as a minion and cannot be placed on certain terrain. This severely affects the smoothness of Kalla. 

[Letha.4867]

Just now, Yasai.3549 said:

Most important and desired change for me:

Increase casting range for the Summons and also get rid of their NPC model. I feel like the NPC model is still coded as a minion and cannot be placed on certain terrain. This severely affects the smoothness of Kalla. 

I would love to see them fix this problem. Trying to place the "NPC" down on rough terrain is such a nightmare, and honestly it feels like they just overlooked it entirely when they "buffed" it on march 19. 

[Angesombre.4630]

2 minutes ago, Letha.4867 said:

I would love to see them fix this problem. Trying to place the "NPC" down on rough terrain is such a nightmare, and honestly it feels like they just overlooked it entirely when they "buffed" it on march 19. 

it had already been neglected since the release of PoF

[Letha.4867]

4 minutes ago, Angesombre.4630 said:

it had already been neglected since the release of PoF

Very true. I feel like, before the huge boon/power creep that has been showing up over the years, renegade could hold it's own just fine, despite it's flaws. Now it's simply outdone by meatier specs like herald and vindicator, while ANet continues to give renegade the bare minimum. 

[Angesombre.4630]

12 minutes ago, Letha.4867 said:

Very true. I feel like, before the huge boon/power creep that has been showing up over the years, renegade could hold it's own just fine, despite it's flaws. Now it's simply outdone by meatier specs like herald and vindicator, while ANet continues to give renegade the bare minimum. 

Herald is good for buffs but bad for dps, Vindicator was bad has been improved despite nerfs at the same time to start losing for several months. If they want to bring these 2 specializations up to renegat level, they might as well say RIP revenant.

Edited March 25 by Angesombre.4630

[mdninjawarroir.1637]

From a pvp perspective: I want the old Kalla kit back

Least with that, there was the possibility to bunker down points and chokes.
Used to run a Jalis Kalla build with hammer and staff
Sure, Kalla is a meme and pretty slow to actually use, it felt like it had a play style that had some pay off if you timed the placements of your summons well
I'm gonna miss flushing out DH traps with blood-razor ngl

 

New kalla on the other hand makes me feel like I'm playing a worse vindi

But after seeing the Engi shortbow comment, yeah. It feels even worse now comparing it now. Renegade's trait line has no real support with the new summons, the F skills still feel out of place, and now my Jalis kalla Crowd Control build feels like I should be playing Vindi instead of renegade.

This feels like the second heart break after anet buffed Shortbow just to make Kalla playable but then nerfed reng hard because of it. I still don't see the compensation after every other spec can now use SB 

[Yasai.3549]

4 hours ago, Angesombre.4630 said:

Herald is good for buffs but bad for dps, Vindicator was bad has been improved despite nerfs at the same time to start losing for several months. If they want to bring these 2 specializations up to renegat level, they might as well say RIP revenant.

Revenant was already a foot in the grave in my eyes ever since they decided to nerf everything from Core traitlines to Shiro to Jalis instead of addressing the actual problem that was Herald Might stacking. 

I'm still waiting for revert buffs after they finally stamped Herald down in competitive. Where's the justice? Is this really balance?