Few builds I've been trying in WvW these days in light of the indirect nerf to Shiro Salvation Renegade

[Jobber.6348]

As most WvW Revenant players know, one of the more common Roaming builds that Revenant has been leaning on like a creaking crutch was Shiro Renegade, specifically the Salvation variant that enjoys stable condition cleansing while combining the skirmishing mobility of Shiro with the durability of Jalis using the Renegade as a platform for hybrid damage and self 25 Might upkeep. That build is now dead as you struggle to commit enough Energy to bursts and manage a 10 Energy Heroic Command that doesn't quite as support 25 Might stacking as the previous iteration after the Vindication trait rework. As such, you will struggle to pump out enough damage against a more seasoned roamer or godforbid, a Celestial build degen like Harbinger or Willbender. 

Renegod is dead and Anet killed him. 

But while we bury the bodies of our heroes, we should look to the future and begin again, as a class so hated by Anet balance team that everything "nice" we enjoy has systematically been hammered into the dirt. I bring to you TWO builds, which I hope inspires you to try out Revenant in WvW once more: 

Celestial Core Hybrid

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PmABkex7lxQIMPKi1RSMOCiRSgMCSgD9z6KD-DWRYVRTvYEDFTOJRjBSnRQpFQvhgG/HCQA7hHAA-w

Name says it all. Celestial stats. Core. Hybrid damage. Capable of keeping 25 Might flawlessly simply by performing your standard Mace combos. Added utility with Mallyx Elite to Blind pesky Power burst builds like Willbenders while outlasting them through sheer gigachadness that is Mallyx. Shiro for chasing down enemies or kiting. Mace 3 is also considered a "movement" skill so you have nearly flawless upkeep of Resistance when it matters, as well as unparalleled escape potential by simply Mallyx hopping or Shiro porting away from your troubles.

Variations

If you feel that Shield's Boons and Healing for time buying isn't attractive to you because of the root even in a 1v1 setting, I recommend Greatsword or Staff instead. Mace/Axe has ENOUGH damage to destroy most Cele opponents several times over once you get a perfect Mace 2 Mace 3 Axe 4 string on them, so your backup swap should be more defensive in nature and used only in emergencies. I feel that Sword and Shield is a rather solid pick because it allows you some quick healing and Aegis and Block stance, which is very strong for against things like Willbender or Thief burst combos, even more so than Greatsword and Staff. And Sword is able to retaliate against these high mobility classes with a follow up Sword 3 to track them.

Do note, if you decide to pick a fight with 2 or 3 degen builds alone and then get CC locked to death, that's kinda on you. Revenant has never been good against CC and not having Jallis trades CC immunity for mobility which Roamers value and need more. 

BIG DADDY Power Herald

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PmwAIx7ldQIMHKi1QSsHCi9RgsASgl8Ua7H-DWZYBhJG1qv5gAPlmkgNqg6UE0rQQm/ACQA7hHAA-w

Ever feel like "dam, I just wanna roleplay as a tank today" and have your brain switched way off? That's when you break out the Big Daddy Herald build. Now you too can become a tank. This build focuses entirely on Upkeeps and an unnerfed Charged Mists in WvW.

By toggling your Upkeep, you can get these benefits:

- 13% Strike Damage Bonus

- 246 Heal per second 

- 9% Damage reduction

- 30% bonus movement speed

And here's some additional benefits depending on Legend:

Jalis grants you additional 20% Strike and Condition damage reduction as well as the ability to hurt enemies and heal from it in a small AoE around you. Perfect for taking camps.

Mallyx grants you a Dark Field that combos with your 100% Projectile combo Autos to give you constant Leeching Bolts. 

Between two Legends with excellent heals and solid stability output as well as some form of Resolution gain via rolling to take advantage of a further 10% strike damage reduction, you may not be as mobile as Shiro but you are certainly able to swat away any flies who wants to beat on you.

And the best part is with all these stacking bonuses, you are safe to run a high damage Power build without fear of getting hit for a 10k burst from some sneaky burst build!

Do note if you just sit there and not dodge crucial skills, you're still asking to get blown up, so don't do that. You can be a tank, don't be a sitting duck. 

 

[arazoth.7290]

Going to try this food with this build. I will update if it works as I think if wiki does what it says otherwise take the one in link below. I will test this food myself today.

Condi hybrid support damage Works solo and in smaller roaming groups with friends. You can be supportive and doing damage same time. Perma 25 might, so enough condi/power damage still for the sustain you have with this (no 1shot power damage ofc)

[Jobber.6348]

3 hours ago, arazoth.7290 said:

Going to try this food with this build. I will update if it works as I think if wiki does what it says otherwise take the one in link below. I will test this food myself today.

Condi hybrid support damage Works solo and in smaller roaming groups with friends. You can be supportive and doing damage same time. Perma 25 might, so enough condi/power damage still for the sustain you have with this (no 1shot power damage ofc)

Condi Vindi has been a thing for awhile now the only reason why it never really took off is because it lacks both damage and chasing power, at least in the roaming scene. I guess it's fine if you roam with a small group and act as a healer but usually that kind of build isn't great for much because the lack of damage against things like Willbender and Thief is not going to work since they have the ability to reset endlessly while you will eventually be worn down with no capability of disengaging on your own terms. 

It's still a fine build, it'll work, just not in the capacity and niche which Shiro Renegod used to be played in.

[arazoth.7290]

27 minutes ago, Jobber.6348 said:

Condi Vindi has been a thing for awhile now the only reason why it never really took off is because it lacks both damage and chasing power, at least in the roaming scene. I guess it's fine if you roam with a small group and act as a healer but usually that kind of build isn't great for much because the lack of damage against things like Willbender and Thief is not going to work since they have the ability to reset endlessly while you will eventually be worn down with no capability of disengaging on your own terms. 

It's still a fine build, it'll work, just not in the capacity and niche which Shiro Renegod used to be played in.

it doesn't has that fast mobility to chase that fast indeed. But you would he surprised that it can keep catching up with willbenders though. Like humans outrun because they get exhausted, eventually they get enough by being chased and keep fighting you and they die. (it's more timeconsuming so for those who don't want that, dontttt hehe but I find the hunt fun)

So aside this solo roaming here, it can capture objectives nice by winning the fights ez or they just have to flee because no choice.

In smaller groups it's nice too because you can still do excellent support, with food buffs 6k heals still and imo enough damage to back group up. 

 

For example few days ago I had a 1v2 vs scrapper and willbender. I could tank anything face to face I made the willbender run, chased him while scrapper on me and he died, scrapper ran off because of it. The pm's after that fight were funny. So being worn off isn't really an issue 1v1. The only thing that I find annoying when a certain spec joins the fight is mirrage in 1v2 but that's all.

 

Just saying not being able to get always kills by chasing is fine but if you can win objectives solo or with group is important too. Unless you just want to chase really for kills then shiro is needed. 

 

[Jobber.6348]

12 minutes ago, arazoth.7290 said:

Just saying not being able to get always kills by chasing is fine but if you can win objectives solo or with group is important too. Unless you just want to chase really for kills then shiro is needed. 

I'd slot Mallyx for solo instead of Ventari. 

Shiro is great for making surprise ports or chasing up cliffs but when it comes to simply distance between you and the enemy, Mallyx hops into Arch hops is unprecedented mobility. 

[arazoth.7290]

34 minutes ago, Jobber.6348 said:

I'd slot Mallyx for solo instead of Ventari. 

Arch hops is unprecedented mobility. 

jup.

And I personally like the the toolkit of centaur for support/sustain/stability stacks over mallyx.

Mallyx would give extra chasing potential due some extra hops, but at cost of survival. So if goal is to catch faster by outrunning, mallyx yes. But if you want to do objectives in WvW map then I prefere centaur personally.

Eitherway to end this so we can other willingly letting them share builds too ^^

[UncreativeGreen.2019]

16 minutes ago, arazoth.7290 said:

centaur for support/sustain/stability stacks

Ventari feels quite bad now out in wvw.... The best skill, Energy Expulsion is on an arbitrary 15s cooldown from a knee jerk nerf. Anything over 10s cd feels beyond awful on rev, especially since we're paying with energy to not have those longer cooldowns. I wish the Devs would have tried other options first like increasing costs to 40e or starting with a 5 or 10s cd..... 15s cd makes it really unreliable to use especially because now you can't get more empowered stacks after the first Expulsion unless you're core or herald.... Just a really bad nerf that wasn't well thought out.

Rest of the kit is fine, and extremely strong, but man, that EE change ruined the legend for me out there.

 

[arazoth.7290]

23 minutes ago, UncreativeGreen.2019 said:

Ventari feels quite bad now out in wvw.... The best skill, Energy Expulsion is on an arbitrary 15s cooldown from a knee jerk nerf. Anything over 10s cd feels beyond awful on rev, especially since we're paying with energy to not have those longer cooldowns. I wish the Devs would have tried other options first like increasing costs to 40e or starting with a 5 or 10s cd..... 15s cd makes it really unreliable to use especially because now you can't get more empowered stacks after the first Expulsion unless you're core or herald.... Just a really bad nerf that wasn't well thought out.

Rest of the kit is fine, and extremely strong, but man, that EE change ruined the legend for me out there.

 

Energy cost same, 8 seconds CD would have been perfectly fine. for the goal they were heading and then we could atleast get twice empowerment uses out of it.

It's really annoying what happend though, so less builds working efficiently with it.

[arazoth.7290]

6 hours ago, arazoth.7290 said:

Going to try this food with this build. I will update if it works as I think if wiki does what it says otherwise take the one in link below. I will test this food myself today.

 

Jup this works, tested it with the 60% chance one on moving tablet instead of the 80% one. Everytime you move, you have a Chance to remove 1 condi on urself😅

[Buran.3796]

   The core build seems nice. The second build...  I don't see a reason to rely in Herald for tankiness when Vindicator provides much better cleanses trough The Alliance and also improves mobility. 

   I've been away from WvW since the end of the classic servers (and even before) and at that time cele Vindi felt strong in sustain but weak in burt potential. For zergs support Vindi is meta but I don't like it, and cele Renegade is also meta and I enjoy it albeit not as crucial. Is not the best for roaming, tho.

   I've been moving in PvP between power hammer Vindi (which to me is very hard to use) and a custom Vindi tank with gs + staff and Jalis & Alliance, but later using the meta Vindi weapons wit my tank traits and legends. I've been thinking about running a power Vindi build with hammer in WvW mixing marauder and dragon stats but I'm not sure at all about the sustain: cleanses are ok with the proper sigils and anti toxin relic, but then surge runes are required for mobility and still the armor from cele is missed, and the self heals limited. Relic can be replaced to Wayfinder so Surge runes are no longer required and Durability or Dolyak opens the door to more armor, but without anti toxin relic some fights became much harder. I guess is a good landscape when there's more than a single choice and the options have trade offs...

[Jobber.6348]

33 minutes ago, Buran.3796 said:

   The core build seems nice. The second build...  I don't see a reason to rely in Herald for tankiness when Vindicator provides much better cleanses trough The Alliance and also improves mobility. 

   I've been away from WvW since the end of the classic servers (and even before) and at that time cele Vindi felt strong in sustain but weak in burt potential. For zergs support Vindi is meta but I don't like it, and cele Renegade is also meta and I enjoy it albeit not as crucial. Is not the best for roaming, tho.

   I've been moving in PvP between power hammer Vindi (which to me is very hard to use) and a custom Vindi tank with gs + staff and Jalis & Alliance, but later using the meta Vindi weapons wit my tank traits and legends. I've been thinking about running a power Vindi build with hammer in WvW mixing marauder and dragon stats but I'm not sure at all about the sustain: cleanses are ok with the proper sigils and anti toxin relic, but then surge runes are required for mobility and still the armor from cele is missed, and the self heals limited. Relic can be replaced to Wayfinder so Surge runes are no longer required and Durability or Dolyak opens the door to more armor, but without anti toxin relic some fights became much harder. I guess is a good landscape when there's more than a single choice and the options have trade offs...

Another relic is Mosyn. If you are expecting to fight alot of condispammers who Blind and Weakness spam and you for some reason cannot afford to run Devastation or you simply value Salvation roll or need to use Corruption over the immense Resistance that Devastation provides, then Mosyn actually helps a huge deal in removing cover conditions like this. Especially if you are playing a Condi Herald build or that one meme Salvation Retribution Vindicator build that just goes to enemy spawn and trolls. The main caveat however is that you have to evade, which pretty much leaves it more for builds that can run weapons that provide Evade to maximize it, though simply running it on a standard Salvation rolling build is more than enough to keep you rather Condition-free. 

And yea, Revenant in WvW, especially the roaming scene, is very poor atm. Most of the meta roaming builds destroy you with impunity and you need some serious base level skill in the entire class itself to beat anyone who isn't a Bronze newbie on a braindead Cele build. 

[Jobber.6348]

Been running another build I would like to share. So far, feels really, really good and can withstand most solo roaming builds you come across and even outplay certain cheese builds with some careful play. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PmgAIFltQMsNyjpRdsMijNSkMDigpsV+rH-DWZYBhJGVov5gAPlMFClKBaVB0rIQn/ACQA7hXz2dKBA-w

HAMMERGADE

Build features:

- Heavy kiting playstyle

- Superb Might uptime via Fire Field Blasts.

- Extremely high Protection uptime via One for All 

- Extremely high sustain via Battle Scars output and huge heal from Breakrazor; taking camps up to tier 3  is extremely relaxing and healthy

- Immense ranged damage output as well as anti projectile capability which will make any opposing ranged build rue the day they tried to pick on you

 

How to play:

 

Fight start:

- Start every fight in Kalla stance. You will always put Soulcleave's Summit down first as it costs a mere 5 energy and pauses your pips, so you are free to use the remaining 45 Energy as you need. Also immediately gives you One for All's buffs and triggering Relic of the Brawler, giving you high life stealing attacks that hit really hard in the opening moments of the fight. 

- Use Hammer 3 and Hammer 5 when being pressured in melee. This does two things: Evade enemy attacks and CC pressure your location and it stacks Might for you immediately. 

- Hit Alac and Icerazor as you leave Kalla to gain Alac which starts working on your weapon skills and a last buffing of All for One and Protection. Icerazor is for zoning as well as trying to immob your target. If you immob your target with Icerazor, you can pretty much slaughter them the moment you enter Shiro and start blasting them with autos. 

 

Shiro notes: 

- Kiting is your main gameplan when switching into Shiro. If your enemy is escaping, you will use Shiro to chase. Shiro is still flexible enough in WvW to grant you this benefit. 

- Use Heroic Command as you enter Shiro to immediately pump your Might up. You will have around 21 or so after two blasts, Sigil of Battle swap and hitting Heroic command. I don't need to tell you just how much damage you will be slinging with Hammer autos with this.

- If you are facing an opposing ranged opponent, you are free to throw up Field of the Mist and start slamming them with Impossible Odds auto. You will rarely lose any sort of fight ranged v ranged. You should and will destroy most roaming builds alone just with this

- If you are being hard pressured by melee enemies, you should swap to GS to block attacks and use GS 5 to zone. 

- You are also able to cast Citadel Bombardment at your feet to instantly destroy things like Thieves.

 

Kalla notes:

- Immediately throw down Soulcleave and Alac again. You know the drill

- You can hit Heroic Command immediately as well or Heal with Breakrazor, or Stunbreak with Darkrazor as you need. Be aware of what you need and press what you need. 

- Blast the Fields again and continue Hammer autos. 

 

Situations where you should turn off Soulcleave:

- If you need the Energy for back to back ability casts like an Icerazor into Citadel Bombardment 

- You need to care about casting Heroic Command to get a burst of Might and you are not exiting into Shiro anytime soon 

- You need to heal (important as heck because Soulcleave has a short cooldown but not healing and dying is extremely bad and noobish) 

- You cannot hold your position (you are being bombarded by ground AoE damage fields.) 

Always remember, Band Together while inside Soulcleave actually heals you as well, and for no small amount. Talking about a potential Soulcleave > Breakrazor > Icerazor healing an additional 1800 HP. That's huge. 
 

Condi plans and alternate weapon sets: 

- You will be TANKING conditions. This is why you have Lasting Legacy, not only for Alac uptime which lets you spam Hammer 3, Hammer 5 and Hammer 4 with impunity.

- Staff is a valid alternative to GS and grants you a 3rd Blast in Soulcleave but this isn't as important as using it to cleanse off Conditions.

- You are running Devastation, don't forget this. This makes Shiro stance your go to Resistance application, allowing you to ignore Blinds, Cripples, Chills, Weakness after you Ripost or PT. 

- Never touch Hammer 2 unless taking camps. Waste of energy, waste of time. It's legit bad. 

 

Fights to avoid: 

- All Harbingers. Just don't bother with these degenerates. 

- Thieves. Duh. Especially Celestial Specters and Celestial Deadeyes. 

- Celestial Catalysts. 

 

 

Edited July 27 by Jobber.6348