Power Rev | Devastation or Salvation ? WvW Roaming

[yay.2856]

Hello guys ! After a long time i was able to create a new video for you. Testing a lot of builds right now especially runes and sigils as well as salvation traitline. Im curious what you think about power rev changes (WvW/PvP) in generell and what you prefer to play atm. For all who wanna watch some outnumbered WvW fights have fun with the video !

[urd.8306]

TLDW: ?The answer is always: Devastation. Salvation is useless.

[Junkpile.7439]

Sad that nobody do specter/dagger core ele outnumber fighting videos. That i would watch.

[MarzAttakz.9608]

That was sick af.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

I always went with Retribution + Invocation. This was done mostly because I couldn't afford a dedicated WvW set, so I tried to balance out my overly offensive PVE gear with defensive traits. It works well, though. That was pre-PoF, but if I brought my rev back in to WvW I'd do it again.

The Salvation line exists just to make ventari healers viable. Most of the stuff there doesn't work without high amounts of healing power. Really, the sum total of benefits from taking the trait line are:

200 heal on dodge (if you pick up the orb)283 barrier per second (roughly)Blind on Heal-15% damage for 2 seconds after using a heal skill

The big one is the barrier. Though the -15% damage after healing seems like it might be good, in practice there's a problem: it doesn't trigger from regeneration. It triggers on skills that actively heal, and also on Battle Scars. So, without running both Devastation and Salvation at the same time, there's no way to maintain the buff with some form of consistency.

Granted, I don't much like Devastation, either. The whole line is basically a bunch of very minor damage boosts, most of which drop off after the first few seconds of the fight. I mean, lets be real here. In WvW the only traits in Devastation that actually do anything are Brutality, Swift Termination (mutually exclusive with Brutality), Destructive Impulse, and Notoriety. Most builds now are running cleansing sigils, so all of the vulnerability related traits drop off immediately. Battle Scars in PVP do very little, and they don't up-scale for multiple enemies. We're basically comparing inconsistent barrier and damage reduction to inconsistent small modifiers toward damage. Which one would I take? Neither. I'd go with Retribution.

Though this does make me wonder how well a Zealots set (Power, Precision, Healing) would do with the Salvation line. I know that Marshals worked wonders on my elementalist once I took it. Zealots with Dwayna Runes and Elder's Respite for super-regeneration might be worth looking in to. With 450 barrier per second, 400 regeneration per second, plus additional healing from all other skills might make the Rev incredibly hard to kill while still boasting formidable damage.

[Jaykay.9641]

Copy-Pasting my response from the Rev profession thread of the same title found here

Thanks for the video.

In the first clip, I see you are getting small amounts of shielding. Is this from Salvation Resilient Spirit or Sanctuary Runes? I've been theorycraft testing a roaming build similar to what it seems you were going for in that first part - Devastation, Salvation, and Herald. The idea behind it is to have consistent buffs to proc the Salvation shield and use Sanctuary Runes to produce small shields from Battle Scars, Enchanted Daggers and Shiny Aspects that eat the condi spam. The problem is you just lose out on good damage from Invocation trait line and that Battle Scars base heal is very low with t-e-r-r-i-b-l-e scaling at 0.003. (IMO Invocation should just be reworked as it feels basically mandatory for every build. Really kills build diversity...)

As far as other things I've seen, I've really liked a power Herald build using Corruption trait line. Another roamer beat me with this build so I asked them about it.Basically you run your basic Power Rev gear with Herald/Shiro Sword/Sword and either Staff or Mace -Axe/Shield; Berserker or Maurader Stats. Traits are Corruption 1-1-1 Invocation 1-3-1 and standard Herald 3-2-2 (or you can take Shared Empowerment for more Might). The idea is that you constantly swap Legends near your enemy to proc Invoke Torment which also gives burning and poison from Diabolic Inferno. When you swap to Herald, it also procs Burning and Chill from Song of the Mists, which also procs torment from Abyssal Chill. Your Sword 2 and Elemental Blast also give chill which procs Torment. Combined with the might stacking from Facet of Darkness and Incensed Response and the flat 120 condi damage you get from Corruption, food of your choice, Bloodlust bonuses, and Guild Auras, you can be doing some nice supplementary condi damage while still doing what Power Shiro does. If you're looking for something else to test, you might want to give this a try!

If you find a way to make Salvation work in any roaming build, let me know though. Can be Core or Renegade as well, I'm not picky. I just really want to make it work.