Buran.3796

My take on this subject after testing several builds across all game modes and making and taking some representative samples: Time to kill: a WvW char sentry, a WvW veteran hwarg, a veteran giant from Elon Riverlands. Builds: "Condi" Renegade Stats: full ascended/legendary gear with viper short bow & armor and trailblazer trinkets; Nightmare runes, no consummables Traits Devastation 3,3,3 or Retribution 1,3,3 Invocation 1,2,2 Renegade 1,2,2 Power Renegade Stats: full ascended/legendary gear with grieving short bow, cavalier armor and assassin trinkets; Speed runes, no consummables Traits Devastation 3,3,3 or Retribution 1,3,3 Invocation 1,2,2 Renegade 1,2,2 Goal: to test the "all terrain" performance of PvP/WvW roaming builds vs PvE/A.I. controlled foes. Those are subpar builds for the task not designed to maximize damage but to be able to deliver pressure while enduring fights vs another players. Notice that those are just samples and the time is the average of the best I was able to get with my limited skill and experience in that department. For context, I played also a unoptimized (no Balthazar runes, no consummables, no Signet of Wrath...) condi Firebrand PvE build in full trailblazers (more details in the description). I also ran power Herald, condi Herald, power FB, power Warrior and other variants using the same targets, but I only showcase Renegades & FB in this short video. Numbers: Condi Renegade Power Renegade Condi Firebrand TTK Sentinel 6” 6” 5” TTK Hwarg 13” 15” 11” TTK Giant 32” 32” 19” Conclussions: I think that power Renegade has a similar output damage as the condi Renegade with this build which is used, and has better weapon synergies; a propper condition build will surpass the power nurbers by a wide margin, but has more counters and the trade ons in traitlines, weapons and legends will hurt the sustain. The Firebrand even unoptimized is way ahead in damage, but is not viable vs targets with functional brain and FB feels weak at competitive game moves compared to how string is at PvE.

The main problem of GW2's PvP is the lack of support. If you take a look at any of the top 25 most followed games in twitch, most of them are competitive and get patch support at least once a month, oftenly even every two weeks, and they shuffle the meta very often. GW2 has a balance patch at most 4 times a year, but oftenly skills and traits which are considered too weak or too strong remain unchanged for over a year. With no developer support, the game stagnantes, and people end leaving it, and the decrease in population reach numbers that make the matchmaking system unable to work, which is what's happening lately...

> @"Game of Bones.8975" said: > The only thing bad about the Renegade is the Short-bow vs having a longbow. It's sad the hammer is your range weapon. Pharus is way better looking than C&C (and easier to get) in my opinion, but horse bows > long bows irl. @Obtena: the short bow is better than the hammer with both power, condi or hybrid stats/builds at anything PvE/PvP related, and at roaming/small scale skirmishes in WvW.

My advice would be to go with Renegade. The Renegade can fight both at range or mele, using either power or condition stats, staying in short bow 90% of the time, and kill well both single targets and small packs of enemies. The powe Herald is pure mele and albeit very competent at single target damage, loses a lot of efficiency when has to tag multiple foes at the same time. The condition Herald is mele/short range AoE, much better against small packs, but a bit slower vs single targets. To me soloing hero points/bosses with power Herald is faster but more risky, with condi Herald a bit slower but way tankier. Herald has the quality of life of having perma-swiftness (Facet of Elements) without relying in traits or runes, but Renegade has the quality of life of being able to kill everything below champs without even being touched (short bow).

Lately I've playing both power Renegade and condi Renegade in PvE and WvW (and only power in PvP) using the same traits from what is essentially the PvP build (Shiro + Jalis Short Bow & Staff) and I found that the damage is similar (50% + 50% cavalier + assassin + speed runes vs viper + trailblazer + nightmare runes) but that build is not optimized in traits to deal maximum condi damage, so in reality condi would have an edge. Anyway, both are very competitive and you can jump from game modes without making changes. The advantage of the power build is that swapping to staff doesn't hurt your dps that much. In a few days I'll upload a small video showcasing a few examples of the performance. The fastest killing machine still seems to be the quickness burn Firebrand, but that one is too glass cannon to work in PvP/roaming and lacks some quality of life features due moves way slower and has much weaker access to cleanses and stability.

Maybe they don't have a 100% proc, or have an internal cooldown each time they proc the effect...

Both are entirely trivial. 120 wins in ranking are easy to get even in a single Conquest, season, because doing ranking is worth the time just due the economic rewards, ATs are a bit harder, but after a few matches here and there you will get those even playing your worst class. Unless you don't like to play PvP, which is an entirely different topic...

> @"LolLookAtMyAP.8394" said: > > @"Virdo.1540" said: > > Power renegade. > > > > it provides high reward with an incredibly low skill ceiling ,but can still be mastered for even more reward > > Yeah, I'm still astonished that Renegade made a break in the Conquest scene. For years it was the trouble child of all the classes—people held faith that the class design was simply not made for PvP. However people in the EU scene kept trying to wake it up on streams, I remember asking Frostball why he was running Power Renegade probably last year or two years ago and acted as if it was a completely normal build. In NA everyone trashed it, including my skilled Revenant friends. It's just so surreal to see it in the "Meta" category on Metabattle, or taken to monthlies. WOW. Renegade was garbage before the overall damage nerf of February 2020, because the bow was terribad (no defenses, no mobility, mediocre damage) and lacked both sustain and any way to deal serious pressure. Then two magical things happened: the nerf in damage (and specially in skills with cc) made much easier to survive with this spec, so sustain was no longer a problem. Then Sevenshot was buffed from almost useless to really strong. Currently is the build I'm enjoying the most: has finally a usable ranged weapon with a serious punch, tons of mobility, tons of sustain, good cleanses, stability on demand and nice team support. Is everything I would like to have on a... Ranger. And you don't even need to run the pesky Kalla summons! Is not good in 2 vs 2, has a pass in 3 vs 3 but is strong at Conquest and you can run the same build at roaming in WvW (replacing Demolisher with a mix of Cavalier and Assassin) and even works well in PvE. What to not love? Only the fact that was utter rubbish for two and half years...

In GW2 skills are linked to specific weapons (you can't do the same attacks with an axe and a mace) and weapons have been designed for covering specific task (mele dps, ranged dps, support, defensive... ). This means that when one given weapon fills a role usually trying to run others in the same spot delivers subpar results. Also, skill nerfs can easily make a previously functional weapon or build now suddenly mediocre. Finally, the game oftenly favoures mele weapons over ranged ones at PvE due the balance at PvP/WvW demands for mele weapons to be stronger (due ranged ones already have the advantage of dealing damage before mele ranged is reached). So, having the Guardian already the sword, greatswod and scepter as best in slot for mele and ranged physical damage and axe & torch and scepter for best in slot for mele and ranged condition damage is hard for everything else to have a place (ouside staff for support and fovcus and shield for defense). If you want an archer with strong dps and superb mobility I would advice you to run the short bow Renegade, with either power or condition builds and using Shiro & Jalis as legends. And by the way horse bows > long bows (based in both historical facts and my experience practicing archery irl):

> @"Shao.7236" said: > Nerfed into uselesness is a big statement when being able to convert 3 conditions from 5 other players at once on your team. If players cared for the clear exclusively after the nerf, they'd be using Lyssa which hasn't been touched in any significant way yet. Lyssa provides precission. When I play a power Rev, I don't need precission. When I play a condition Rev, I don't care about precission (traits which procced condis faded long time ago for this class). Also: removing 3 condis each 45 seconds... Staff's Renewing Weave doubles that amount in 45 seconds (2x3), Jali's Shooting Stone removes 5 each 30 s, traited shield can clean 5 in 45s, and you have more control over when you use those skills than over the use of the elites. Lyssa is just a waste, won't be ever used by this class. But go ahead, ANet, delete the Resitance rune. As I said won't change anything: you're at best a season or two behind the meta. Reducing the amount of options won't change how broken the game is because the main reason behind the unbalances is the lack of consistent support due patches arrives once in 4+ months so player have 8+ months to exploit "weakness".

> @"Shao.7236" said: > Nah, PvP suggestions. Also not a removal but rather increase of ICD to the Rune is necessary. It's pretty much carrying anything that can use it's effect often in PvP right now, mostly Herald builds as also shown to be the favored pick on metabattle, not a shocker tho. > > There was quite a lot of complaining of Herald being underpowered before it got popular. Do you realize that Resistance runes are used only due Durability runes were deleted from PvP, so players replaced it with the runes of the Leadership, only to see them nerfed to nothingness (lol, 10% boon duration, who wants to run that crap?!) and Resistance are just picked because most of runes in PvP do nothing? And by the way, they should also nerf the Melandru and Dolyak runes, which are the next ones which fills the "not entirely useless" box? Also, remove the Speed runes, because lately have been used a lot! Won't change anything: gear selection at PvP is currently pretty mediocre: if a player is having problems killing a (put your hated nemesis here) class is due there's no damage, so staying alive is very, very easy at the moment. They will keep being unable to kill those revs. And I'm talking about running berserker amulets, no one wants to use crusader (lol, -200 stat points because "reasons").

> @"NorthernRedStar.3054" said: > The hate comes from people who realize how broken this class is, both from a fundamental as well as a numbers perspective. Yes, a bad revenant is most likely a free kill no matter where you encounter them. But anywhere from decent to great you'll start to see the issues with the class: low windows of vulnerability (and people complain about ranger's counterattack, lol), high mobility and burst (hello there, thief nerfs), versatility and utility thanks to legend swapping etc. the list goes on. > > On a heavy armor class. Who on earth thought this was a good idea during development phase. Condi Herald has moderate to low mobility, and lacks any ranged pressure. If has blocks (staff) either loses tons of dps when wielding that weapon or (shield) roots himself in the ground. As most of Revs, their cleansing capabilities are very limited, and they are easy to poke at range. Resistance has been butchered. Power Herald has high mobility and barely any cleanse; usually no stability, also. In the current meta with damage from cc skills entirely nerfed they oftenly get demolished by condition bruisers. Renegades have good range pressure but worse defenses, usually they have access to stability but their breakstuns are weak, their summons easy to counter and they are weak to condis, as always. The exception are power Renegades, which are (were) unusual until yesterday. Do you know that the difference in this game from wearing a bikini (1920) to buttcapes (2064) to armor plate (2211) are merely 291 points? . I've seen Eles wearing ~4000 armor. The rise in armor from scholar to adventurer to soldier classes are barely 145.5 atribute points in each jump, which is not only neglectable in terms of % but also irrelevant because sustain is WAY more linked to the correct use of evades and mitigation skills than raw stats. Armor was (initially) mostly a choice of aesthetics (and no longer due the outfits). Base HP has WAY more impact and limitations in what you can do with your class that the "armor" that wears. And big LOL about the "versatility" of the skill system with the legends. Only 3 utilities, witn each legend, you chose two sets of 3 predefined utilities. wereas the rest of classes freely chose between 16 skills for 3 slots... Not to mention the "savage" amount of weapons available: mace and axe for mele condition, swords, staff and shield for mele power? You want a secondary set of mele condition weapons? Oh, sorry, we forget to add it! You want a ranged condition weapon? Oh, then you need the Renegade spec, but don't worry: the power ranged weapon (hammer) is so bad that in core and Herald you won't miss the absence of a condition ranged weapon. Also, we apologize for forgetting a breakstun for Ventari (and initially releasing the one from Kalla in the healing skill), we will try to not do it again in EoD, lol! Seriously, the class is amazing (despite being full of bugs) and yes, some numbers are overtuned to cover the lack of ideas and direction, but is far from being "broken" (except if you count the way in which the loadouts and template system keeps unfixed).

Excellent job and very smart and thoughtful design of the build. Is a very clever use of the resources and synergies of the spec trying to cincunvent the current limitations imposed after a long chain of nerfs. And even resembles the feeling of grappling characters in fighting games. I tried to build a suitable burn Firebrand a few months ago with full trailblazer gear and the same weapon selection (but Radiance instead of Honor) but sadly the damage and sustain ratio wasn't there: with similar tools the DH was way more tanky. Your approach with Sanctuary is very clever, and I would say "but..." but the video speaks from himself. My only problem with the build is the mobility and a certain feeling of frailty: it relies to large extent on the notion that if you face multiple targets chances are that some of them will play bad and feed your procs. But as you say is not oriented towards duels. Anyway, a refreshing take of the FB for WvW, thanx for sharing it!

> @"Zeesh.7286" said: > I just want to wear pauldrons on my ele instead of a kitten skirt and I want plate mail on my engineer instead of ridiculous trenchcoat. Can we please get rid of armors already.. it's god damned 2021 and the stat isn't adding anything remotely like balance.. Then use suits. You can cover you Ele in full plate armor if you want: there's plenty of oufits to make him to look like a walrus. And by the way I advise you to take a look at players like Cellofrag or Phantaram, and tell me them "how squishy" are the Eles.

> @"Crackmonster.2790" said: > I'm quite new to revenant myself - but i did look at the builds and i just don't see how herald is ever competitive with renegade. It just gives some randoms boons which any impactful of which you can already full uptime with a renegade for yourself, and lacks real damage abilties - lacks synergy with battle scars for healing, cant alacrity your group. It seems more like a stylistic choice for solo play. Shortbow is very good also for both power and condition as swap for when you need to be in ranged or to tag mobs. I use diviner gear for boon duration. ...With condi Herald most of damage comes from torment, so instead of running runes of nightmare as condi Renegade uses runes of tormenting, which both enhances damage and drains life (and escalates like crazy the more foes you face), which combined with a heal which well placed refills your entire HP each 20 seconds, and the shield is really strong in PvE provides a superior tank build. Happens that in instanced team content this game usually doesn't needs tanks (or that the support builds already are tanky/do damage enough), so from a fractal/raider player the Herald maybe makes no sense. But remember that a lot of players in GW2 do play solo, and Herald is more intuitive to play (energy easier to manage, no complex combos, you always play at mele range... ). Being said that, for a new player which starts in the game with PoF available, I would now advise to unlock the Renegade spec before Herald, because currently has better build diversity, comparable mobility and larger damage potential.

> @"Math.5123" said: > No, they don't. Spellbreaker has far more ways to avoid damage as well as resustaining than say, a firebrand. > > There are other examples. At the current moment FB has way worse sustain than core Guardian or DH. He's right in the sense that in this game skills and traits matter more than brute stats in terms of both sustain and damage. Also, the difference in armor stats from wearing clothes and heavy plates is almost meaningless: a Elementalist wearing Nomad or Minstrel gear will be on paper more tanky than a Guardian, Warrior or Revenant wearing zerker stats, but if the same Elementalist is riding a fresh air glass canon build and the other ones bunker/support builds the later will have better sustain. At some point this game has in PvP ~30 different amulets even with selectable cores to mixup stats, and more than a dozen usable runes and sigils. Now the variety of usable amulets, runes and sigils have been halved; the last thing it needs is resseting all the clases to have the same HP and armor. Also won't ever happen because traits and skills were already balanced around the basic stats of each class, so making a tabula rasa would be a nightmare in terms of time needed to re-balance all again (by the way, ANet already did a complete rebalance a year ago... just to leave PvP unsupported again). And finally, if you don't like the complexity of having rooks, horses, bishops and pawns on the table just stop playing chess and go play checkers...

> @"Arheundel.6451" said: > Yeah ok thank you for laugh..oh my god and how the hell does a well played guardian lose to a renegade when all they have for burst is shortbow and no access to Glint heal to cover for condi burst? > How a well played Renegade loses to a Guardian? The Renegade has 5 condition cleanses in Shooting Stone, 2 in Renewing Wave, 1 on Cleansing Channel and 1 in the weapon swap. That's 11 cleanses each 30 seconds, have plenty of sustain in Jalis and can disengage at will because at every time has 12 skills which cost them energy and provide 6 seconds of enhanced swiftness (not even counting Shiro's mobility). Guardians felt like sitting ducks...

> @"Dixa.6017" said: > sevenshot can't heal you if you have no battlescars because icerazor keeps getting knocked down > darkrazor can't delete defiance bar if it's constantly cc'd and on it's butt > > it is an actual issue that can turn what should have been a narrow or sure victory into a sudden defeat. I don’t buy that argument. First of all, Kalla’s summons are a kind of skills; skills can be meditations, stances, glyphs, traps, mantras, etc. Some are considered powerful or handly, other much less. The Renegade’s summons are in the likehood of Ranger’s spirits, Necro’s minions or Scrapper’s gyros. Some people don’t like that kind of skills because they are essentially pets, and pets sometimes involves a very bad A.I. We can argue if pets are convenient or not (personally: not a fan), because they have handicaps: usually they provide an effect for a given time, and that effect ceases if they are disebled/killed/destroyed. So I agree that Kalla’s summons could be better, but what would be achieve with that? Think: at the beginning Gaurdian’s spiritual weapons were pets: they were strong so they nerfed if (specially at PvP). Then people stopped using them. Then were turned into special skills which spent ammunition, and no longer were killable. Let’s figure that Anet turns the summons into not killable pets, like totems… Then they will become like Warrior’s banners. Much better? Well, Lord Hizen made recent builds about almost every class (only Necro and Rev rest to end that anthology), and guess what: his favourite Warrior build doesn’t use a single banner. So you think that Kalla’s summons aren’t great because are vulnerable to cc/damage, but they are used (with great results, as the videos above showcase) in both condi and power Renegade builds, with great effect. You think also that making then invulnerable will enhance the quality of life with Kalla alot, but no solo Warrior build uses banners. Yes, I catch that summons are tricky, but can be used, successfully. And they aren’t terribly hard to figure out how. Also, their cooldowns are low and the energy cost is a joke if you run the Charged Mist trait. Second, you insist in which you can heal with Sevenshots nor break defiance bars due the summons keep getting knocked down. Well, let me tell you that you don’t need Soulcleave to refill your life with a Renegade build, neither Darkrazor to break defiance bars with a Renegade build. Essentially: Renegade doesn’t require Kalla in order to perform well at soloing hard PvE content like bounties and champs. You can run eithetr condi or power Renegade, an mix Kalla + Mallyx, Kalla + Shiro, Kalla + Jalis or Shiro + Jalis. To different degree all of them work. But I would advice you againt the use of the builds from metabattle for open world PvE Rev, since they are either outdated or just wrong. Yesterday spent a few minutes recording some fights in Auric Basin, testing some builds I run or regular basis. The first one is a power Renegade, a power Herald, a condi Herald, a PvP power Renegade build with viper & trailblazer stats (that one also runs an exotic armor, rest of the gear in the builds is either ascended or legendary) and a (sorta) burn quick Firebrand with trailblazer, highly unoptimized (no Balthazar runes, runs ~1350 condi damage, I can achieve 2000 but the legendary armor is on the Rev and don’t want to spent runes to try them when the shared legendary wardrobe is near the corner… ). Also, no food, and not enough experience riding some of these builds, take a look: In the screenshots posted Hizen blamed summons knocked down by a veteran Stonehead; the Stoneheads are an easy target for a Renegade bow: regular ones explode after a volley of Sevenshots; the veteran ones can be freezed by a single Darkrazor after 8 seconds of doing nothing. Anyway they are beast easy to evade and to crush at range. If you run Jalis Forced Engagement can do the work; if you run Shiro Jade Winds is less effective but still usable. I’m not very used to the Renegade and Kalla so I don’t use Soulcleave’s aoftenly. But as you can see in the 4th build (the PvP one with Shiro + Jalis but running viper + trailblazer) you don’t need Kalla’s Fervor or Soulcleave to make battle scars to work and beat simultaneously a few Bristlebacks while enduring massive spikes of damage (those dammed have a cycle of 7 seconds of auto-targeted channel of pain each 15 seconds, if they aren’t disabled). I’m not saying that every one of those Renegade builds have the same soloing bounty potential, but all of them have some. So if you don’t like summons, don’t run Kalla: is not mandatory. An talking of non mandatory, is beautiful how well power and condi Herald still perform (power is lacking in sustained dps and AoE damage, but still I can 60% some bouties with that 5 years old build. Condi, as can be seen in the video, just deletes veterans without even sweating. And talking about being fast, the Firebrand has much less sustain, but oh boy! The damage. And that’s with ~1350 condi damage, maxed around 2K is incredible (but moves slow and lacks cleanses).

Why do you want damage removed from the game? You want even longer fights? Also, why you want runes removed? There's barely 7-8 on use in the entire game mode, and the same happens with the amulets: barely one third of the available roster has any use, and sometimes the builds aren't running what they should but what is left, what isn't utterly terrible. I mean, Rev had the Durability runes, which were removed because "op", so we moved to Leadership, which then were nerfed so hard that I wouldn't touch them with a ten feet pole, so we moved to Resistance, and is not like they are great, but due everything else is terribad. Nerf them and we already known the next ones which will be "op": Melandru. So in six months we will be in the same place, but people will be using amongst 5-6 runes and amulets for the whole 27 specs. And is even worse with the sigils: I don't even need to swap sigils between 6 builds and three clases: the "not useless ones" are always the same. You known what's the real nerf in PvP? The developer support.

Makes sense. Does no harm, seems easy to implement and will be useful.

> @"Game of Bones.8975" said: > Would Renegade have been better using a longbow instead? > Gain distance, maybe some flanking shots, ... > Or is it not the weapon itself, but the skills that go with the weapon that don't make sense. This thread is 9 months old, and things have changed a lot. At the present day the short bow does a very good job at PvE in both open world and instanced content, and a case can be made about being the best weapon for map completion, since hits hard at both range and mele, cleaves, scales very well with both power and condition stats and most of creeps in the maps die before they can even touch you. And now is even a thing in PvP: Shiro + Jalis with short bow/staff, demolisher amulet and runes of speed is imo better than long bow ranger and rivals thief in mobility while being able to defend a control point in his own. So the weapon is currently extremely competitive at every game mode (outside large teams at WvW, in which can be easily negated/countered with Wall of Reflection, Winds of Disenchantment, Valiant Bulwark and a lot of other tools).

> @"Dixa.6017" said: > A lot of reponses to this post and sorry for the necro here, but none of them actually address Hizens issues with Kalla. > > The summons can be cc'd, negating them completely in many fights. Given Kalla is your main source for vuln for battle scars if playing pure bow or condition renegade, and the base heal is low because it pulses an aoe heal that stops when the healing summon is knocked down/feared it IS an issue. the summons need stability inherent. Renegade already does damage faster than Herald (either power or condi variants), can fight both ranger or at mele, and Darkrazor's deletes defiance bars as handly as Surge of The Mist (larger energy cost but much lower cooldown and can be cast at range). Soulcleave's + Sevenshots (7 seconds cooldown) refills your HP entirely . If the summons were immune to cc and had larger HP then wouldn't be a reason ro run Herald in PvE instead of Renegade: it would be better at everything. Fortunately, is not the case: I don't think the weakness of the summons are that crucial, because some of those monsters with AoE cc have a defiance bar which can be deleted with a single well timed, well placed Darkrazor, and when they aren't champions usually explode after absorbing a few volleys of arrows. Some of the videos in this thread showcased strong performances of Renegade builds at PvE soloing bounties and hard bosses. On top of that, for open world events with large number of players in which sometimes the game experiences heavy lag and low framerrate (Dragon Stand, Dragonfall, Drizzlewood meta events...) playing a Renegade short bow build is way easier and safer than trying to reach mele range (sometimes the goons die before you arrive under heavy rain of rangeg attacks from your team mates, sometimes the visual cluster is so dense that you can't see the warnings from the attacks from the bosses, etc.). Does the Renegade offer the best builds for open world PvE? I'm not sure, but arguments can be made about and anyway seems clear that is far from "being horrible" at that task. Hizen showcased a solo OW PvE power Firebrand build which is powerful and tanky; and I think that is fun to play. But I've been playing also the Roul (Snowcrows) condi Firebrand build for solo PvE and albeit a bit more frail and less "flashy", seems to be able to kill the same content in ~35-40% less time. That's HUGE. So my point is: He loves soloing hard content and approaches to the Renegade seeking to replace the Herald to do the same tasks but better, but happens that the Renegade has some trade offs. And that's not inherently bad, in my opinion. I personally prefer the Herald over the Renegade, but currently I'm playing 4 different Revenant builds and I can see how they fill different roles making them useful for different tasks.

> @"Obtena.7952" said: > Can someone post a link to the condi Rev build we are talking about here? The condition Herald I'm talking about is this one: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?PmxAke7lhQKsIyiJRXMICjBSiMBqgj+SdrD-zRJYkRLfZ0RBESK49BJI6tsonG-e Hizen has a couple of videos showcasing the gameplay, and is expected a new revision in the next weeks, since He's already releasing a series of videos of his favouritre solo PvE builds with each class (only Necro and Rev last to be released): The condition Renegade we are talking about has some variants, from pure viper to viper/griever mix or full trailblazer, there's a few guides, those are some of the best. Nike's build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PmQAUlhQLMJSjFRZMIajBSjMBygj+1/TF-zRJYkRBfZ0RBESCI8sw7nG-e Paper Roll's variant: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PmwAUlfltQHMNqhlROsN6hNSfMDKgju1/TF-zRJYkR9fZEbKESFI/A-e The power Renegade variant is this one: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PmwAUxzltQHMNqhlROsN6hNSfMDKgJ11/rF-zRZYBJ1AY4wOC68MiVF0rUwjngA6t47rF-e Two very long threads about the pros and the cons of each approach can be found on the Revenant forum: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/121056/condition-renegade-or-condition-herald#latest

> @"Nephalem.8921" said: > Wow calling a tb / plaguedoctor build glass cannon is definitely something i havent heard yet. You have like 22k hp + 2.5k armor. Litany of wrath is a fullheal every 25sec. You can swap in the cleanse mantra to have way more cleanses than herald or syg for on demand stunbreak + stab. > Can you even complete the drm cms within the timelimit with the herald build? Herald has more sustain but almost no content requires that amount of sustain. Only very few bounties would need that. Let start saying that I'm an average player and usually don't run fractals (the highest I've done was ~60), so I'm not a "pro" at neither soloing or doing PvE content (I do play PvP a lot more). Then let me also say that the stat numbers are fine (more than enough HP, decent armor albeit an argument can be made about replacing Plage Doctor with either Seraph or Dire is more effective). My problem with the Burn FB build is more in the line of the game mechanics (and probably due my lack of experience using it), so let me explain the caveats I have with it so maybe you can undo my wrongs and help me to understand better how must to be played: Lets say that I'm doing a solo HoT hero point run, using power Herald (staff + swords), condi Herald (mace + axe/shield) or Renegade variants (short bow) and the condi quickness Firebrand. Most of the champions can be soloed easily just circling them and occasionally evading stronger attacks (the Golem in the airship, the Mordrem dinosaurs, the Chak and the mushroom in the Auric Basin...). But some of them enter in the fight flanked by other foes (the vampyric matriarch, the itzel at the south of Verdant Brink, the tengu in Auric Basin...). When I fight those champs with my Revs my course of action is usually very clear: I disable the defiance bar from the champ, then I focus the bodyguards asap to remove them and prevent their actions while the main fight takes place. The power Herald Rev has excellent breakstuns and mobility, and plenty of cc; the condi Herald can do strong AoE damage while gaining life (thanks to the torment runes) so doesn't need to focus on the scort to bleed them out while fighting the boss, and the Renegade variants can stun in AoE while fighting, so in all of those cases the fight moves fast from 1 vs N to 1 vs the champ without wasting too many life saving tools. In the condi Firebrand case, I need to spent a lot of tools in the first seconds to grant the burst to fastly kill those bodyguards (focus #5, the stability source of choice, some cc skills to disable the champion... ). Usually I burst those secundary foes fast, but then the champ recovers and I find myself lacking defensive tools (they are in cooldown) for the main fight, so I burst the boss maybe over 50% or 60%, but then I end dying. And looking at the Roul video (which showcases a few broken armor pieces in the hero panel), dying is not unusual despite the 3K armor/22K HP. Whith the Revs, the kill time is slower, but I rarely find myself on downed state once I'm familiar with the boss mechanics. Tha's why despite recognizing the awesome dps of the condi Firebrand build, I end thinking that the Rev is currently the best soloing class in the game: you have at least 3 largely capable soloing builds with huge sustain, two of them can work well at both mele and range, and they are easy to play, whereas the quick Firebrand variants, no matter if power or condi, do require very diligent use of the hotkeys and a more stressful skill spaming to avoid dying. I do prefer a 100 seconds boss killing with a 90% win ratio over a 50 seconds boss killing with a 70% win ratio. But as I said, I'n not extremely skillful...

Ok, I will retract from some of my opinions from two months and half ago. Not about the hammer: I still think that is unbeliable weak at every game mode and is more due the reworks of its mechanics and not only due the nerf in the numbers, and should be either salvaged or reworked again. But I have found finally some lovely things in the Renegade. Started to play with the PvE variants from Nike! (condi Renegade) and Paper Roll (condi and power Renegade) and found the power variant with Kalla + Jallis appealing for PvE. Not my favourite Rev build, but lets you to fight bot at mele and range, an option pretty much lacking with Herald, and performs greatly at soloing content. I tried then to make some viable iteration for PvP, since still I didn't like Kalla for competitive game modes, and my attempts to run the tanky builds which other (more capable) players than me made shine were futile. So made some tweaks and ended with a power Renegade version for PvP: tested it first at the 2 vs 2 mini season at January in which performed poorly (lack of experience, but mostly due mobility limitations in those maps). Made a change or two for this Conquest season and voila, suddenly not only works very well but also I enjoy playing it. So, the short bow is now fairly good: I still think that #4 should be replaced by either a defensive or mobility tool, but now is a weapon which I enjoy using at both PvE and PvP/roaming. The PvP variant runs Shiro + Jalis, with Devastation 3,3,3; Invocation 1,2,2 and Renegade 1,2,2, and kills with sticks: a short bow and a staff. Did use Resistance but borrowed the rune of Speed from metabattle and works wonders (is not like there's much decent choices in the pool of runes, anyway). Superb mobility, very good sustain, hits hard, helps a lot in teamfights sharing boons and providing stability, cc, weakened foes and respectable burst, and when things go wrong just evades, disengages and fights in another place. No matter if the match ends in victory or defeat: is fun to play, and rewarding. Just a glimpse: So I'll conceed that despite the problems (bugs, hammer, reduced options in weapons, unbalance in power vs condi at PvE...) the Revenant is in a good place currently. Power Herald is still strong at competitive game modes, despite the lost in flow and deep; condi Herald can work at every game mode, despite being restricted to mele combat; Renegade can work as condi or power at every game mode, and contrary to the Herald, the weapon, skills and traits are better now than when was released. By miles.