Set.7461

I think NC Soft missed a few guys on their axe grinder.

no-so-fun-fact. You can dodge Gaze of Darkness so that adds to the unreliability of the reveal. It's weird that AOEs like GOD, shouts, and wells can be dodged but I suppose that's done for balance. Makes no sense that you can dodge sound waves, or in terms of GOD, literally having Glint look in an area, and not being able to see simply because someone dodged but that's ANET. Having an increased radius will help for sure. I find Scrapper toolbelt reveal to be more reliable.

A few take-aways. I'm glad they are giving core rev an F2. No word that it has a passive so I'm assuming it's a 1-and-done skill. Staff didn't need a revamp. It's like the Devs are completely disconnected to its userbase. We've been asking for Shield/shortbow changes for a while but staff gets changes that affect key things like res interrupts by removing Debilitating Slam. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Platforming elements have no place in this game. If I wanted to collect orbs or other random crap, I'll play Super Mario Sunshine or whatever. Initial impressions, adding orb management to Salvation is lazy and only exacerbates the resource management of the class.

> @"Vasdamas Anklast.1607" said:

> It's the biggest dissapointing thing I tried out in this game. Of course it has it's niche in PvE (very meh tho) but PvP/WvW wise herald can do things much better. Renegade just feels slow and unprotected and it's very mediocre summons can be CC'd and killed easily. And tbh I'd rather play core which is a joke lol

>

> > hopefully, the dev(s) involved w/ shortbow was one of the many who got fired.

> :open_mouth:

> Careful though, GW2 knights-protectors may come out and report you

You called it. Got a 3 day ban for hurting someone's feelings. Worth it. All of shortbow(and renegade's) criticism fell on deaf ears and the company paid a price. Is it bad to say they deserve it? Whatever you believe, it doesn't matter. What matters is the bottom line and good thing NcSoft had the power to change things from the inside that we couldn't. See you again in a month.

there's lots of great opening combos you can do but just to increase your current go-to, add enchanted daggers before you PT and burn all your energy by activating Impossible Odds before you legend swap to Glint.

Brutality allows quickness to strip stab, not just the quickness on weapon swap so it's not completely wasted. OP, if you need to strip stab on engagement, you can start in shiro and PT without have to start with staff > s/s swap. The quickness on swap is just icing. For some reason, it does not interact with legend swap. Only weapon swap. I guess this makes sense as that's what is says on the tooltip but every other on-swap effects works with legend swap as well as engi kit/ele attunements. Another case of consistently inconsistent on ANET.

It's inconsistencies like this is why I can't get a "feel" for it and usually just pick up Assassin's Annihilation for the sustain. It amplifies the tired cooldown/energy management because you have to "burn" the weapon swap cooldown in order to get quickness which weakens all the on-swap sigils as their cooldowns overlap with both weapon swap and legend swap. Shuffling legends is one thing, but shuffling weapons to get 3 sec of quickness? Let's leave that gameplay to warriors. "Fixing it" so it works on legend swap would tempt me to use it and I'd like to see it remove protection along with stab. It would give it a bunker buster role that would help it in both PvP and WvW. In it's current state, it's meh.

I'm curious to give Drachonic Echo a more serious look. I didn't use it too much since the rework bug. Good to hear it's working properly.

> Skills Tested:

> -Facet of Nature - Mallyx: ✘

> -Pain Absorption: ✘

> -True Nature - Mallyx: ✔

> -Pulsating Pestilence: ✔

I want to contribute to this.

Skills Tested:

-Envoy of Exuberance : ✔

-Crystal Hiberation: ✔

Shield 4 removes 2 condis and shield 5 removes a whooping 8 condis total over 4 pulses. I'm testing this rune and despite the shortcomings of shield, I'm using it more often because of this rune.

Edit: this, of course, requires the trait Hardening Persistence

It's OP right now. Because it procs off of any condition, not just torment. You can test this with sword auto(vuln) and see the HP gains. Once it gets fixed to proc only on torment, it will be ok.

> @"Julius Seizure.4985" said:

> It’s pretty hard to not have max stacks for this trait. Do you actually think this would be balanced?

>

> Right now, the trait offers a massive damage boost at the cost of using your dodges. It has great risk vs. reward, as offensive power is gained but lost for defensive agency.

>

> Your suggestion is pretty OP and unbalanced in my opinion.

I don't think it's as OP as you make it out to be. You will still need to build up Kalla Fervor(as trivial as that is) so you're under crit cap at the start of an engagement. This allows power renegades to build for more Vitality, possibly Valk gear to make up for the +10% hp you get from glint. You also don't get the +dmg modifiers Glint offers. I think it would also offset the need for Roiling Mists and promote more diversity. Maybe more people would actually take Song of the Mists. Either way, Glint is hard to pass on in PvP/WvW for all it offers(good heal, +concentration, +10% hp, +dmg modifiers) so I don't see how this change is OP. If you're at full endurance, you're not being targeted so I don't get the "risk vs reward" comparison. If scholar runes requires you to be at full HP, than this trait is currently the endurance version of that. Great at the start, or when you're not focused, useless 98% of the fight.

> @"coro.3176" said:

> For example:

> * Malicious Reprisal applying unblockable to revenant attacks (especially on Unrelenting Assault, where block is the preferred defense - it requires 2 dodges otherwise).

I want to clarify this point. Malicious Reprisal(and the buff from Phase Traversal) last 5 seconds but has 2 charges. This means only 2 of the 5 attacks from Unrelenting Assault will hit and I think that is much better than say "unlimited hit" unblockables like Unstoppable Union which is often chained with the 10-hit rapid fire.

Unfortunately, Unblockable attacks are like pandora's box. I don't see it going away anytime soon but toning down the long list of unblockable with "Charges" like Malicious Reprisal would be a start in the right direction. For example, limiting Unstoppable Union to 3 hits or so, means your block channel isn't going to complete waste.

I like your idea of shadowstepping into your summons but I want to expand on the idea rather than dismiss it. I'd like to make the flip-over skill "Mist Swap". This would allow you to swap places with your summons. This can help renegade in both kiting and chasing. Casting Icerazor's Ire/Darkrazor's Daring in front of you as you're retreating, then Mist Swap and your chaser will get crippled/dazed. Darkrazor can even inflict cripple if you trait Ashen Demeanor. As far as chasing, this is self-explanatory. Cast whatever summon, most likely Razorclaw's Rage as it's the cheapest on energy and weak, then swap to chase.

> @"messiah.1908" said:

> > @"Wahlao.1069" said:

> > Have you tried a support renegade in WVW?

> > With the Oct2 change to righteous rebel, we can give alacrity with >75% uptime to 10 allies within a 360 radius via F4

> > Might generation though is limited to 5 allies for renegade via F2.

>

> alacrity is nice but its only good in longer fights . the shorter the clash is, alacrity loose its edge as the teams have time for recharge anyway.

> also only alacrity wont cut it. and renegade utilities are useless in team fights. thus you lose 10% health, regen 20% buff and might sharing which cost no nrg, and soem boons sharing on 10 or more hp to allies. renegade only gives self fury and vigor and less condi dmg.... so no group support at all.

I have a full set of legendary armor and I've been playing around with lots of builds. I believe support renegade has a place. When the squad is huge, 1 support renegade giving alacrity to siege, you can uptime 99-100% alacrity with leadership runes/concentration infusions/food which is amazing to ninja taking towers. This can make the difference between an EWP/structural invul being pulled and you taking the tower. I played with the build before but since the change to righteous rebel supporting 10 players, I don't have to tell pugs to get away from siege as often. The heal, like all of renegade's utilities, are susceptible to CC and I've found using it during retreats helps prevent stragglers from being picked off. The elite is useless for trains but is good for dropping on the backline and maybe the edge of your midline.

If your driver likes to spread out siege, you can even toggle ventari to give alacrity where your tablet is located, and also give alacrity in your location. Is it a better healer than support Herald? No, but if your squad already have plenty of firebrands or even medical dispersion engis, then I can see support renegade being a better choice as your job is to make the squad more efficient.

I'm going to have to agree with everyone on the energy portion but disagree with the overall consensus that it's a "great" weaponset. I think it's good, but not great. I mainly have 2 issues with Staff.

1. the healing orbs at the end of the auto-attack chain. I'm not a fan of ANET's design philosophy of adding platforming elements to GW2. The SAB event, picking up orbs, picking up ventari's fragments, mines, etc. These orbs are just that. Platforming elements that, while fine in PvE, are useless in PvP/WvW and only acts as filler. Simplify it. Make it an AoE heal. It doesn't even have to be a large AoE. 180 radius or something. It's not difficult to pick them up, it's just more work for the sake of more work.

2. Staff 2 should have the design philosophy with all other rev weapon 2 skills, the bread and butter of our rotation in between auto-attacks. Spamming Staff 2 when your enemy is not casting a skill leaves a noticeable aftercast that breaks the flow of combat. I'd like to keep the flipover, Debilitating Slam as it is while the enemy is casting, but make it available when the enemy is not casting. Reduce the damage by 25-50% and inflict cripple or slow instead of daze. Right now, Punishing Sweep is just a golf swing while you take a moment to admire your work(or lack of).

As far as having a weapon refill energy, I'm against that because it will make staff even more mandatory and it's already a staple in most builds. The energy issue is a deep class problem and while charged mists is a start, I want it to be address in traitlines to promote build diversity. To compare, Thief has 4 out of the 7 traitlines that have initiative gaining traits. Shadow Arts, Acrobatics, Trickery, and Deadeye. Rev have 1, Invocation. I often hear the argument that Legend swap is a free 50 energy baked into the class but I want to add a caveat. You can literally lose energy since it resets to 50 regardless if your energy is higher or lower. In theory, and practice, you will find yourself losing energy on legend swap. And after the removal of Equilibrium, this loss of energy is not compensated. Adding 50 energy to your "pool" regardless of energy level would be a change I'd like to see but I don't know where ANET wants to take the class.

Like most of the summons, they are good until they get CC'd. Many people argue that for balance but I'd like to see at least this skill be immune to CC. After all, it's an elite with massive upkeep. Also Impossible Odds is still -8 upkeep in WvW and as of now, the overall utility of IO(superspeed) outweighs the lifesteal of a static, interruptable elite.

I can confirm this happens with Kalla/Shiro too. While you may be able to recreate this bug with Herald's F2, it also happens in Renegade. Maybe one(or all) of the F-skills in Kalla also triggers this.

> @"wisebear.9176" said:

> For the sake of scienceTM i tried without invocation and indeed it won't swap stance mid cast (this both in wvw and pve), unfortunately i've exclusively played with invocation since the revenant was released so i'm not able to tell if it's a new bug or it's meant to be like this (because of the stunbreak trait).

>

> (my humble opinion is that it's not a bug but an intended mechanic, but then again without an official dev answer is difficult to say)

Thank you for confirming. As others have mentioned, while I can see why Empty Vessel can attribute to this, I don't buy that as an after-effect or intended. I've tested this with Staff 4 and Staff 5 and it works as normal. You can Legend swap mid animation without Invocation traited. Staff 5 would be the best comparison as it both does damage/evade like Hammer 3. I've also tested this with Unrelenting Assault(also dmg/evade) and like Staff 5, you can swap legends mid animation.

I just want to remind everyone that Hammer 5 is also bugged. If you cancel the cast at about 50% with stow weapon, it will go on full cooldown. It will be put on the normal 4 second cooldown cancelling it under 50%.

> @"ReaverKane.7598" said:

> Humm, given that there's inconsistency in the results, maybe it's an issue of latency? Like a tiny lag spike or a lost packet that delays the input resulting in only being able to swap when you finish the cast? I haven't tested it myself though.

I have tried swapping invoc in the same instance. Hitting F1 with my keybind, clicking it, and pressing the actual F1 key and I can't get my swap to go off mid cast. This is without invocation traited. I'm not sure how lag spike might affect this but the legend swap appears "downpressed" but the actual swap is locked. Only reason I'm ruling out lag is I can recreate this issue in all game modes and fix it by slotting in invocation. I don't have a screen recording so all I can do is hope if anyone else was having this issue to confirm.

I think I found the bug which now affects PvE. You need to have Invocation as a traitline in order to legend swap mid Hammer 3. That seems like an odd thing and while I know Invocation is a good traitline, this seems like another instance of spaghetti coding.

I'm testing right now and my F1 is indeed locked until the end of the animation. Seems to be working fine in PVE and PVP. I am trying to find if this is affected by traits. Are you sure it is working in WvW? As in swapping mid channel and not the end of it?

That is odds. It works in PVE but not in WvW. I just tested it now. I knew I wasn't going crazy.

Before the patch, I was able to swap legend mid hammer 3. A well timed one would allowed you to long range hydromancy/geomancy procs as well as a nice 1200 range condi transfer with pulsating pestilence. Now, the legend swap is "locked" and it would only happen when the channel is done. This kills the fun build I had as I would draw condis with pain absorption and transfer it with phase smash. ANET PLZ

This is a big problem in WvW too. I've thrown myself at the enemy zerg a few time when I'm trying to Impossible Odds out of a mess. Instead, I Phase Traversal into the middle of a blob.

> @"Justine.6351" said:

> I am pretty sure it does improve movement speed in combat. My testing showed that with swiftness and all 10 pips of upkeep was almost superspeed levels. Although my testing was crude, it did look to be so.

You're right, I tried it again and yes, it's pretty close to superspeed. -10 upkeep is expensive though. I'll reserve final judgement after playing with these traits for a bit. Now the real question is if it stacks with superspeed. My eyeballs can't tell a difference but if it does, it would be worth taking for escaping. If some has a more scientific test for that, please share.

Initial impressions: I'm disappointed. F2 costing -3 energy hurts. Not only that, if you're playing the standard shiro/glint power build, it would be a buff to literally disable F2 when you swap over to Glint. That's how much Glint's F2 sucks. Shield getting some traited changed is a start. I'd like to see shield 5 cleanse for each pulse but at least it cleanse at the start of the channel. I hoped for a "rework" to shield but it feels like they moved some number around. Add flavors to F2, gave Glint underwater and called it a day. Underwhelmed.

All of Glint's facets are consume skills but F2's True Nature is not for some reason. This makes Shining Aspect useless outside of Glint. > @"Turkeyspit.3965" said:

> Rising Momentum: This trait has replaced Hardening Persistence as an adept tier trait and grants the revenant a 5% increased movement speed for each point of upkeep they are using. **The movement speed granted by this trait stacks with all other movement speed increases.**

>

> Does this mean we can attain 'super speed' status, as in above 33%? I don't understand the purpose of this given we have Facet of Elements.

I've tested this. My initial impression is that it does not go over 33% swiftness speed. It also does not ignore in-combat speed like superspeed does. The only use I can think of is pairing it with Jalis/mallyx/ventari and activating the upkeeps. Anything with Shiro or Glint greatly diminishes the usefulness of that trait. Pretty garbage trait.