Renegade Rules as the Most Supportive Elite Spec
If your goal is to play the ultimate support role in Guild Wars 2, look no further than the Revenant‘s Renegade elite specialization. Introduced with the Path of Fire expansion, Renegade brings an unrivaled arsenal of healing, buffs, utility and accessibility that firmly establishes it as the most versatile and effective support across all of GW2.
Why Renegade Dominates as a Support
A Renegade‘s ability to sustain allies comes from more than just raw healing output. With an array of skills that provide offensive buffs, defensive tools, and party utility, Renegade enables well-rounded team compositions capable of tackling the game‘s toughest challenges.
Healing
Renegade has strong sustained healing through Ventari‘s Tablet and the Salvation trait line. Pulsing 4 stacks of Rejuvenating Tides provides over 6,000 healing per second to 5 allies. Combine this with the elite skill Embrace the Darkness for immense burst healing, removing up to 17 damaging conditions from allies.
Buffing
Through Invoking Harmony and Facet of Chaos, Renegade maintains 25 stacks of might, fury, and alacrity on all allies – enabling maximum DPS uptime. This rivals even Druid and Firebrand specs that specialize in offensive buffs. Renegade also brings situational buffs like projectile destruction, resistance, and stability through Facet of Nature.
Utility
The Renegade‘s toolbox of utility skills cements its status as the most well-rounded support. Dark Razor‘s Daring reflects enemy projectiles. Soulcleaves Summit and Citadel Bombardment offer on-demand healing and condition cleansing. And the short cooldown elite skill gives defensive tools to adapt to any situation.
Accessibility
Unlike complex supports like Mechanist and Specter, Renegade has fairly simple skill rotations. Managing life force and energy is straightforward compared to other specialization mechanics. This allows players to focus more on utilizing Renegade‘s utility and adapting to encounters rather than executing convoluted priority lists.
According to prominent GW2 content creators like Mightyteapot and forums like Snowcrows, these reasons make Renegade the undisputed best-in-class support option. The specs numbers and versatility simply overshadow anything else available.
Top Support Alternatives
While Renegade stands at #1, other elite specs still occupy valuable niches:
| Elite Spec | Unique Support Capabilities |
|---|---|
| Druid | Spirits, offensive buffs |
| Tempest | Burst healing, party defense |
| Specter | Alacrity, barrier |
| Scourge | Barrier support |
Druid remains a popular choice when spirits like Frost and Sun are desired for team DPS. Their ability to enhance might, fury, and critical chance synergizes well with power compositions. However, Druid lacks the personal DPS, utility, and healing output of Renegade.
Tempest‘s overloads and the trait Soothing Mist provide immense healing and condition cleansing suited for inexperienced groups. But Tempest doesn‘t offer sufficient offensive buffs or utility. Recovery skills also have lengthy cooldowns compared to Renegade.
The newest elite spec, Specter, competes with Renegade in alacrity uptime through Shadow Arts. And Specter uniquely enhances party DPS conditionally through Shadow Force. However, Specter lacks reliable party-wide healing and cleanses.
Scourge barriers have success mitigating incoming burst damage. But corrupting boons rather than cleansing conditions gives it limited applicability. And barrier contribution is capped by the Scourge‘s own vitality.
Group Synergies
What truly elevates Renegade is how its versatility enables a variety of effective squad compositions:
- Renegade/Firebrand: Arguably the most popular meta composition, with Firebrand providing quickness and Renegade handling healing, alacrity and might.
- Double Renegade: Taking double Renegade allows pushing the might stack cap and having excess healing – suitable for inexperienced groups.
- Renegade/Tempest: Tempest healing and defensive buffs complement Renegade‘s offensive capabilities.
Renegade‘s ability to synergize with Firebrand and flexibly fill multiple roles gives it an advantage over more specialized supports like Druid. Teams can adapt their composition based on factors like party DPS capability and encounter mechanics.
Changing Support Meta Over Time
The road to Renegade‘s domination has taken years of evolution in GW2‘s meta. Elementalist and Guardian dominated the early days until Heart of Thorns expansions promoted Druid and Chronomancer as stronger DPS buffers.
[GRAPH]Post-Heart of Thorns, balance patches incrementally boosted Druid‘s offensive abilities while tempering Chronomancer‘s domination. The Path of Fire expansion introduced Firebrand and Renegade – specs with versatility lacking in predecessors.
Now after End of Dragons, peak healing and utility firmly establishes Renegade as top support. The future likely holds modest nerfs balancing Renegade‘s healing and barrier output, but not enough to dethrone it.
In terms of total support capability, no other elite specialization matches Renegade. Strong healing and buffing combine with immense utility and accessibility for an unrivaled elite spec. Alternatives like Specter and Tempest still boast situations where they excel, but can‘t contest Renegade‘s raw numbers and well-roundedness. Renegade‘s flexibility also enables varied team compositions. Future balance changes may chip away at outliers, but expect Renegade to remain GW2‘s supreme support option for 2023 and beyond!
