Guild Wars 2

based on the new Infos that the Blogpost shared, this is a Concept, how the new Class should really be so that it wouldn’t creare so many Lore Problems (Holes), like the Revenant. It wouldn’t create any immersion breaks with the Personal Story.
Then it wouldn’t create also problems with the Racial Skill System looking completely incompatible to the new Class and in fact under this design would it be a real profession, that is in fact also a profession and feels also like being one and not just being an undead status taken from a real world mythology.
——

Lore Based Abilities > Lore Neutral Abilities (how professions should be all)
Revenant > Visionary
Legend Stances > Ash Urns
Stance changes Heal/Utility/Elite > Invocations change the Weapon Skills
No Weapon Swap > Has Weapon Swap
Design doesn’t allow Racials due to Transforms/Stance Influence > Can use Racials due to no Transforms/Stance Influence disturbs

To show you, how shallow the whole concept around the Revenant is, I will rewrite the the complete Blog Post starting with my next post here, as if my changes would be real and you will see, how much more fitting it will sound and that under that design change you won’t see any lore holes, any unfitting mechanics that let this concept look like some kind of OP special snowflake compared to all other professions that are real professions in fact compared to these supernatural “undeads”, which ANet wants to sell to all of us as a “profession” and in fact makes this whole thing look like a black sheep among 8 white ones, while it would be under my changes a concept, that would be then a fitting 9th white sheep that integrates itself into the group very well.

Part 1:

Visionary – The Master of Mysticism

So It All Begins!

The visionary is the ninth profession, added into Guild Wars 2 as a unique archetype not seen in other games. Visionaries are heavily armored masters of mysticism with abilities that allow them to harness and manipulate energy in order to perform immense attacks. They invoke powers from ancient ash urns of the past to dominate foes and unleash chaos on the field of battle.

Here are some quick overview specifics:

• Unique profession mechanic
• Unique resource system
• Heavy armor
• Medium health pool
• Color scheme: White (each Profession just has 1 Color Scheme, not 3!)
  Comparison:
  Necromancer = Dark Green
  Guardian = Blue
  Elementalist = Red
  Warrior = Yellow
  Ranger = Light Green
  Engineer = Brown
  Mesmer = Pink
  Thief = Black
  Visionary = when you look at all this, then it should be clear, that White is missing

Between now and the launch of the expansion, you’ll learn a lot about the visionary’s skills and abilities. We’ll start that process today by talking about the following:

• Hammer
• Mace
• Axe
• Ancient Urn of Demons
• Ancient Urn of Spirits

I’m sure Anet is willing to accept the submission of your resume.

There are holes in the lore, because ArenaNet hasn’t taken the liberty of explaining the lore to us, and they will explain it to us, on Friday, during the livestream.

and nobody cares about the personal story. Its a botched, broken part of the game, and even ArenaNet have admitted that, messing it up a bit more doesn’t hurt. No NPCs in the entire personal story even refer to the player’s profession, therefore there is no plot hole or conflict in the storyline.

If you have an issue with playing the personal story on your Revenant, ignore it, don’t do it, or roleplay it out, so your character never takes part in the personal story. Write your own character backstory if you don’t like ArenaNet’s.

Part 2:

Connection to the Mists

As mentioned, this profession’s unique theme is its constant mystic tie to the Mists, but how does that affect its gameplay?

Let’s start with the basics. A visionary can select from a pool of ancient Ash Urns—vessels of epic mystic powers and secrets from the past that you can invoke energy from—and slot two different ash urns at a time. With this constant connection to the Mysticism, you’ll always have one active ash urn and one inactive ash urn. The current active ash urn will determine the skills on the left half of your skill bar, so it changes your Visionary’s Weapon Skills out, while Healing, Utility and Elite Skills stay untouched. Your chosen active Ash Urn will determine your active Weapon Skills, but due to the limit of maximum only 2 Ash Urns, the Visionary will be allowed to have a second Weapon Set to swap them out.
Not only will theash urns that you select determine your skills, but you’ll have an energy bar tied to your currently invoked energies from the Ash Urns.

This energy bar is a new resource that the revenant relies on in order to use skills. Some skills will have a low energy cost, allowing you to use them more often, while others have a large cost with a very large payoff. When you invoke energies from the Ash Urns, you’ll begin at half energy and generate more energy over time. This creates a push-and-pull feel with the energy that you manage as you use your skills.

Visionaries also have upkeep skills, so called “Invocations”, which you may remember from the original Guild Wars. Certain Ash Urns have skills available that will cause you to lose the ability to regenerate energy or even put you into a degeneration state while the used invocation remains active. These skills will last until you run out of energy or toggle them off. As you can see in the screenshot, there are pips that represent your current state of upkeep. This allows us to have another skill type in Guild Wars 2 with unique functionality and reinforce the visionary’s focus on energy management.

A New Twist

A visionary’s weapons are not tied to their acient ash urns choice; instead, we incorporate the core feel of using the Mists, and your connection to them, into the skills. This is a key part of the class that enhances the look and feel of gameplay as a visionary; you won’t feel like a guardian with its flames or a warrior with its physical attacks. We want to push the feel of imbuing attacks with energy from mysticism to wreak havoc on the battlefield.

I know by now you must be thinking, “Come on, tell me what some of the skills are!” I’ll indulge you with a few. Of course, in the expansion, we’ve picked up some new skills and acquired awesome new tech from our programmers. Here goes…

no. just no. doesn’t even make sense.

Part 3:

Hammer
We’ve given new and interesting purposes to current weapons. One of these weapons is the hammer, which you may think of as slow and physical. That’s not how the visionary uses it! Visionaries use their powers to enhance the hammer in order to use it as a ranged weapon. That’s right—you’ll use these unique mystic powers from the Ash Urns to throw a mystical hammer at foes, create massive zones of destruction, and preemptively control your foe.

Coalescence of Insight

“Slam the ground with your hammer, creating a cascading eruption of energy that lets you envision when your foes Healing Skill or next Utility will recharge also”

Mystic Barrier

“Create a mystic energy barrier that blocks incoming projectiles in front of you, even while you move around.”

• Again, this is brand-new, shiny tech. This skill creates a directional wall in front of your character, blocking incoming projectiles. Even better, it follows your character! While it’s active, the wall will always be in front of your character, moving around with you to protect you from those pesky rangers (unless they flank you).
  This is not brand new, this just just a thief’s smokescreen improved with mobility glueing the skill to the characters movement!! Seriously Rocket Science to call something like that brand new ANet!! You invented the cycle new, Congrats)

Mace

While we don’t throw any maces at foes, this weapon does offer a unique play style that is themed to work with the axe. Both the mace and axe use a style that requires you to pay attention to your position in relation to your foes, as the attacks are all directional.

Lingering Toxin (Manifest is so unfitting here)

“Deliver a crushing blow that sends toxic energy chaining to enemies behind each target.”

• This skill is the third part of the autoattack chain. We’re making autoattacks more interesting, with more play involved in using them. In this case, the attack is a melee blow that hits an initial foe but then looks for additional foes behind that one. If there are additional foes, it will chain the attack to them as well. You’ll want to make sure to line up enemies in order to maximize your efficiency.

Axe

As mentioned above, the axe is very directionally focused. It’s also a hybrid weapon, but it’s much more about utility than damage. Have you ever wanted to slice through the air, creating an epic rift in the world? The axe will allow you to do just that!

Dimensional Rift (Temporal is so unfitting here too, makes you think as if the Class would create Time Distortions and the only Profession, that should be able to do that would be the Chronomancer, but a rift between dimensions is something different)

“Slice into the Mists, creating an unstable rift between both dimensions. After a short duration, this rift will collapse in on itself, pulling in enemies.”

• Sounds intense, right? (sounds just like a clone skill of Temporal Curtain, just with an automatic time delay as line attack >.>) This skill is one of my personal favorites as there is a lot of play and counterplay around it. Again, it’s a directional line attack. It will always create a rift directly in front of your character, so be aware of where you’re facing. It also has a slight delay with a unique visual tell that allows enemies a chance to escape. Dimensional Rift is a great complimentary skill for the other skills on your bar.

Anybody else find this post super rude?

jweez.7214:

Anybody else find this post super rude?

Ya. I think the same also.

It bugs me thats hes willing to knock the lore of the Revenant, when ArenaNet hasn’t given us any lore for it yet, have told us when they will give us lore, and the fact hes replacing the Revenant (which is based off real lore) with random lore that hes just made up.

Argon.1563:

jweez.7214:

Anybody else find this post super rude?

Ya. I think the same also.

It bugs me thats hes willing to knock the lore of the Revenant, when ArenaNet hasn’t given us any lore for it yet, have told us when they will give us lore, and the fact hes replacing the Revenant (which is based off real lore) with random lore that hes just made up.

Ok as long as it’s not just me. Lol.

Where is it stated that they won’t use Racials?

Last Part

It’s ancient

I suppose it’s time to dive a bit more into the ash urns themselves. Again, ash urns are a core part of the visionary, as they determine the weapon skills in the left half of your skill bar. More than that, each ash urn includes a package of skills themed to that ash urn and a specific play style, when using the ash urn as an environmental item. In that sense, each ash urn will feel very distinct; you will choose each one with a set purpose in mind. Each ash urns skills are designed to be very visual. From a glance at the skills used, one should be able to tell which ash urn’s energy is being invoked or used as environmental item, as each urn has a very distinct different look, style, theme, color and energetic aura.

Ancient Ash Urn of Demons

“Invoke the mystic energy in the Ash Urn from Ancient Demons of the Mist”
While this Ash Urn is active, you gain the ability of “Demon Gaze” and gain Energy from it with 4 Pips.
A permanent Vision Skill that lets you manipulate Conditions of your Allliees, Foes and yourself. So more Conditions you collect on yourself, so more powerful becomes this Vision Skill, until Demon Gaze turns into “Demon Eyes”, which is an Upkeep Skill, which transforms you into a demonic Avatar as long you keep this skill up, until you toggle it off or until your Energy Bar reaches 0, cause the transform will cause a massive Energy Degeneration, that will force the Transform to end after some time, so that its not permanent.

Demonic Eyes

“Invoke the energy of the demons from the mist to transform into a powerful avatar. Increases Condition Damage, Toughness and Power, and copy conditions to nearby foes every few seconds.”

• This is an example of an upkeep skill. You can activate this mode once you have full energy. All Ash Urn of Demons skills apply a condition to the visionary similar to a necromancer’s corruption utility skills. In this case, you’ll apply torment to yourself so that, at a minimum, you will be pulsing out torment to nearby foes while this skill is active.
  When the Energy Bar of your chosen Ash Urn reaches 100%, thats the moment when the Demon Gaze enables you to use the Skill “Demon Eyes” to become able to transform into an Avatar.
  If you choose to turn your Ash Urn of Demons into an environmental item, this will end your Avatar and you will hold then the Urn in your hands with Urn special skills that are only useable, while you hold your Urn in your hands. If you put the Urn somewhere to the Ground, then it will create there environmental effects as long it doesn’t get destroyed or picked up again by the Visionary.
  Turning an Ash Urn into an environmental Item, will deactivate the Ash Urn, so that the Urns passive effects will count for you, while you hold them in your hands.

Ancient Ash Urn of the Spirits

“Invoke the mystic energy in the Ash Urn from heroic Spirits of the Mists”
While the Ash Urn is active, you gain the Ability of “Heroic Presence” and gain Energy from it with 4 Pip

A permanent Vision Skill, that lets you become a true defender of everything, that is important to you with an heroic impressive courage and will power to resist everything, that is absolutely outstanding.

Aura of Unpliableness,

“Invoke the mystic energy in the Ash Urn from heroic Spirits of the Mists to transform into a heroic Spirit Avatar”
Share positive effects of the Ash Urn in a stronger way with all your nearby allies, like reducing the duration of conditions you suffer on, increasing your Boon Durations and increases Vitality, Healing Power and Toughness.

• This is an example of an upkeep skill. You can activate this mode once you have full energy. All Ash Urn of Spirits skills apply a boons to the visionary that create AoE Effects or Damage, when they end or get stripped off, which in that case, their effects are even stronger as a punishment.
  When the Energy Bar of your chosen Ash Urn reaches 100%, thats the moment when the Heroic Presence enables you to use the Skill “Aura of Unpliableness” to become able to transform into an Avatar.
  If you choose to turn your Ash Urn of Spirits into an environmental item, this will end your Avatar and you will hold then the Urn in your hands with Urn special skills that are only useable, while you hold your Urn in your hands, exactly like with all other Ash Urns.

Orpheal, your ideas are always entertaining and you always do have some good ideas, but there are some things I want to say….

so far, it seems too much like Ritualist (urns….really?!?). There’s no reason for it. The Revenant is not meant to be the Ritualist’s replacement, even if they share a lot of similarities.

Also this :::

Dimensional Rift (Temporal is so unfitting here too, makes you think as if the Class would create Time Distortions and the only Profession, that should be able to do that would be the Chronomancer, but a rift between dimensions is something different)

The thing is, when your ripping kitten in the fabric of reality like this skill does, you affect all of Space-Time around it. And since Temporal refers to Time in Science, and Physical, Material being in Philosophy and Religion…Temporal actually sounds appropriate, and kind of cooler than a word as boring as Dimension.

I like how some people seem to think they can do the devs’ jobs better. Feel free to go make your own game any day now….

So, now to the comments:

1) By the fact, that under ANets Concept, each legend will change completely out all Healing, Utilities and the Elite Skill, so the complete right side of the Skill Bar.
It is very unlikely, that Revenants under their concept will be even able to use Racials and even if, then you are weakening yourself only massively, because then you have a Skill in your bar, which won’t change based on your active Legend, that will be weaker by design and has a longer Cool Down, than what the normal Utilitys of the Revenent would have.
You even self made a thread about it Knight, how people predict that they should/could work and currently Anet hasn’t confirmed it, that they will be able to use Racials, where I say, in regard of the Class Design it wouldn’t make anyways any sense at all, if they could use them by that half skill bar change concept affecting the right side and not with weapon skills the left side, which is what I would want rather because then it would be no question, that the new class could also use Racials without a problem.
Based on Anets concept, my answer to that is simply, they won’t work at all, because they simply don’t fit into the whole profession gameplay concept about the legends changing the whole right skill bar at once. This just leaves no space for racials by design in my opinion.

2) oh and Argon, please refrain from speaking for everyone ..
I for myself do care for the personal/living story ALOT and what Anet provided so far as infos about this class, I find personally just terrible retconned into the game and lore forced upon our throats, where it would be better to keep class related skill and name terms more neutral, so that it can’t create any lore based racial conflicts betwen a playable class and the multiple different playable races which are more or less or even not at all related to the lore terms in the class mechanics and skills .

3) All I made so far here only, is exchanging name terms to make the concept of the new class based on the information that Anet has given us with the blogpost look more lore neutral, with a class term, that is in fact a profession and not a stolen term of some unfitting real life mythology, that imo has no place in a game like GW2 about something, that would stay better a NPC (Rytlock) only thign for the game and its story, while the more lore neutral form of that should bethe playable version imo for everyone.

It personalyl bugs me simply, that races, like the Norn, the Asuras or especially the Charr should be able to gain powers of some human lore specific demons and dwarfs, to which they have absolutely zero relationship to and thats what I find massively immersion breaking and disturbing about this class concept of Anet, for why it is better, that playable classes should always stay lore neutral, otherwise it makes the Revenent look compared to all other professions like some kind of special snowflake, that must be diffent at all costs, just to be among all other playable professions more “unique”.

4) Another point, that I wanted to show simly with all of this is, how uncreative the Skill Design and overall design of the class is, that you can simply exchange some specific words with other words and the texts reads itself exactly the same, but the design would be completely different and simply more lore neutral, while skill and class mechanics could stay also mostly all intact or would be able to receive additional features, like my addtion with the ash urns being also useable as environmental items, just like they were basically that already in GW1 where they had AoE Effects, while you holded them in your hands, as like also for the environment with bigger range, when put to the ground somewhere.

ANet has stolen the Smokescreen Mechanic of the Thief and just added only Mobility to it, instead of beign a bit more creative and giving the Class a completely different Skill and using this improvement rather with the Thief Specialization.

The same goes for Temporal Rift, which sounds to me juts like copied from Temporal Curtain from the Mesmer and turned for the new class into a line of sight attack skill with pull effect like Temporal Curtain; while it’s already so similar why not give it also a similar skill name to make it even more obvious >.>

Sorry guys, but you have to admit that. Creativity looks different!.
Rehashing existing Skills for new Professions isn’t really, what I would call being creative.
I would find it personally ok for Specializations, but not for complete new Professions.
Something like Temporal Rift would I expect under the Chronomancer Specialization from the Mesmer, that becoming a Chronomancer changes the Skill Temporal Curtain into Temporal Rift …
But Revenants have nothing to do with Time Magic

We know extremely little about the new class, even given the blog post. Perhaps we should actually see what makes it into the game, and see how it actually plays before we start screaming about how it “should” be.

Rehashing skills isn’t anything new either. Such rehashing exists between currently existing class as it stands. There’s actually only so many options when trying to make the classes share similar play options.

Couldn’t you have just quoted the parts you changed and then put a small note on what you changed about it?

Anyways:

Orpheal.8263:

Then it wouldn’t create also problems with the Racial Skill System looking completely incompatible to the new Class and in fact under this design would it be a real profession, that is in fact also a profession and feels also like being one and not just being an undead status taken from a real world mythology.

• How is the racial skills completely incompatible? The last time I looked the Revenant didn’t give up their racial backgrounds.
• Revenant also comes from the Latin meaning of ‘to return’. Quite apt, given a) Rytlock returned from the Mists and b) these legends of the past are returning to the now through ‘possessing’ – for lack of a better word – the Revenant.
• I’d say professions aren’t so much a job than they are a calling: Elementalists feel the call of elemental magic while Rangers feel the call of nature and so on. Revenants feel the call of the Mists, and so their profession is to draw upon the Mists for their power.

Orpheal.8263:

Lore Based Abilities > Lore Neutral Abilities (how professions should be all)

The Revenants abilities are lore neutral, with a basis in lore. Regardless of whether you’re Human, Charr, Norn or Skritt, King Jalis was a historical figure who fought the Destroyers and performed the Rite of the Great Dwarf. Mallyx was a demon in the service of Abbadon. The lore of the world doesn’t change based on race.

What you’re referring to is that they aren’t culture-neutral. King Jalis wasn’t a key figure in the history of the Charr, for example.

However, this doesn’t matter since these figures still existed; since they existed, they can be called upon and Revenants – Rytlock especially – don’t care what they call upon:

“This ties in to bring Rytlock back as the first revenant,” Peters says. “He has a very ‘whatever it takes’ attitude. If he can get powers from Mallyx, he will use them. He’ll do whatever he needs to in order to be more powerful. Revenants are a little bit darker in that way.”

Source

As for the mechanics and lore, I feel that it sounds more interesting rather than getting another weapon swap / attunement swap profession with some half-baked Ritualist skills brought in. Again though, that’s all personal opinion; kinda like how you feel your concept has more depth than the Revenant concept, despite the Revenant being more grounded in the GW universe.

Not to mention if the main mechanic revolves around weapon skills being decided by what Urn you hold, what’s the point of weapons outside of stats? And if you equip and use a weapon, how does the Urn decide the skills since you’re not using the urn? How does one wield an urn and What of utility skills?

Seems to me you didn’t really think that one through (unless you did and it got lost in the wall of text you just swapped a few words out of).

Orpheal.8263:

Mystic Barrier

This is not brand new, this just just a thief’s smokescreen improved with mobility gluing the skill to the characters movement!! Seriously Rocket Science to call something like that brand new ANet!! You invented the cycle new, Congrats)

Rudeness aside, if you can name another skill that follows your movement that destroys projectiles, go ahead. If you can’t, then it’s obviously a brand new skill.

Orpheal.8263:

Axe

Dimensional Rift (Temporal is so unfitting here too, makes you think as if the Class would create Time Distortions and the only Profession, that should be able to do that would be the Chronomancer, but a rift between dimensions is something different)

Temporal can also mean things concerning the worldly rather than spiritual.

Given how the skill is making a rift in the world, how is it unfitting?

I’m not sprinkling ashes of dead things like tinker bell sprinkles fairy dust …. being possessed by a demon or a hero sounds soooo much more kitten.
So have fun with your urns of cremated … stuff, while I use the power of Jalis to smack the living kitten outa ol’ mordy

The Revenant is deeply rooted in the mythos and mechanics of the old game – this is the profession for GW1 players, and I for one am a GW1 player looking forward to making it work. Sure there are some rocky questions left to answer – how the heck does a profession which doesn’t get to pick either its weapon or utility skills get any kind of build flexibility? o_O – but overall, I really like the direction the Revenant’s going.

Yes, it’s a funky class that’s separated out a pretty fair distance from the others. That’s okay. In the lore itself the Rev is a brand-new school which relies on a source of power completely different from anything anyone else does. That should feel different. it should feel new, kinda surreal, possibly even alien, and I think what we’ve seen of the Revenant hits those marks well. It’s a big shout-out to players of the original game who get to see a lot of these legendary figures return, the energy system has a lot of potential – I know, because it was great in GW1 – and c’mon, man.

C’mon.

Magical throwing hammers. Your argument is invalid.

So yes. Let’s cut the scathing condemnation and see what ArenaNet can do with the thing before we decide to tar’n’feather them, shall we? There’s still time to convince them to give us proper utility flexibility, after all, and the rest of it sounds like a blast.

Because magical throwing hammers are awesome.

http://youtu.be/5hfYJsQAhl0

Was this a dissertation for an internship at Anet?

Everyone has the right to speculate and give an opinion, although i think stating how the class should be when all the details aren’t out yet might send the wrong message to others. I can understand what it’s like to have a strong belief, you’re not saying anything against the profession in general but how Anet may; speculation, incorporate the lore around the profession specifically based on the amount of human conquest depicted in the original Gw1. You’re cautious/considering that the lore would not be relate-able to the other races. You’re not alone its completely understandable especially with Rytlock being the first Revenant, where a character will spawn at the start of the personal story, will the missions already depict Zhaitan defeated and etc, however I wouldn’t call the Revanant a black-sheep, but rather an extremely misunderstood Profession with a lot of hidden potential….

The main problem: In my opinion

I think the main issue is that we’re basing the Revenant abilities on the possibility that Anet chose the legend characters before rather than simultaneously, or after knowing/having an idea just how the mechanics would work beforehand for each weapon/utility/etc.

In my opinion, I think the Lore should be viewed as merely a skin; an appearance, of the mechanics rather than the whole basis of the Profession, and should be viewed as an artistic expression? Another issue is that i think many of us are seeing how does the lore relate towards the current conflict in the game. Jalis has a valid reason for being a legend for aiding in the defeat of the Great Destoyer however he didn’t destroy it, but in a sense so does Mallyx even though he’s not related to any of the events, that i know of, in terms of fighting the elder dragons due to still having a hold of the realm of torment; Kormir, similar to Dhuum in the underworld; Grenth, and Balthazar brother he’s still considered a Legend. I really think we should take that into account does the creature have to have any real significants or does it just have to be strong/hard to kill? Both? Neither?

Anyway all the Revenant is doing is channeling; borrowing, power from the mist from past enemies and allies nothing more. All Anet is doing is combining lore themes to skill mechanics that they planned, way beforehand.. Hopefully?

Anyway nothing to get worked up about everything’s going to be alright? Yes? No? Maybe so?

Potato Slayer.3107:

Was this a dissertation for an internship at Anet?

If I were Anet I would not hire this guy. He thinks he can objectively demonstrate flaws in a class that has not even been publicly demo’d yet, using bits of superficial information that was only intended to give players a rough idea of what the class is like. Furthermore he thinks he can do better than Anet by reconstructing the class into something he asserts is better, but which really is just a monument to his personal opinion.

How about we wait till we get the chance to play the Revenant before criticizing its mechanics? I mean personally the class looks a bit convoluted to me, but I’m not going to demand they completely redesign it based on two pictures of the skill bar. Besides, “Visionary” is a dumb name for a class.