Guild Wars 2

I’m intrigued with the new profession coming up and would love to see some speculations on the class mechanics.

We know:
-Heavy Armor
-Channels the powers of the mists
-Uses Sword
-Can channel legends of dead heroes, Malyxx and Jalis confirmed which will change how the Revenant plays (Malyxx for conditions, Jalis for tanky confirmed)

What I’d like to speculate on primarily are:
-Class mechanic (how the F1-F4 skills will work)
-What it means to channel a dead heroes (how and what will it actually change)
-How will we choose who to channel? If it is based on F1-F4 skills then that means it will be limited to only 4. If not tied to those skills permanently then to what are they tied?
-Weapons that may be used (personally I’m convinced they will have staff that is mêlée as shown in the video as I do not believe that was meant to be a spear)
-Any fun speculation on skills we might or want to see

EDIT: Corrected my “F5” mistake to F4

I’d love to see them have a few utilities to summon demons or other denizens of the Mists to fight alongside them. I know this is a blatant rip off of Necromancers, but whereas a Necromancer stands back while his/her minions do the fighting, a Revenant is set up to lead their minions into battle.

As for how the F1-F5 skills work, I’d kind of hope that would be the method Revenants channel dead heroes, and that they could customize that bar. They could work as a kind of variant on Elementalist attunements where, instead of changing what skills you have access to with weapons, you gain a set of buffs and maybe a special F1 kind of semi-ultimate attack or move.

I’m really hoping we’ll see Lord Odran as one of the dead heroes we can channel the power of. Odran feels like he’d be the poster-boy for this profession by human standards, being the first person to gain access to the Mists.

F1-5? Not F1-4?

Scoobaniec.9561:

F1-5? Not F1-4?

Why not add an F5 for the classes? A new Shatter for Mesmers, a new Attunement for Elementalists (Arcane) etc…

F1-5 means 25skills on one weapon set while for example warrior and thief has f1 olny. Not that it would be a bad thing tbh, but i can see him being really OP in this case once mastered.

Mallyx.

Why can no one get his name right? I’ve seen Malice, Malik, Malynx, and Malyxx now.

M A L L Y X.

Mallyx the Unyielding

Anyways, we can’t be sure Revenants use swords, as NPCs – especially Rytlock – and not limited to player profession limitations. As a warrior, Rytlock used a pistol offhand – giving him mechanical access to warrior and thief skills (he used thief pistol 4 and 5 skills with his warrior sword skills 1, 2, and 3).

Anyways, I’m suspecting the profession mechanic to be a mix of engineer and necromancer. Your utility alters your F1-F4 skills, and hitting those skills change your skillbars to “change how you play”. Or it’s possible that they get to directly alter the F1-F4 skills from a set of others (like changing your pet for rangers).

I’m also suspecting no switching weaponsets given that we have 1 light and 1 medium that can’t, and with the description of how summoning spirits works (again: “changes how you play”) I’m betting those will change enough skills to merit no weapon swap.

What if you have to travel to specific places, examine artifacts, or tombs, and it gonna works like Ranger’s charm or something like that. So the more you collect those “Legends” the more you can customize your F1-F4. Also, this might be what you have to choose when you create the Revenent, “I can feel … calling me from the depth of the mists.”, and different race might have a set of initials to choose from.

Anyway, I don’t think it will work exactly like Elementalist’s Attunement, maybe the F1-F4 will just augment the base skills to act differently, but still share the same cool down, and not so much of the Ele “Weapon Swap-ish” Attunement. (Sorry if that sounds confusing.) Maybe I’m wrong, but I just feel like it shouldn’t be exactly the same otherwise it would be the same machenic, just different flavor.

And maybe we get Ashes and Urns.

PS. Sorry for my English.

My assumption is that each weapon will represent a legend and be who we are channeling and if not that then it will be tied to the F skills.

Trock Bronze.9625:

My assumption is that each weapon will represent a legend and be who we are channeling and if not that then it will be tied to the F skills.

That would make no sense as devs claimed " I think the Revenant is going to be one of the most diverse professions that we’ve ever made in Guild Wars history and it’ll allow for a lot of different, fun, and unique play styles as you master each of the legends."

Scoobaniec.9561:

Trock Bronze.9625:

My assumption is that each weapon will represent a legend and be who we are channeling and if not that then it will be tied to the F skills.

That would make no sense as devs claimed " I think the Revenant is going to be one of the most diverse professions that we’ve ever made in Guild Wars history and it’ll allow for a lot of different, fun, and unique play styles as you master each of the legends."

and having the channeling tied to your weapon supports that concept perfectly fine. Utilities and such will still allow for various other channeling though.

I don’t know a whole lot about the class, but i find the concept very interesting.
That idea about the legends being tied to each weapon is cool but i don’t think they will do that. This is what I think the mechanics will be like:

You will only have an F1 skill that has a “Mist bar” similar to a Necro’s Death Shroud. You billed up Mist energy through combat and activate that F1 skill when you want to use your Mist skills. Instead of this energy ticking down with time, like a Necro. It will only deplete when you use your Mist skills. Say… each mist skill uses 25 Mist energy, out of a maximum of 100 mist energy.

The class’s utility skills have a lot of room for the imagination, but I think it would be cool to have one of the Elite skills, transform you into some kind of Ethereal Mist being of pure energy. Meh, we shall see soon enough.

I cannot imagine him being “kit” based.. As for mist bar i dont see it happening either, and if something like that happen i will rethink twice if i want to main him imo.

Imo f1-4 makes sense for me as will become versatile at this point. Also his “swapping” might be based on something completely different as opposed to ele here he olny have cds on attuments. Maybe even something similiar to initation points..

I’d really be hoping for the revenant to have a class specific weapon. Seen that he channels powers from the mists I’d be appropriate to let him wield weapons as such an equip certain gauntlets/gloves which he can use to weapons from the mists. Having said that a potential way to add the class mechanic would be summoning these weapons. Which automatically adds 5 weapon slots to the bar. F1-F4, going from attack to support, double sword/double dagger/dagger/focus – greatsword/hammer – mace shield – staff.

On the weapon slots though, since they’re empty in the previous paragraph, would come either regular weapons (which aren’t shown) or some kind of fist-weapons rev-only.

Would make the rev unique in comparison to the other classes and not just copy paste. :p

EDIT: would give the Revenant a similar mechanic to Elementalists, but where Ele’s have offensive/defensive/support attacks combined in 1 attunement. The rev would have them seperated to the specific weapon-mode.

The F abilities will probably be similar to the Elementalist but instead of elements it will change the skills based on past “Heroes” like Mallyx etc.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Anyways, we can’t be sure Revenants use swords, as NPCs – especially Rytlock – and not limited to player profession limitations. As a warrior, Rytlock used a pistol offhand – giving him mechanical access to warrior and thief skills (he used thief pistol 4 and 5 skills with his warrior sword skills 1, 2, and 3).

It isn’t just Rytlock having a sword that confirms the sword, because yes they have allowed special NPC break the normal weapon rules. But if you look the official HoT page (https://heartofthorns.guildwars2.com/en/?_ga=1.22450553.337407818.1416884160) they have a human looking Revenant that is also wielding a sword. If they don’t give Revenant a sword, they’ll have a riot.

As for the mechanic of the F1-4 I’m still up in the air. I really hope it isn’t a static hero you channel as that would limit the heroes to only 4 which would be sad to me.

It might be interesting if various traits change your F1-4 skills. Though honestly I’m not sure exactly how this would work. I’m just trying to figure something out that doesn’t get too close to the utility belt F1-4 skills of the Engi or the attunements of the Ele.

MangoMonkey.7582:

I’d really be hoping for the revenant to have a class specific weapon.

Unlikely – ArenaNet hasn’t put any class-specific weapons in the original game thus far (closest is weapons that are only available to two professions, currently mace, hammer, the two bows, and rifle IIRC). Anything unique to the profession becomes a mechanic instead, like engineer kits.

It’s possible that the Revenant is also a one-weapon only class like Elementalist or Engineer. Their Utility skills are a bunch of “Summon” skills, which alter the effects of their weapon (maybe skills 4-5 change depending on which Legend you’re channeling), and their Elite skill are Elite Summons, such as Mallyx.

Some Summons might also be transform skills, and they alter your entire bar.

Zaxares.5419:

It’s possible that the Revenant is also a one-weapon only class like Elementalist or Engineer. Their Utility skills are a bunch of “Summon” skills, which alter the effects of their weapon (maybe skills 4-5 change depending on which Legend you’re channeling), and their Elite skill are Elite Summons, such as Mallyx.

Some Summons might also be transform skills, and they alter your entire bar.

I’ve thought of similar aspects, but the problem I run into with this is that, mechanically, this sounds way too similar to elementalist attunements. That said, I do believe this class will not have weapon swap activated though.

Oh, no, the weapon changes are just from their utility skills. Their profession mechanic might be something altogether different. I’m thinking it’ll probably be similar to Adrenaline, Initiative or Death Shroud in that it powers how long/often the Revenant can channel their Legend.

Wouldn’t it be cool if Revenants got a boon when party members died nearby? Channelling ‘’past heros’’ to give themselves a powerful boon. Would be awesome to see in dire situations when your team is backed into a corner.

Stillstanden.5874:

Wouldn’t it be cool if Revenants got a boon when party members died nearby? Channelling ‘’past heros’’ to give themselves a powerful boon. Would be awesome to see in dire situations when your team is backed into a corner.

“Just die will you so I can get more might!”

Have to admit there is a certain appeal to that (especially in zerg play both in PvE and WvW). Can’t see them doing this, but kudos for the excellent idea.

So…

Are you suggesting that revenants might bring with them the return of IWAY? :P

Nooooo!

If IWAY returns, I want it to be an Elite Warrior shout.

I think there won’t be any weapon swapping for them, channel legends with F1-F4, but i think there will be more than 4 legends, so out of combat, they will be able to change those. I think they will have lower amout of weapons than any other class because, if they had more weapons, and we take like 8 legends, that is 40 skills for 1 weapon. Or maybe some legends will be limited to specific weapons? Just my 2 cents.

I hope it’s none of those. I really do. We already have Elementalists and Engineers. If a Revenant gets to freely channel different Heroes as his class mechanic I think both Ele’s and Engi’s will be justifiably kittened.
Because that’s basicly taking the best of both their thing and molding it together with none of the drawbacks and throwing Heavy armor on top. An Engimentalist.

Terrahero.9358:

I hope it’s none of those. I really do. We already have Elementalists and Engineers. If a Revenant gets to freely channel different Heroes as his class mechanic I think both Ele’s and Engi’s will be justifiably kittened.
Because that’s basicly taking the best of both their thing and molding it together with none of the drawbacks and throwing Heavy armor on top. An Engimentalist.

engi’s can choose their kits…. Not all kits are that good (it depends on where u are, all of them can be usefull somewhere though) but maybe those channels of the revenant aren’t that good aswell…

Terrahero.9358:

I hope it’s none of those. I really do. We already have Elementalists and Engineers. If a Revenant gets to freely channel different Heroes as his class mechanic I think both Ele’s and Engi’s will be justifiably kittened.
Because that’s basicly taking the best of both their thing and molding it together with none of the drawbacks and throwing Heavy armor on top. An Engimentalist.

Armor doesnt matter in this game. Its a cosmetic thing. When people will learn..

Heavy armour does have a higher base defence rating than medium armour, which has higher base defence rating than light armour. Basically, your armour class is the equivalent of a Toughness bonus, just like some classes have higher base health than others.

Examples:
Exotic level 80 heavy chestplate: Defense 363
Exotic level 80 medium jerkin: Defense 338
Exotic level 80 light tunic: Defense 314

That’s effectively 50 toughness worth in a single piece, and other pieces drop by a comparable amount (the least important piece mechanically, the shoulders, is 73 on a light and 121 on a heavy, so spread among six pieces you’re looking at a difference of a little under 300 toughness worth). Now, the equipment you choose to use does play a role as well – that difference is quickly subsumed by item stats, so an engineer with full Soldier’s is likely less glassy than a warrior with full Berserker’s – but the heavy armour classes do get a leg up there.

Terrahero.9358:

I hope it’s none of those. I really do. We already have Elementalists and Engineers. If a Revenant gets to freely channel different Heroes as his class mechanic I think both Ele’s and Engi’s will be justifiably kittened.
Because that’s basicly taking the best of both their thing and molding it together with none of the drawbacks and throwing Heavy armor on top. An Engimentalist.

I think there are various ways of adding its own drawbacks. For instance:

1) Channelling a legend could have a limited duration as well as a cooldown. So a revenant might end up having to fight without a legend at all for much of the time, and having to make tactical decisions about when it is worth popping an elite. (This would also allow uptime to be a balancing factor)

2) They might have less available. An elementalist has four attunements – an engineer can have up to three kits plus their basic weapon (not including the medkit here, because that’s not something you usually use as a weapon). If a revenant could only have, say, two legends ready to go at any time, they have less overall versatility after combat starts than an elementalist or a full kit engineer.

3) The legends could be like other transformations and the like, and transform your ENTIRE skillbar, not just the weapons.

At the moment, we can’t really say whether it’s going to be unbalanced without seeing how it works. To be honest, my main concern about revenant as a no-weaponswap profession could be that you end up getting stuck at a particular combat range even worse than elementalists can be… particularly if the first of the options listed above is used.

Speculations, you say. I can speculate.

The following are my guesses:

Revenant.

Weapons:
Staff, Sword, Torch, Focus, Dagger, Spear (underwater)

I also speculate that this will be a non-weaponswapping profession.

Specialisation:
“The Ritualist”
Unique abilities: Summoning ghosts of heroes of the past. Much like Mesmer Phantasms. Imagine a large, ghostly Mallyx?

Revenant Profession Abilities [F1-4 skills]
This is a tough one. Perhaps these skills invoke powers of past heroes, and much like the Engineer’s toolbelt skills, change depending on your utility skills. I imagine the Revenant’s utility skills might well be named after past heroes – we have plenty of Monks to name the healing skills after, right? “Alessia’s Curse: For 3 seconds you expect to be healed, but realise Alessia’s ghost is half way across the map aggroing some more mobs.”

draxynnic.3719:

.

My concern was mostly about what a lot of people seem to think. A lot of different Heroes to channel, which are activated like attunements, but can be equipped like kits without taking a utility slot. I think only one person actually mentioned the likely possibility of Revenants not having Weaponswap in that situation.

So I compared it to Ele and Engi. That all those things would honestly be ludicrous as it would be a super Ele/engi hybrid with all of the advantages and none of the drawbacks. And that makes all these speculations very unlikely.

There are a number of ways to go about the Channeling, as you mentioned. We just don’t know anything about the Revenant and his class mechanic really.

draxynnic.3719:

Heavy armour does have a higher base defence rating than medium armour, which has higher base defence rating than light armour. Basically, your armour class is the equivalent of a Toughness bonus, just like some classes have higher base health than others.

Examples:
Exotic level 80 heavy chestplate: Defense 363
Exotic level 80 medium jerkin: Defense 338
Exotic level 80 light tunic: Defense 314

That’s effectively 50 toughness worth in a single piece, and other pieces drop by a comparable amount (the least important piece mechanically, the shoulders, is 73 on a light and 121 on a heavy, so spread among six pieces you’re looking at a difference of a little under 300 toughness worth). Now, the equipment you choose to use does play a role as well – that difference is quickly subsumed by item stats, so an engineer with full Soldier’s is likely less glassy than a warrior with full Berserker’s – but the heavy armour classes do get a leg up there.

And yet you forgot to mention that light classes are tankier than heavy like d/d ele despite the fact that difference in armor between light and medium is 301 exacly.. Play pvp a bit so maybe you understand why i said that armor is just a cosmetic thing. Not to mention that toughness has dimishing returns when you stack it..

Scoobaniec.9561:

And yet you forgot to mention that light classes are tankier than heavy like d/d ele despite the fact that difference in armor between light and medium is 301 exacly.. Play pvp a bit so maybe you understand why i said that armor is just a cosmetic thing. Not to mention that toughness has dimishing returns when you stack it..

That is a variable because of the build. That d/d Ele would objectively be even tankier if it was suddenly allowed to use Heavy armor.

Terrahero.9358:

Scoobaniec.9561:

And yet you forgot to mention that light classes are tankier than heavy like d/d ele despite the fact that difference in armor between light and medium is 301 exacly.. Play pvp a bit so maybe you understand why i said that armor is just a cosmetic thing. Not to mention that toughness has dimishing returns when you stack it..

That is a variable because of the build. That d/d Ele would objectively be even tankier if it was suddenly allowed to use Heavy armor.

Yeah thats the point. Build is what makes you tanky, not the armor itself. Protection alone reduces dmg by 33% which counts as wearing second armor worth about 2,7k toughness.

So, from this interview, they’ve said the Revenant uses the Mists to enhance their skills. The actual quote being:

it uses the Mists in almost all of its weapon skills. Things from the way that it swings its attacks, channel the power of the Mists to enhance and empower those moves

I should note that this explanation was given BEFORE they went on to mention how the Revenant channels spirits, and connected the two mechanics with ‘it is also able to’.

From this I’d imagine they have a Dervish-like mechanic where they spend some sort of resource to give skills extra effects.

Scoobaniec.9561:

Terrahero.9358:

Scoobaniec.9561:

And yet you forgot to mention that light classes are tankier than heavy like d/d ele despite the fact that difference in armor between light and medium is 301 exacly.. Play pvp a bit so maybe you understand why i said that armor is just a cosmetic thing. Not to mention that toughness has dimishing returns when you stack it..

That is a variable because of the build. That d/d Ele would objectively be even tankier if it was suddenly allowed to use Heavy armor.

Yeah thats the point. Build is what makes you tanky, not the armor itself. Protection alone reduces dmg by 33% which counts as wearing second armor worth about 2,7k toughness.

But armor still matters.

A medium armor class going all out toughness on his equipment will still have less than a heavy armor.
The idea is that traits and skills “balance” everything out. But you cannot ignore the boosted toughness heavy armor gets when you make that balance. So it is relevant, it matters.

And this is made far more complicated and apparent when you consider that heavy armor is always active. It is a free boost in survivability over lighter types of armor. But not all traits or skills contribute to being more durable.
So heavy armor is a free survivability boost that needs lighter armor classes to sacrifice trait points or utility slots for to catch up to.

Or to put it simply. A warrior and ele who both completely ignore defensive stats, traits and skills. The warrior will be considerably more durable from having much higher toughness and a much larger health pool.
For the ele to get on the same level of durability as the warrior he has to invest traits, utility skills or stats towards that end. So absolutely it matters to have heavy armor.

In this case its down to hp pool. A necro will take on chest similiar amount of damage, but lets not even forget that he has 2 life bars actually.. And while i cant ignore that 300 extra armor mechanics of classes makes up for it. You cant just look in terms “uh but that guy has higher armor means hes tanker” as its completely not true. Armor is just a passive defense which is much weaker than active one.

A bit more information from a recent interview. Sounds to me like it is a partial transform when channeling a legend in that weapon skills remain, but heal/utility/elite skills are changed. Though I wonder if this means that the skills are static per legend, or if the legend changes how each of these skills you chose functions a bit. I’m guessing the later and that seems VERY interesting to me.

“Johanson explains to me: “[Channelling a legend] actually changes out the entire back-half of your skillbar, so your heal skill, your utilities and your elite are all determined by the Legend you are currently channelling.” Apparently there are traits that “play off” these abilities and combo strongly.

How many Legends the Revenant will be able to call upon hasn’t yet been decided. A few more or many more? “We’ll just have to see,” he says squirming a little. Johanson was similarly coy about how the Revenant would actually mechanically channel Legends and switches between them."

Source: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-01-29-guild-wars-2-heart-of-thorns-expansion-level-cap-gear-tier

Scoobaniec.9561:

draxynnic.3719:

Heavy armour does have a higher base defence rating than medium armour, which has higher base defence rating than light armour. Basically, your armour class is the equivalent of a Toughness bonus, just like some classes have higher base health than others.

Examples:
Exotic level 80 heavy chestplate: Defense 363
Exotic level 80 medium jerkin: Defense 338
Exotic level 80 light tunic: Defense 314

That’s effectively 50 toughness worth in a single piece, and other pieces drop by a comparable amount (the least important piece mechanically, the shoulders, is 73 on a light and 121 on a heavy, so spread among six pieces you’re looking at a difference of a little under 300 toughness worth). Now, the equipment you choose to use does play a role as well – that difference is quickly subsumed by item stats, so an engineer with full Soldier’s is likely less glassy than a warrior with full Berserker’s – but the heavy armour classes do get a leg up there.

And yet you forgot to mention that light classes are tankier than heavy like d/d ele despite the fact that difference in armor between light and medium is 301 exacly.. Play pvp a bit so maybe you understand why i said that armor is just a cosmetic thing. Not to mention that toughness has dimishing returns when you stack it..

I specifically mentioned that build (at least the equipment side of things) has more of an influence. I didn’t specifically mention the effect of heals and defensive skills, since I thought that went without saying.

However, armour class does have an effect, and all else being equal, having a heavier armour class is an advantage over having a lighter armour class. Since all else is not equal, however, actual durability needs to take into account a host of other factors that, for the revenant, we do not currently know. However, the claim that it does not matter at all is a falsehood. (It is correct to say that armour class is not necessarily reflective of overall durability.)

I would love for the Revenant to be able to summon your character from guild wars 1, in a similar way to the mistborn wolves you get from the digital deluxe editon, in that it’s not a super awesome skill, it’s just something really cool for people who played the original game.

Revenant chooses 3 out of a pool of legends, similar to Ranger and pets.

The legend changes the back half of skill bar.

So Heals, utilities, and Elites all function as a sort of Glyph that changes based on what Channel you are in.

Knighthonor.4061:

Revenant chooses 3 out of a pool of legends, similar to Ranger and pets.

The legend changes the back half of skill bar.

So Heals, utilities, and Elites all function as a sort of Glyph that changes based on what Channel you are in.

they said that channeling a legend will change the skills, not change the way they work. I still have hope…

MrTJpwnz.4710:

Knighthonor.4061:

Revenant chooses 3 out of a pool of legends, similar to Ranger and pets.

The legend changes the back half of skill bar.

So Heals, utilities, and Elites all function as a sort of Glyph that changes based on what Channel you are in.

they said that channeling a legend will change the skills, not change the way they work. I still have hope…

They also made a distinction between channeling the mists to power your skills, and channeling legends. Perhaps legends are transforms or something similar that changes the skills all together, and channeling the mists adjusts skills. Or perhaps a combination. Maybe you choose your legend (or two) and when you channel the mist to power your skills, it changes the skills themselves, then when you actually channel the legend the skills change completely.

I think it’s that channeling the legends is what causes changes to your skills, but ALL of the skills, regardless of whether you have a legend up or not, are drawing power from the Mists. The distinction is whether you’re pulling power from a specific legend or from the Mists in general.

will you have to unlock the skills of a particular legend with skill points or will they be more like engineer packs?

I want to know what happens to the healing utilities and elite skill, so these skills correct me if I’m wrong change depending on the legend U call forth and channel through the mists right? So would this maybe mean that we don’t get any utility healing or elite skills to set up? Or will we have a way to exit and use a custome guild too? Just interested in what’s going on there

Puls.5867:

I want to know what happens to the healing utilities and elite skill, so these skills correct me if I’m wrong change depending on the legend U call forth and channel through the mists right? So would this maybe mean that we don’t get any utility healing or elite skills to set up? Or will we have a way to exit and use a custome guild too? Just interested in what’s going on there

The answer relies very heavily on which school of thought you prescribe to. Some think that the back half of the skillbar will change the skills to entirely new skills when you channel. Others believe the skills will act similar to an Ele glyph and change function when you channel. Still others think the skills will be fundamentally the same, but add things based on which legend you are channeling.

Personally I think the latter. I believe that the skills will remain fundamentally the same, but have things added to them (similar to when a trait adds to skills). I think if you channel Jalis, many of the skills will also give you protection, stability, aegis, etc.. When you channel Mallyxx your skills will transfer conditions, convert boons to conditions, and strip conditions from allies.

Puls.5867:

I want to know what happens to the healing utilities and elite skill, so these skills correct me if I’m wrong change depending on the legend U call forth and channel through the mists right? So would this maybe mean that we don’t get any utility healing or elite skills to set up? Or will we have a way to exit and use a custome guild too? Just interested in what’s going on there

My guess is that legends can only be channeled for a secific time (similar to channeling meteor storm, just longer) and you get a heal and elite + 3 utilities specialized to that legend.
The elite could be, for example for mallyx, that it deals damage proportional to the conditions on the enemy and his heas is to eat up all conditions on your and up to 4 (many skills are limited to 5 players, therefore 5 allies + yourself) nearby allies to heal yourself.
Jalis’ heal good be healing and blocking/returning damage for some seconds. I have no imagination what an elite could be for jalis though.