Guild Wars 2

This is something I have mentioned before but I feel it would be better to bring it up here. Now that the Revenant has been reiterated and weapon swap has been added I cant help but feel that the class has lost some of its flavor. The following post isnt intended as a rant its just an interesting idea ^^.

The Revenant can be seen as the heavy armor version of what elementalist and engineer are in their own armor classes. Both the elementalist and the engineer dont have acess to weapon swap and instead utilise other methods to change their skills. Revenent originally mirrored this with its legend swapping ability that enabled the player to gain acess to a new set of utility skills. This however lead to a few problems :

1. Because utiltiy skills are bound to legends only all Revenant playes channeling the same legend would have an Identical skill set (yes they can have diferent weapns and traits equiped but at least in the case of weapon skills they would still be identical for each weapon type). In Gw2 the only true skill costomisation a player has is bound to the utility skills. Yes players of the same class can have diferent weapons equiped but the skills for each weapon can not be changed. This means that appart from traits and armor ( the unseen adaptations) the only trully visible way for a player diferentiate their build from another players is buy costomising their utility skills. A Revenant player can not do this.

2. Because the Revenant originally could only change its utility skills, buy channeling either of the 2 legends it has equiped, without weapon swapping, you can argue that it doesnt have acces to enough skills. Elementalists inability to weapon swap is combated by its 4 elemental atunements and its summoned weapons giving them access to more than double the weapon skills a regular class can use. And engineer deals with its inability to weapon swap by its toolbelt mechanic ant its mulititude of kits. Compared to these 2 classes the Revenant looks a bit underwealming in terms of skill variety.

To fix some of these problems as well as adding some more dps viabilty to the Revenant the devs have made some radical changes to the class. This includes the addition of weapon swapping.

Whilst I think most of these changes are great and am very thakfull for the quick and thorough fix the devs put out some of the initial problems I mentioned remain and some new ones have been created:

The weapon swap fixes the issue of the Revenants previous lack of useable skills (I mean the kitten nal of skills a player can use in a single fight) however, it doesnt fix the Revenants lack of build customisation options in comparison to other classes (as mentioned in point 1 up above) and it also removes some of the classes initial flavor (its unique class mecahnic without weapon swapping similar to the elementalist and the engineer). Heres what I think might improve the class and also fix these problems:

1. Adding at least 1 normal utility to each of the Revenants existing legends. I know that this would mean the Revenant having acces to more untilities than other classes, however, this is balenced by its inability to freely mix and match its utility skills (they are bound to the legends). This change would give players the chance to have more unique builds that diferantiate them from other Revenants channeling the same legend.

2. Binding the Revenants existing weapon swap ability to the Legend swap mechanic. This would mean that whenever you change legends you would also automatically change weapon sets and there wouldnt be a “normal” weapon swap option. This way the weapon swap mechanic would feel unique to the Revenat class and players could define their playstyles more. The legends wouldnt feel identil to oneanother and disconecte from weapon swapping. instead you could define yourself as a staff/ventari and hammer/jalis Revenant. I know this is also a limitation , however, i feel the class would feel more distict because of it. (this sugestion isnt implying the each weapon is bound to each legend and the player cant choose. What it means is that the legend number 1 is always connected to weapon set 1 and that legend number 2 is always connected to weapon set 2.) This slight update to the Revenants weapon swap mechanic also works well with the recent update making legend swaps intantainious.

I would be happy if you guys could write what you think about this suggestion down below and maby even improve it. If a dev happens across this post whilst checking the forums be sure to leave a comment ;D .

Thanks for reading~

I think this is a pretty solid idea. I was confused by the addition of weapon swap in the first place, but I suppose people really wanted it. However, now that we have it, unless they go with the thing that you are suggesting, I don’t know how that’s going to be implemented with the existing stance swap we already have.

I really like the idea of Revenants having a bit more choice when it comes to utilities – the idea of having at least 4 utilities, so I can at least feel like I’m choosing, and 2 elite skills to choose from in each stance does seem fair. Especially since I don’t think I saw the possibility of using our racial skills on the human Revenants in the beta – so even with the extra class-based utility skills, they’d still be at the same number of skills.

Legends always should have been flexible in itselves. Making them rigid was a huge mistake. Weapons never should have been defined as specific matches to legends. That was an incredibly huge mistake.

I think the only real solution to the revenant problem would be adding at least 2 skills to mix and match to each legend, and reworking the weapons so they are useful with every single legend. This provides the customization and flexibility that the prof desperately needs, while improving the special flavor (And focus) of “no weapon swapping +legend swapping + energy management”, and keeping things relatively simple.

However, to make this solution work, it will need MASSIVE effort and patience. I’m talking about revising each weapon thoroughly so they really are useful with different legends. I’m talking about a prof that let you pair a “Healing Staff” with “DPS Shiro”, or the “Ranged Hammer” with “Support ventari” and feel good anyway. That would be the perfect Revenant, IMO.

BUT. People is impatient, developers tire, economy calls and deadlines menace to tsunami everything. So they choose the easy (“cheap” maybe…) route of adding weapon swap. So the first, balanced an only true solution is no more.

Yet their choice creates a new oportunity, and that is what is more interesting this time: Revenant is the first prof that could use two swapings as its exclusive mechanic.
This means a whole new, unique an special flavor for the players, and that is what I think Anet developers should explore, improve and use.

Instead of continuing the stiffening of the class (no choice of utilities, no choice of elites or healing, limited legends, limited weapons) they should keep the two swaps, and work in the combinatorics, the “syntax” of the elements. IMO they should focus on ways to make the swapping more strategic and interesting, adding traits that derives, benefit or consume the opportunities to swap.

Of course, having also the “energy” mechanic make things extremely complex and confuse, and without a good reason, because energy management as it is right now doesn’t add any fun or interest to the mix. So I propose to take out the energy mechanics and keep the double swap instead. Bring back the cool downs for the skills, let us shorten or control them by swapping, etc.

I know the idea could sound weird at this point. But I honestly think it is a better route for the Rev than the half-baked and barely cohesive mechanics and flavor we are getting right now.