Guild Wars 2

Considering Revenants have an energy bar (seen in today’s blog post), similar to the Thief, does this mean Revenant will have no recharge time also like the Thief?

I can’t imagine them having both an energy bar/initiative cost for skills, AND a recharge time, that would put them at a massive disadvantage to other professions.

Looks like that only the utility skills consume the energy bar, so those won’t have cooldowns. There weapons won’t consume energy so we’ll have cooldowns there.

EDIT: Pretty much the opposite of thieve.

Belzebu.3912:

Looks like that only the utility skills consume the energy bar, so those won’t have cooldowns. There weapons won’t consume energy so we’ll have cooldowns there.

EDIT: Pretty much the opposite of thieve.

Roy Cronacher.1576:

There is a mix of recharge and energy/upkeep costs for the Revenant skills. Every skill doesn’t necessarily have recharge though.

Makes sense. I had a feeling it would be something like that. Revenant feels like its taken a little bit from lots of the professions.

It’s weapons sound like Mesmer.
It’s got a system akin to Thief’s Initiative
Ranger’s pets in the form of “legends”

Belzebu.3912:

Looks like that only the utility skills consume the energy bar, so those won’t have cooldowns. There weapons won’t consume energy so we’ll have cooldowns there.

EDIT: Pretty much the opposite of thieve.

actually in a polygon article, it was confirmed weapon skills also consume energy.

also, not all utility skills are necessarily cooldown-free. i imagine the upkeep skills might be though.

Roy Cronacher.1576:

There is a mix of recharge and energy/upkeep costs for the Revenant skills. Every skill doesn’t necessarily have recharge though.

Hey Roy, what made Anet go back to a traditional energy+cooldown system? Is it merely playing around GW1’s nostalgia, or do you recognize it as having its own merits as a balancing and high-risk/ high-reward tool?

I personally find it to be a really powerful balancing tool, and energy management also creates an interesting mini-game that remains exciting even in the easiest pve encounters, so I’m happy with it coming back.

Roy Cronacher.1576:

There is a mix of recharge and energy/upkeep costs for the Revenant skills. Every skill doesn’t necessarily have recharge though.

Are some of the existing skills going to get redesigned with the new boons/conditions?

Curious if other professions might get a resource in the future. Would be cool.

Argon.1563:

Ranger’s pets in the form of “legends”

Am I missing something? How is this comparable to pets at all?

Andred.1087:

Argon.1563:

Ranger’s pets in the form of “legends”

Am I missing something? How is this comparable to pets at all?

I think he means that you can have two ‘equipped’ at the same time and swap between them.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Roy Cronacher.1576:

There is a mix of recharge and energy/upkeep costs for the Revenant skills. Every skill doesn’t necessarily have recharge though.

Hey Roy, what made Anet go back to a traditional energy+cooldown system? Is it merely playing around GW1’s nostalgia, or do you recognize it as having its own merits as a balancing and high-risk/ high-reward tool?

I personally find it to be a really powerful balancing tool, and energy management also creates an interesting mini-game that remains exciting even in the easiest pve encounters, so I’m happy with it coming back.

well thieves already had to deal with resource management, though most non-thieves swear it’s actually just a free card to spam the same skill over and over.

Interesting. Could you take a moment to compare and contrast it to Thieves then?

Nike.2631:

Interesting. Could you take a moment to compare and contrast it to Thieves then?

Thieves can spam while revenants need to think about it. :P

DiogoSilva.7089:

Nike.2631:

Interesting. Could you take a moment to compare and contrast it to Thieves then?

Thieves can spam while revenants need to think about it. :P

Not quite this. Initiative is a more “short view” system. There aren’t any “ultra moves” in the thief toolkit that you’d want to build a full far to unleash.

Basically, Initiative is more of a shared cooldown system rather than a resource management one. It spends fast, but regens quite fast as well, and functions specifically to allow thieves to have a greater access to their skills while preventing them from endlessly spamming them.

Revenant energy is more like the mana bars in GW1, it’s about taking a long view of combat, as you’ll need to make tradeoffs around it’s regen or degen effects, often at the expense of using other skills, and you’re going to have to modify that energy management game plan via swapping of hero channels, so it’s a very weighty system that requires a lot of attention, more like mes clones.

Basically, initiative is built to encourage reactionary play, while rev energy seems to be built around preparatory play.

I’d definitely prefer no cooldowns but I was expecting them on elites.

A shame they can’t balance without them – with eg. something like an extra energy bar for the better skills, or just a much higher cost for them – but it’s still better than most other professions (for my tastes).