Guild Wars 2

Hello GW2 community and ArenaNet.

First of all, I want to thank ArenaNet and the community for creating such a wonderful game. Now before the rage posts start, yes, I personally consider HoT a step backwards in a lot of things. I’m not here to talk about that right now.

I’m going to address this post appropriately.

ArenaNet and especially the Storytellers sitting down and reading this, I’ve a simple request:

We need to know more about the new profession: The Revenant

Let me start by introducing myself. My name is Ailment, and I am currently an Officer in the guild known as Chains of Duty Roleplay Guild [RPcd]. I have over a dozen characters, of which a good all by 2 or so of them are in a position where I play them off and on and can roleplay any of them. This is across genders/races/professions. My main character I play is Ailment Riftblade/Foulmoon, and was the first I started roleplaying with in an MMO setting. Having been with my guild for approximately a year, I’ve seen a lot of different forms and styles to roleplay, and I’ve been impressed, grossed out, and excited by what the community and the lore of the game has offered.

I’ll start from the beginning.

Back when HoT was first given as an idea, we were introduced to the concept of the Revenant. First we saw Rytlock with Sohothin reclaimed in the in-game trailer for HoT, then later trailers gave us a bit more sight to what the Revenant looked like. We also got a snazzy splash image akin to the other classes when they were announced way back at launch.

However, what was the lore behind the abilities that seperated the Revenant from the other classes?

Basically, Revenants… somehow, were able to channel the mists themselves (proto-reality, effectively) to aid allies, harm foes, and traverse the landscapes.

Okay.

Any explanation as to how we channel this power? …okay we summon legends that allow us to have certain utility skills. Fine and dandy, pretty cool concept. Now how do we summon those legends?

…to my knowledge, that has never been answered. Except only vaguely.

Specifically I can recall that in terms of the profession, the Revenant has ‘ties’ to the Canthan Ritualist back in GW1, where the ritualist was summoning spirits of their ancestors, the Revenant is tapping into ‘echoes’ of the mists that resonate with certain legends. Again, no explanation as to how the Revenant does this.

Now I might interpret this one incorrectly, don’t kill me if I do. But the second hint we got to the Revenant is that in order to channel the legends, the Revenant has to keep an open mind.

That didn’t answer a lot of questions I personally had.

So. Currently we have a class with very cool and possibly RP wise very game-breaking abilities (keep in mind, Revenants have access to things like Jade Winds and Impossible Odds, or turning your allies to stone with Rite of the Great Dwarf). And we don’t have a clear explanation also of where this magic was introduced.

Oh wait. They did say how it was introduced. How silly of me! So who introduced it?

Rytlock.

Okay. Currently at this time he’s… in the mists. Somewhere. And next we see him he appears out of the blue (almost literally), summons Glint to knock off a champion while quoting a one-liner.

Okay that’s fine. So long as Rytlock actually explains how to…

“Later Cub.”

…okay. We’ll just wait til later then right?

…right?

Guess not, as Rytlock never explains where he got his new magic. In fact… I’d argue and say that I prefered Warrior Rytlock over Revenant Rytlock. Before he turned into a Revenant, he had a lot more of a personality than he does now. Basically: He shows up, does stuff, then does a few other stuff. That’s Revenant Rytlock.

It’s even more awkward when you are doing the story with a Revenant yourself.

Let’s move away from Rytlock for now. So we don’t have an explanation for how Rytlock brought this magic into the world because we don’t see him actually sitting down and explaining how it works. If it happened at some point following the events of the Story, that implies that if you play a Revenant during this story, it’s effectively non-canon, as if you go under the impression that your character learned how to be a Revenant from Rytlock, then the story already happened.

So let’s focus on the magic itself, and not it’s introduction.

Our explanation for what a Revenant is able to do is basically, they can channel the mists and legends of the past to attack and aid allies. I personally view it in the case where a Revenant is only able to summon these proto-reality magic effects for brief periods of time, before the mist dissipates as they lose form. It’s why Shield 5 and Jade Winds don’t last forever when they, potentially, could.

Imagine if you will every single Revenant out there had access to the permanence of the original Jade Winds. Scary thought, huh?

So how they channel it… well, I wish I could tell. Again, our only clues are that Revenants are loosely tied to Ritualists, and that they keep an open mind (to which that open mind part really answers nothing).

You may be asking at this point why this is important.

Let me paint you this picture: My main character decides to become a Revenant. I have a whole backstory as to how my character achieves this because until there is proof as to how Rytlock spread his teaches across Tyria, I’m not using that as for the origin of Revenant magic within my character.

Now, say my character gets pretty good with this stuff. I start developing more abilities within an RP standpoint, things are looking pretty cool.

Then the inevitable happens. People ask how my character is able to do all this Revenant stuff.

And I have no answer.

Why? Because I honestly don’t know. I can answer how my Necromancer is able to summon the dead, feast off souls, and manipulate Blood Magic. I can explain how my Asura Mesmer uses a mix of Psycho energy and Mesmer Illusions to combat her foes. I can even explain the silly nature that is my Engineer with her crazy ideas and dangerous experiments.

I can’t explain how my main character is able to conjure the magic he wields beyond making my own story for it.

Don’t get me wrong, I love making stories and theories behind how each of my character achieves the profession magic/tactics/technology. It’s just that when a class doesn’t even have a true explanation behind it’s own core mechanic beyond fluff that answers nothing beyond being a description of the magic, you’re kinda wanting to reach for more.

I know that the devs are working hard and the general community is in a very polarizing state, with the majority (vocal one, that is) isn’t exactly happy with how HoT has been going.

Here’s my suggestions to get the ball rolling.

1. Likely already in progress, but have some means of in-game explaning where we got this magic from, show us proof that the person/thing has shown us how to use this magic, and explain a bit more into how we conjure and control this magic.

2. This is the choice I would prefer of the two, while also somewhat addressing #1.

Remember those short stories? Like Rox when she went to Rytlock’s office? Or Marjory when she became a detective? Or even way back when a convoy was going through the Shiverpeaks and they get stopped by Jotun, who lets the convey keep going? An asura, who sacrifices their golem named “Mr. Sparkles”. No it’s not Zojja. This was before she got Mr. Sparkles.

Give us another of those. Give us a short story of either Rytlock, or another unnamed Revenant (who knows, maybe the one we see in the Retribution splash art), and tell a tale. Make it as engaging as the stories before, and explain things. I feel like that would grab all those who want to RP as a Revenant but don’t know how to get their feet wet.

Would this sacrifice from precious Dev time? Yup.
Would it promote sales? Possibly no.

Would it help us connect with your new profession in a more meaningful way and let us promote GW2 further through it’s lore? Oh yes.

I’ll leave this as it is for now. I know, I wrote a lot and basically ranted half the time, but it matters to me. As someone that got attached to this game’s lore and story, I want desperately to see more of it. I want to be able to connect more with my characters, and I feel like there’s a big wall between me and my Revenant because we lack the information we so dearly need to properly immerse ourselves into the profession.

No tl:dr’s, it’s the lore section of the forums.

Thank you again ArenaNet, and I hope you at the very least take time to look at the Revenant and think to yourself; “How can we make this profession even more immersive?”

Because I’ll be honest, taking a Hammer and shockwaving enemies to death is a little… passive, with little ‘oomph’ behind it

Now, from the community of GW2. How would you make the Revenant a better, more immersive profession from a story and lore standpoint? How would you tie the loose threads left by HoT’s story in regards to the profession? And I want to hear from you how you Roleplay the Revenant, because I’m sure some people need some ideas around here as to how we do what we do.

I’ll glance through again and fully read it, but a few main points I saw.

A: Rytlock doesn’t explain it, because he’s not 100% fully sure about it himself. Add in that Rox is PESTERING him for answers in the middle of a very rushed, brutal, TIME IMPORTANT campaign (HoT story is short and brutal), it’s more of a distraction that he’s trying to ignore. It’s not Rytlock being an kitten , it’s Rytlock wanting to get the job done and explain later when things are calm. Rox pestering him in the middle of the missions is more weird for me.
B: The “Non-canon bit” Well, technically, simply playing the personal story as a Revenant is non-canon. Technically, most role-players don’t link themselves as the hero of the story missions.
C: Explaining the skills… “It’s magic”? One person’s description of a necromancer casting a spell may be different from another. There isn’t really a set in stone method/description for most of the magic in GW2 that the players use. We know illusions tend to affect groups since an illusion for a single person is far harder to channel. We know guardians are a kitbash of Ritualist, Monk, and Paragon magic and abilities. We know thief’s shadow-stepping is magic, but I’ve heard various explanations from players for that as well.

From the role-playing standpoint, I’m unsure how the explaining bit truly fits in. A necromancer might understand how their magic involving minions works perfectly, but could they explain it to a mesmer? I personally lean toward the “not really”.

Thank you for making such a sophisticated opening post to begin a discussion on this. I do feel there needs to be more discussion over Revenants and how we feel they work, so people who do RP can decide how to deal with them. (Ive heard a lot of concerns from RP’ers that they don’t know how to play/respond to Revenant characters they make/come across.)

Rytlock is likely stalling out Rox and co. because like you said, hes not 100% about it, so hes probably embarrassed, knowing he can’t explain it, when his personality makes him out to be quite a calculated, deductive character. Its probably also the writer’s way of nodding to the player “We’ll tell you how this works…eventually.”. I believe that LS3 will encompass a lot about Revenants, since ArenaNet has to fill the space between Elder Dragon arcs with something, just as they filled the space between Zhaitan and Mordy with the Scarlet stuff, before the Mordremoth arc kicked off.

As for the personal story involvement with Revenants, I personally like to see it as a disconnection between the story and mechanical elements of GuildWars2. Although somebody can become a Revenant from the get-go, my Revenant character was originally a Warrior who travelled to Orr to fight against The Risen, and later became a Revenant in 1328/9AE (depending on how long the HoT arc lasts in lore.). For the time prior to HoT in her personal timeline as a character, I see her as a Warrior, and in-game when doing the personal story, I just “deal with it”.

In terms of how a Revenant’s magic works, GW2 has a lot of consistency between lore and mechanical elements (which, yes, does contradict my previous paragraph, theres always bound to be kitten somewhere when discussing Revenants.) so I feel like a lot of it can be deducted from what we see in-game.

I feel like Revenants have two distinct types of ability open to them. Generalized Revenant abilities that do not rely on Legends (represented through weapon skills) and the abilities they gain from Invoking a Legend. General abilities likely include the power to enhance their weaponry by conjuring effects from The Mists into their weapon, explaining how their weapons can burn, chill, poison, torment, etc, as well as their ability to evaporate into mist and shadowstep while in this state, as seen with skills like Unrelenting Assault and Frigid Blitz.

Its probable that Invocation is a more advanced technique than basic/general abilities, therefore its likely that there exists Revenants who cannot or choose not to Invoke Legends. Invocation is a more mysterious topic from our point of view, considering Revenants can emulate the techniques of the Legend, and even conjure physical objects from The Mists, such as the Jade Daggers, or Vengeful Hammers. We know Revenants of a reasonable power level (On par with Rytlock or stronger) can open portals to The Mists, as we see Rytlock do in Verdant Brink when he reappears, explaining how they can bring forth objects or even manifestations of legends (Glint’s Facet of Chaos) into the Tyrian world.

Considering it seems currently impossible to siphon magic out of The Mists (otherwise Asurans would’ve been doing it years ago), this means Revenants either operate outside the bounds of regular magic that other professions do. My theory is that although siphoning magic out of The Mists is impossible, it is possible to send magic into The Mists, and in exchange, Revenants are granted their powers, either as a natural exchange from The Mists or an exchange with their Legend, which could be a willing exchange or forced (In the case of Mallyx, who obviously doesn’t want to cooperate with mere mortals.)

I don’t think the powers of a Revenant can possibly be as catastrophic or powerful as things such as the authentic Jade Wind or Rite of The Great Dwarf, due to the fact, as represented in-game, a Revenant’s powers are significantly limited in duration, range or strength. Its also well established in the GW franchise that if a magic-user uses their magic outside the bounds of their capability, they are forced with temporarily damaging their body, or dying. (Such as Koro Sagewind suffering blindness after using her Mesmeric magic to a high degree, or in Sea of Sorrows, there is a Charr character who dies after attempting to ward too much damage using a Wall of Reflection.) Meaning a regular run-of-the-mill Revenant without the levels of magic somebody like Shiro had at the time of the Jade Wind, would certainly die if they attempted to crystallize an area the size of The Jade Sea, and probably fail in the process.

As for how Revenants become their profession…im stumped as well…Its been stated by the Anet lore team that they don’t need to enter The Mists to become a Revenant, and yes, you are correct in saying that all a budding Revenant requires is an “open mind”. That was also stated in the original “Roleplaying The Revenant” lore blog post. Considering the relations between Legends and people in the mortal realm haven’t occurred before Rytlock’s venture into The Mists, its likely that he performed something in there that has enabled people to commune with Legends, to gain access to this new magic/power. What this event is that Rytlock triggered, I can’t really say. It could have something to do with Sohothin’s original nature as a magical artefact, or something completely unrelated. Its for this reason that I believe Ritualism and Revenants are different “things”, considering Ritualism seems to have died out in mainland Tyria (to our knowledge) since we lose contact with Cantha, and nobody in Tyria has since been able to use traditional Ritualist techniques (to our knowledge).

Its true, we need more information on this. Even if its just little snippets here and there like how we have pieced together the mechanics of the other 8 professions. More short stories would always be appreciated, even if it wasn’t about Rytlock. I wouldn’t mind a short story about a new Revenant trying to grasp his/her abilities.

DISCLAIMER: Everything is speculation.

Im going to bed. Thinking about Revenants and metaphysical proto-realities makes my head hurt.