Guild Wars 2

Okay, I know its been a while since HoT launched but I’d like to address an issue that’s been bugging me since the expansion launched. Revenant is not a complete profession. Although it is enough of a profession to be very playable it is by no means a complete profession and lags seriously behind the other 8. Although the revenant does have some excellent builds they are very few and lack real diversity between them. The Revenant really suffers from the same afflictions that really plagued the Paragon in Guild Wars 1 and I’d have hoped that Arena Net wouldn’t have made the same mistake with this profession being an expansion profession. So I’ll address the issues that I see with the profession and offer up suggestions that’ll help round out the profession to give real diversity that it desperately needs.

1. More Stun breaks: I know a few of you are typing away now going “WOAH WOAH WOAH! The revenant has it way too easy a time stun breaking!” And You are correct. However I’d like to point out that the only reason that the revenant can stun break so easily and frequently is because of Invocation. Empty Vessel is an absolutely amazing trait and without it the revenant has an extremely hard time dealing with CC. Outside of that they have Shiro, Jalis and Glint each having a stun break respectively. This is a major issue because this means that they pretty much have to run invocation in order to make any build effective. Each other profession has a minimum of 6 stun breaks with some having more. This means that the revenant has HALF the number of stun breaks that everyone else has(not including traits). With how limited the legends are each of them should by all rights have a stun break on them. This woudn’t improve the current builds that are currently out there much aside from Mallyx.

2. Second Ranged weapon: I think it goes without saying that everyone wants a second ranged weapon for Revenant. I DON’T agree that it should be part of an elite specialization since the revenant is so extremely limited as it is. They absolutely need a second one. Either a hybrid condi/power or pure condi weapon. As it stands the hammer does absolutely nothing for a condi build and the lack of a ranged weapon for condi seriously hurts the revenant.

3. More Skills/another legend: Again this needs to be base. Each legend should have 5 potential utility skills that they can use or they need another core legend. Either way they need something to offset the difference between them and other professions so they can absolutely keep up with them.

4. Second Underwater weapon and more usable Legends: Their spear is kind of a mess. Its trying to do too many things and falling very short of everything its trying to do. They also need more legends that are usable underwater especially considering you can’t separately set legends for land and water.

I think that’s it for the moment. I really do enjoy the profession but its just not a complete profession. I’d like to see more things added to the base profession to give it the versatility that the other professions absolutely do have at the moment. I’m looking forward to hearing from you and would love to hear from a dev, though I understand if you can’t. Do note that this criticism isn’t out of any sort of malice. I understand that you were under a pretty big time limit when HoT was supposed to be released. I do feel that these issues need to be addressed though so that it doesn’t stay in the same trap that the Paragon got stuck in. Thank you for your time.

1. Lolwhat? Man did u ever heard of dodge? Rev have 2 passive stun breaks in Retrebution, Rev has good endurance replenishment due Retro and Shiros Riposite Shadow so the lack of stun breaks in Ventari\Mallyx is a part of counter play.
2. Here ill think agree dat Rev needs some condi range weapon long bow will do and without any specs just a weapon nothing more.
3. We dont need new legends we need fix for our current legends.
4. Underwater weapon is ok, 90% of time u r on the ground not underwater.

Atm Rev is good as it is he only needs some fixes nothing more.

serj.8214:

1. Lolwhat? Man did u ever heard of dodge? Rev have 2 passive stun breaks in Retrebution, Rev has good endurance replenishment due Retro and Shiros Riposite Shadow so the lack of stun breaks in Ventari\Mallyx is a part of counter play.

Actually, no its not called counter play. Its called an unnecessary limitation. It forces you take Invocation on any build which seriously limits build diversity. Counter play is when you are playing around another player’s skills to strip them of their advantage. Not fumbling around your own.

Lily.1935:

serj.8214:

1. Lolwhat? Man did u ever heard of dodge? Rev have 2 passive stun breaks in Retrebution, Rev has good endurance replenishment due Retro and Shiros Riposite Shadow so the lack of stun breaks in Ventari\Mallyx is a part of counter play.

Actually, no its not called counter play. Its called an unnecessary limitation. It forces you take Invocation on any build which seriously limits build diversity. Counter play is when you are playing around another player’s skills to strip them of their advantage. Not fumbling around your own.

Your vision of counter play is kinda wrong =\ If u will have resistance from Mallyx and stun break without putting invoc spec so then Anet will take some dmg\utility\def capablities from Mallyx skills. So its good as it is.

serj.8214:

Lily.1935:

serj.8214:

1. Lolwhat? Man did u ever heard of dodge? Rev have 2 passive stun breaks in Retrebution, Rev has good endurance replenishment due Retro and Shiros Riposite Shadow so the lack of stun breaks in Ventari\Mallyx is a part of counter play.

Actually, no its not called counter play. Its called an unnecessary limitation. It forces you take Invocation on any build which seriously limits build diversity. Counter play is when you are playing around another player’s skills to strip them of their advantage. Not fumbling around your own.

Your vision of counter play is kinda wrong =\ If u will have resistance from Mallyx and stun break without putting invoc spec so then Anet will take some dmg\utility\def capablities from Mallyx skills. So its good as it is.

it really isn’t good as is. You should honestly read the whole thing. Because Mallyx isn’t the only thing that’s hurt by this decision. Increasing the number of skills to 4-5 on each legend or adding a new legend can address some of these issues. Example, the necromancer has a skill that converts conditions into boons and is also a stun break. Not only that but it converts boons from allies. I’m not saying its strictly better than Pain absorption but its also not limited by a legend. A necromancer doesn’t have to take all wells to make use of Well of power while a revenant absolutely has to take Mallyx in order to use that skill. Not only that because Mallyx doesn’t have a stun break in it they need to take Invocation for Empty Vessel. Too much focus on a single trait line is extremely problematic and we’ve seen this in the past with other professions. Necromancer, Elementalist, Mesmer, Thief to name some that I remember off the top of my head that absolutely had major problems with way to heavy of a reliance on a single trait line.

Secondly Empty Vessel should probably be a grandmaster trait and not a minor trait. Though thats a discussion for another time.

What are 90-100% of all Revenant builds running? Invocation. If you are not running it you are doing it wrong. And that is a serious issue. This limits build diversity by a third. Which is huge. And at least 80% of them are Running Herald(Just guesses on my part for percentage but from what I’ve seen that’s about accurate). This is an absolutely devastating situation for the future of the Revenant profession. That means that you have 1 choice to actually make when it comes to trait lines. This is a problem and its partially because of Empty Vessel and the revenant’s serious lack of stun breaks outside of that.

At Minimum, each other profession has 6 stun break skills. And every single profession has at least one trait that breaks stun, while some have multiple. Warrior has 4, necromancer has 2, Elementalist has 3. Even here the Revenant lags behind the other profession with only 1 trait that stun breaks. While they do have a few traits that benifit from stun break this isn’t the argument I’m making.

Empty Vessel is extremely potent and powerful, without question. But that’s not a good thing for the balance of the profession. Too much focus on any one trait line is bad for the profession and can cause stagnation in the profession.

I’m glad that you like the revenant as it is. I like the revenant too. If I didn’t care about the profession I wouldn’t be posting. So I ask you to please try and see it from my perspective. I’ve been around long enough in the game and have excellent foresight for these sort of things. So I’d ask you to at least consider what I have to say.

The more I read the more I get an idea that u didnt play Rev at all or played him for couple of hours. First at all if Neckro uses his stun breaker signet “say hi to conditions” Neckro is another class with his own mechanic and war\thief\ele to so there is a reason why 1 class is strong in 1 things and weak at anothers lets say it how balance goes. Why neckro players dont QQ about that the dont have a gap closers for 1200 units like Rev? because it would be to OP for their class. Mallyx not only give resist to you but to ur 4 mates to and it has 0 CD in compare to neckros signet.
You saying dat Rev doesnt has nay stun breakers without invoc trait line) lol have you read Retribution traits? there is 2 stunbreakers! 2 stun breakers! 2 man!)))
You saying dat others classes has 6 or close to it SB(stun breakers) but REv isnt other classes) other classes has a good range AoE potential but u dont complain about dat)
And yes after HoT not only Rev runs with elite spec(legend) but all other classes to so its normal) yeah there are some ppl who dont run elite specs\legends. I seen many Revs who running shiro\malyx or malyx\glint on sPvP even on WvWvW ive seen a guy whos build was shiro\mallyx and Im to runing Glint\Mallyx so there are a variety of exapmles) And yes i know dat 90% of ppl runs meta build but its so with every classes.
And man u dont neeed another 4-5 skills on every legends u already has 5 utilitys from every legend+5 skill from weapon and in total 5 weapon skills*2 + 5 legend skills*2=20 skills and Facet Of Nature if u got elite spec its +1 and 21 total skills) only Ele has more 25 skills and u wanna beat dat record? By another 10 skills above our 21 to get 31 skills?)
Ele has 3 trats dat can SB? I know just 1 trait. War has a stun breaker with 10 sec CD from Elite spec just deal with it.
Some classes has sustain, others sustained dmg, others burst, some1 is more mobile its MMORPG game here couldnt be dat 1 class would got all strong parts then we will would play “Revenants Wars 2” not GW2 ^^

Retribution gives you no stun breaks….it gives 1 proc on CC (protection on you, slow on the enemy) and versed in stone which is crap compared to empty vessel because it can trigger while you are not stuned.

Ow and I know you can get stability on dodge from Retribution….thing is you can remove stability by using a weaker CC and then stun – for example: immobile to wipe the stability then serve the stun – what I am trying to say is that thing with Stability on dodge is not a stun breaker,its a means to prevent getting stuned.

Also excluding traits Warrior has 5 stun breakers WITHOUT THE ELITE and not 1 with the elite like you claim!. And because war is my main I am gonna name them for you: Endure Pain, Balanced Stance, Frenzy, Dolyak Signet and Shake it Off.

Also I agree with Lily in the sense that too many viable builds use either Invocation,Herald or both. I would love to be able to play Malyx with Jallis as a condi rev without being scared of geting stuned in Malyx because I don’t run kittening Invocation. And not get me started with Ventari’s stance….that thing actualy sucks with Invocation (in my experience at least).

serj.8214:

The more I read the more I get an idea that u didnt play Rev at all or played him for couple of hours. First at all if Neckro uses his stun breaker signet “say hi to conditions” Neckro is another class with his own mechanic and war\thief\ele to so there is a reason why 1 class is strong in 1 things and weak at anothers lets say it how balance goes. Why neckro players dont QQ about that the dont have a gap closers for 1200 units like Rev? because it would be to OP for their class. Mallyx not only give resist to you but to ur 4 mates to and it has 0 CD in compare to neckros signet.
You saying dat Rev doesnt has nay stun breakers without invoc trait line) lol have you read Retribution traits? there is 2 stunbreakers! 2 stun breakers! 2 man!)))
You saying dat others classes has 6 or close to it SB(stun breakers) but REv isnt other classes) other classes has a good range AoE potential but u dont complain about dat)
And yes after HoT not only Rev runs with elite spec(legend) but all other classes to so its normal) yeah there are some ppl who dont run elite specs\legends. I seen many Revs who running shiro\malyx or malyx\glint on sPvP even on WvWvW ive seen a guy whos build was shiro\mallyx and Im to runing Glint\Mallyx so there are a variety of exapmles) And yes i know dat 90% of ppl runs meta build but its so with every classes.
And man u dont neeed another 4-5 skills on every legends u already has 5 utilitys from every legend+5 skill from weapon and in total 5 weapon skills*2 + 5 legend skills*2=20 skills and Facet Of Nature if u got elite spec its +1 and 21 total skills) only Ele has more 25 skills and u wanna beat dat record? By another 10 skills above our 21 to get 31 skills?)
Ele has 3 trats dat can SB? I know just 1 trait. War has a stun breaker with 10 sec CD from Elite spec just deal with it.
Some classes has sustain, others sustained dmg, others burst, some1 is more mobile its MMORPG game here couldnt be dat 1 class would got all strong parts then we will would play “Revenants Wars 2” not GW2 ^^

So I missed a stun break. This still doesn’t equal out to what other professions have. And having poor defenses against CC isn’t exactly a weakness that they should have. Also don’t be a kitten. I’m trying to be rather civil here and have a real discussion. If you want to trade insults please go elsewhere. I’m here to actually discuss a major issue with the profession.

Didn’t play it much? Yeah, you’re right I haven’t. 100 hours isn’t very long on a profession. Plenty of time to see its weaknesses and very obvious flaws though. This doesn’t compare to my 800 hours on Engineer, 600 on mesmer, 400 on Guardian, 4,000 on necromancer.

So far you’ve said “Learn to dodge”, “Play more” and “Nuh uh!” which doesn’t make a very constructive case against what I’m saying. If you must know I learned how to dodge on necromancer in year one of GW2’s release. And let me tell you, if you want to see something that’s painfully challenging on a new player. That! 2 dodges, no safety skill, no scaling defenses, life force generated extremely slow to the point that it could take you 5 minutes to gain enough to use and burns through in a matter of seconds without anyone hitting you. Yeah, that was a nightmare. Everything after that was a cake walk in comparison. “Play more” I have close to 10,000 hours across GW1&2. How much more do I have to play? According to how long I’ve played I’d be considered an expert. Do I need to be top rank in everything for my words to have credibility? Absolutely not.

Generally my judgement comes form my superb Abstract reasoning. You absolutely need to look at the issues from a different perspective. You don’t see it as an issue now because the Revenant is still rather popular. Though I’ve been noticing a decline in the community of revenants and in my own guild. The Complaints always fall under these 4 things I’ve listed.

Will the Revenant seriously decline in popularity? Well, lets look at GW history. So the revenant has direct comparison to another profession from the first game. The Paragon. The paragon had very few builds. Fewer than a 4th of most professions. After a long period of time the pargaon lost a lot of people. It had one of the most powerful builds for PvE and had one of the best builds for PvP as well. There build didn’t change much but the profession lost favorability and stagnated. It went from being widely used to almost never touched over a long period of time. The revenant does a few things very well. However they don’t do much on their own that other professions can’t do as well, almost as well or better. They lack that versatility that if any other profession where to get a boost in a similar build they’d quickly lose their place in raids, WvW and even PvP. This is what happened to the paragon. They didn’t get worse they just got matched and didn’t have anything else to fall back on. Revenant is falling deeply into the same trap. And its very obvious from a veteran player’s perspective like myself. I’d like to prevent that from happening, but if the general community refuses to have a civil conversation about it its less likely that it’ll be addressed for another 2 years. And by then the community will diminish to a very small handful of people.

I can tell you haven’t been playing the Guild wars franchise for very long because most vets tend to heed my words with a more open mind. Don’t always agree(well, eventually they agree with me though not at first), but do have the courtesy to hear the perspective rather than throwing out assumptions and empty insults.

Jack Skywalker.5674:

Retribution gives you no stun breaks….it gives 1 proc on CC (protection on you, slow on the enemy) and versed in stone which is crap compared to empty vessel because it can trigger while you are not stuned.

Ow and I know you can get stability on dodge from Retribution….thing is you can remove stability by using a weaker CC and then stun – for example: criple to wipe the stability then serve the stun – so it doesn’t count as a stun breaker because you can’t dodge and get the stability if you already got hit with a stun.

Also excluding traits Warrior has 5 stun breakers WITHOUT THE ELITE and not 1 with the elite like you claim!. And because war is my main I am gonna name them for you: Endure Pain, Balanced Stance, Frenzy, Dolyak Signet and Shake it Off.

Also I agree with Lily in the sense that too many viable builds use either Invocation,Herald or both. I would love to be able to play Malyx with Jallis as a condi rev without being scared of geting stuned in Malyx because I don’t run kittening Invocation. And not get me started with Ventari’s stance….that thing actualy sucks with Invocation (in my experience at least).

Thank you!

I edited my text a bit after that post of yours…I wanted to make it more obvious for our friend here.

Also,feel free to upvote my ideas for Rev: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/revenant/Small-suggestions-for-Rev-core-class-1/first#post6171941

They could always add a Break Stun to One With Nature… If this makes it OP then increase CD to 30sec?

Daemonne.5018:

They could always add a Break Stun to One With Nature… If this makes it OP then increase CD to 30sec?

That makes the Revenant’s elite specialization op, while the core class continues to be dreadfull without Invocation and would further consolidate Herald within Revenant builds, killing versatility.

So we would need stun breakers on stuff like Purifying Essence and Embrace the Darkness or Pain Absorbtion to promote build flexibility (being viable without relying on trait lines which perceived as mandatory to be viable) .

If we get SB for Pain Absorbtion then we get CD on it bcs of balance etc. First of all for what kind of game part TS is QQ? Im runing sPvP\WvWvW\PvE with Rev and i dont have big problems with CC just bcs in even in spvp if i get cought by 2-3 enemys i can easily get out of fight even if they try to chain CC me. And in WvWvW when u gank 1 passive+1 active SB is more then enough and if you get CC in mPVP raid vs raid then no SB will help you just bcs there will be more CC then 6 XD Flexibility is needed but not for Rev traits or skills but for players mind who main him.
P.S. Ive played him thru deva\retro\condi traits shiro\malyx s\s m\a and there was no probs to 1 vs 1-2 on ganks)

serj.8214:

And in WvWvW when u gank 1 passive+1 active SB is more then enough and if you get CC in mPVP raid vs raid then no SB will help you just bcs there will be more CC then 6 XD

When on God’s given Earth is it ever a good ideea not bring an SB to a CC clusterf@ck of a fight?…isn’t that like refusing to use an umbrela on a rainy day because you know the umbrela will get wet…

The thing with Revenant is that outside of the elite spec he only has like 2 active stun breaks – Jallis ult and Shiro’s Riposting Shadows. The reason why people complain about this is that unless you get empty vessel you can’t switch stances while stuned to use the sodding stun breaker from the other stance – which is bad compared to all the other classes who don’t have to go through the hassle of swapping legends to be able to stun break.

I mean look,like I said Warrior has 5 stun breaks, but I only need 1 and I can always use it when I need it to get out of a CC storm. Thing is if you want Legendary Demon Stance to do better condi damage….you are royaly coocked if you get stuned in that stance and don’t have Invocation to stun break…because you can’t swap legends while stuned to access your d@mn stun breaker!

The main problem is accessibility, while the second problem is that we don’t want to be locked in Invocation to gain the accessibility of the other classes in regard to stunbreaking … we can’t access our d@mn stun breakers when we need it (even with the elite specialization) because we have to swap the kitten legends compared to everyone else who only need to press 1 buton to get out of a stun. We press 2 in a specific order and if we are stuned pressing the first button does NOTHING!

Jack Skywalker.5674:

I edited my text a bit after that post of yours…I wanted to make it more obvious for our friend here.

Also,feel free to upvote my ideas for Rev: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/revenant/Small-suggestions-for-Rev-core-class-1/first#post6171941

I’m personally not going to make extremely specific suggestion changes because I’m just addressing rather general problems. Though, I’m all for supporting other people’s suggestions if I agree with them. I’ll look over them.

That’s all I can ask for mate.

Jack Skywalker.5674:

That’s all I can ask for mate.

While the other guys made some major mistakes on their argument (so major it’s not worth my time) , you did a not so small mistake either. Stability is only removed by hard CC (CC that can interrupt) therefore cripple won’t remove stability.

Varezenem.2813:

Jack Skywalker.5674:

That’s all I can ask for mate.

While the other guys made some major mistakes on their argument (so major it’s not worth my time) , you did a not so small mistake either. Stability is only removed by hard CC (CC that can interrupt) therefore cripple won’t remove stability.

My bad…I meant Immobilize and forgot to corect myself XD. I edited that post now…thanks man.

Jack Skywalker.5674:

Varezenem.2813:

Jack Skywalker.5674:

That’s all I can ask for mate.

While the other guys made some major mistakes on their argument (so major it’s not worth my time) , you did a not so small mistake either. Stability is only removed by hard CC (CC that can interrupt) therefore cripple won’t remove stability.

My bad…I meant Imobilize and forgot to corect myself XD.

Immobilize is a soft CC.
The only condition like CCs that remove stability are fear and taunt.

Flippin hell on the wiki it says that Stability is also used to counter stuff that prevents movement,like immobile.

Jack Skywalker.5674:

Flippin hell on the wiki it says that Stability is also used to counter stuff that prevents movement,like immobile.

I believe you misinterpreted it. The list given in the description is accurate though.

Cannot be knocked down, pushed back, pulled, launched, stunned, dazed, floated, sunk, feared or taunted.

Revenant is definitely feeling not quite there but I don’t think it’s because anything is missing, it just lags behind in development compared to the other 8 classes. That is to be expected and I don’t think it’s sinister or incompetence actually … it just hasn’t even played out for a year yet, while all the other classes have been played out for almost 4.

Obtena.7952:

Revenant is definitely feeling not quite there but I don’t think it’s because anything is missing, it just lags behind in development compared to the other 8 classes. That is to be expected and I don’t think it’s sinister or incompetence actually … it just hasn’t even played out for a year yet, while all the other classes have been played out for almost 4.

I disagree. The revenant was designed early on to have a single weapon set like engineer and elementalist. The problem with that was they didn’t quite have the versatility that the other professions had because of this. One of the assumptions was that the legends, at least some might provide a form of weapon like a conjure weapon or bundle or something. This wasn’t the case and it was very clear that the decision to have utility swap in place of weapon swap, although cool, was rather short sighted and didn’t work for versatility in practice.

It was very late in development that the Revenant would have weapon swap and only when the community pointed out that it absolutely was a problem. Utility swap was supposed to take the place of weapon swap and it was proven that it wasn’t enough. Now this doesn’t mean that Arena net developed enough of either weapons or skills to offset the lack of options it currently has, which they did not. Revenant has the fewest number of Utility skills out of any of the professions, and they are tide for third lowest number of weapons they can use. And the profession they tie with, Thief, has a special ability that lets them get an extra utility from off hand skills increasing their potential number of available skills through weapons higher than Revenant.(not to mention that the ele and engineer offset this problem with conjure weapons and kits.)

It seems that arena net was pushing to make the profession functional and didn’t spend the time to actually make sure that it had the same number of options that other professions have. They’re lagging behind the other professions in every aspect when it comes to skills. And the mess that is caused by their traits only further exaggerate this problem.

I’m not saying they need a mega ton of work, they need a lot of work! And I’m not saying its sinister on their part either. I made no hints of that in what I’m saying. I’m pointing out the very real problem that the profession, although functional, is far from being a complete profession. Which was one of the problems that expansion professions faced in GW1. Its a repeat of the same mistakes, and I thought arena net would learn. So I’m reminding them.

Also, its been like, 8-9 months. Plenty of time to kitten this as a real problem.

Lily.1935:

Okay, I know its been a while since HoT launched but I’d like to address an issue that’s been bugging me since the expansion launched. Revenant is not a complete profession. Although it is enough of a profession to be very playable it is by no means a complete profession and lags seriously behind the other 8. Although the revenant does have some excellent builds they are very few and lack real diversity between them. The Revenant really suffers from the same afflictions that really plagued the Paragon in Guild Wars 1 and I’d have hoped that Arena Net wouldn’t have made the same mistake with this profession being an expansion profession. So I’ll address the issues that I see with the profession and offer up suggestions that’ll help round out the profession to give real diversity that it desperately needs.

1. More Stun breaks: I know a few of you are typing away now going “WOAH WOAH WOAH! The revenant has it way too easy a time stun breaking!” And You are correct. However I’d like to point out that the only reason that the revenant can stun break so easily and frequently is because of Invocation. Empty Vessel is an absolutely amazing trait and without it the revenant has an extremely hard time dealing with CC. Outside of that they have Shiro, Jalis and Glint each having a stun break respectively. This is a major issue because this means that they pretty much have to run invocation in order to make any build effective. Each other profession has a minimum of 6 stun breaks with some having more. This means that the revenant has HALF the number of stun breaks that everyone else has(not including traits). With how limited the legends are each of them should by all rights have a stun break on them. This woudn’t improve the current builds that are currently out there much aside from Mallyx.

2. Second Ranged weapon: I think it goes without saying that everyone wants a second ranged weapon for Revenant. I DON’T agree that it should be part of an elite specialization since the revenant is so extremely limited as it is. They absolutely need a second one. Either a hybrid condi/power or pure condi weapon. As it stands the hammer does absolutely nothing for a condi build and the lack of a ranged weapon for condi seriously hurts the revenant.

3. More Skills/another legend: Again this needs to be base. Each legend should have 5 potential utility skills that they can use or they need another core legend. Either way they need something to offset the difference between them and other professions so they can absolutely keep up with them.

4. Second Underwater weapon and more usable Legends: Their spear is kind of a mess. Its trying to do too many things and falling very short of everything its trying to do. They also need more legends that are usable underwater especially considering you can’t separately set legends for land and water.

I think that’s it for the moment. I really do enjoy the profession but its just not a complete profession. I’d like to see more things added to the base profession to give it the versatility that the other professions absolutely do have at the moment. I’m looking forward to hearing from you and would love to hear from a dev, though I understand if you can’t. Do note that this criticism isn’t out of any sort of malice. I understand that you were under a pretty big time limit when HoT was supposed to be released. I do feel that these issues need to be addressed though so that it doesn’t stay in the same trap that the Paragon got stuck in. Thank you for your time.

First: This is my humble opinion.
Second: In some points you ate right in some points totally wrong.
Third: Yes rev needs a stunbreak in every legend (only one) so with the invocation you have three this is the number of stunbreaks every other class can optain at the same time.
For Ventari: I would say on project tranquility should be instant and castable without a stunbreak and the condiclear gets the stunbreak.
For Mallyx: Add it to banish enchantment.

For your Ranged Weapon: No. This could be implemented with a elite spec. I mean Guardian does not have even a single pure condi weapon and before HoT it had only a one dimentional ranged weapon with scepter.

For another Legend: No. Rev has 5 traitlines, one for each legend/weaponset and one for the profession itself. New Legend comes with new Elite Spec.

Another Underwaterweapon: Yes. I would say a Power Trident and a Condi spear. Spear is good but it wants to do to much at once and loses effectiveness.

Another Underwater Legend: Yes. Make jallis usable underwater for more versatility and Power builds or people who dont like shiro underwater.

What i think you missed: BUG FIXES, fix Hammer 4 and 3 together(your mist form jumps with the field but does not trigger the explo combo), sword confusion triggering etc etc.
We all know the bugs and these fixed mean a lot of QoL.

InsaneQR.7412:

Lily.1935:

Okay, I know its been a while since HoT launched but I’d like to address an issue that’s been bugging me since the expansion launched. Revenant is not a complete profession. Although it is enough of a profession to be very playable it is by no means a complete profession and lags seriously behind the other 8. Although the revenant does have some excellent builds they are very few and lack real diversity between them. The Revenant really suffers from the same afflictions that really plagued the Paragon in Guild Wars 1 and I’d have hoped that Arena Net wouldn’t have made the same mistake with this profession being an expansion profession. So I’ll address the issues that I see with the profession and offer up suggestions that’ll help round out the profession to give real diversity that it desperately needs.

1. More Stun breaks: I know a few of you are typing away now going “WOAH WOAH WOAH! The revenant has it way too easy a time stun breaking!” And You are correct. However I’d like to point out that the only reason that the revenant can stun break so easily and frequently is because of Invocation. Empty Vessel is an absolutely amazing trait and without it the revenant has an extremely hard time dealing with CC. Outside of that they have Shiro, Jalis and Glint each having a stun break respectively. This is a major issue because this means that they pretty much have to run invocation in order to make any build effective. Each other profession has a minimum of 6 stun breaks with some having more. This means that the revenant has HALF the number of stun breaks that everyone else has(not including traits). With how limited the legends are each of them should by all rights have a stun break on them. This woudn’t improve the current builds that are currently out there much aside from Mallyx.

2. Second Ranged weapon: I think it goes without saying that everyone wants a second ranged weapon for Revenant. I DON’T agree that it should be part of an elite specialization since the revenant is so extremely limited as it is. They absolutely need a second one. Either a hybrid condi/power or pure condi weapon. As it stands the hammer does absolutely nothing for a condi build and the lack of a ranged weapon for condi seriously hurts the revenant.

3. More Skills/another legend: Again this needs to be base. Each legend should have 5 potential utility skills that they can use or they need another core legend. Either way they need something to offset the difference between them and other professions so they can absolutely keep up with them.

4. Second Underwater weapon and more usable Legends: Their spear is kind of a mess. Its trying to do too many things and falling very short of everything its trying to do. They also need more legends that are usable underwater especially considering you can’t separately set legends for land and water.

I think that’s it for the moment. I really do enjoy the profession but its just not a complete profession. I’d like to see more things added to the base profession to give it the versatility that the other professions absolutely do have at the moment. I’m looking forward to hearing from you and would love to hear from a dev, though I understand if you can’t. Do note that this criticism isn’t out of any sort of malice. I understand that you were under a pretty big time limit when HoT was supposed to be released. I do feel that these issues need to be addressed though so that it doesn’t stay in the same trap that the Paragon got stuck in. Thank you for your time.

First: This is my humble opinion.
Second: In some points you ate right in some points totally wrong.
Third: Yes rev needs a stunbreak in every legend (only one) so with the invocation you have three this is the number of stunbreaks every other class can optain at the same time.
For Ventari: I would say on project tranquility should be instant and castable without a stunbreak and the condiclear gets the stunbreak.
For Mallyx: Add it to banish enchantment.

For your Ranged Weapon: No. This could be implemented with a elite spec. I mean Guardian does not have even a single pure condi weapon and before HoT it had only a one dimentional ranged weapon with scepter.

For another Legend: No. Rev has 5 traitlines, one for each legend/weaponset and one for the profession itself. New Legend comes with new Elite Spec.

Another Underwaterweapon: Yes. I would say a Power Trident and a Condi spear. Spear is good but it wants to do to much at once and loses effectiveness.

Another Underwater Legend: Yes. Make jallis usable underwater for more versatility and Power builds or people who dont like shiro underwater.

What i think you missed: BUG FIXES, fix Hammer 4 and 3 together(your mist form jumps with the field but does not trigger the explo combo), sword confusion triggering etc etc.
We all know the bugs and these fixed mean a lot of QoL.

actually, they do not have one legend for each trait line. They have 5 which includes the elite specialization. They have 6 trait lines like every other profession, not 5. And I’m not saying they absolutely need a new legend. However they are painfully behind on skills. While other professions have 24 utility skills Revenant has 15. 3/5th of the skills available to other professions and the fact that they swap only homogenizes the builds even further. And technically the Guardian has 2 ranged weapons before the expansion. Scepter and staff. You might not see it as a ranged weapon, but it is.

Also, this post isn’t about the bugs the profession has. You guys have that covered. This is about the future of the profession and preventing stagnation. You can fix all the bugs it has and make each skill run perfectly as they’re intended but it wont prevent the profession from stagnating.

Lily.1935:

actually, they do not have one legend for each trait line. They have 5 which includes the elite specialization. They have 6 trait lines like every other profession, not 5.

That’s true but what specializations usually do is they reserve one traitline for improving profession mechanics. There really can’t be a legend tied to it.

Revenants really do need atleast 1 more utility skill per legend just to not be so predictable. I think it’s one of revenants major issues that enemies will know exactly what you are running when they can see your weapons and your legends. Revenants actually have more Elite skills than most other classes but I think there should be one more that could be used regardless of legend. Same goes for the healing skills.

Yannir.4132:

Lily.1935:

actually, they do not have one legend for each trait line. They have 5 which includes the elite specialization. They have 6 trait lines like every other profession, not 5.

That’s true but what specializations usually do is they reserve one traitline for improving profession mechanics. There really can’t be a legend tied to it.

Revenants really do need atleast 1 more utility skill per legend just to not be so predictable. I think it’s one of revenants major issues that enemies will know exactly what you are running when they can see your weapons and your legends. Revenants actually have more Elite skills than most other classes but I think there should be one more that could be used regardless of legend. Same goes for the healing skills.

Just more options is all I’m asking. I know Arena net wants quality not quantity, however when every other profession has quality as well with a greater quantity it creates a problem.

I’d just like to see more than one decent build for PvE. Power-rev is extremely boring and honestly not even very good. There are other classes that does what it can just fine while having a more interesting rotation(more than an AA-based rotation). PvE has always lacked build diversity, and this class is basically just a prime example of that.

iroh.2871:

I’d just like to see more than one decent build for PvE. Power-rev is extremely boring and honestly not even very good. There are other classes that does what it can just fine while having a more interesting rotation(more than an AA-based rotation). PvE has always lacked build diversity, and this class is basically just a prime example of that.

yep. And that’s a symptom of the point I’m making. Oh, it gets worst for them in the future.

stopped reading after the first point..

say what..if you just swap invocation to retribution and use double stab trait you can avoid even more CC..

lighter.2708:

stopped reading after the first point..

say what..if you just swap invocation to retribution and use double stab trait you can avoid even more CC..

No…not really…if you get baited to dodge you are f@cked. Thats why most herald builds run both Retri and Invocation. I would love to see empty vesel be moved to an Elite Specialization so that we can have 1 stun break per legend and no 2 mandatory trait lines for whatever the kitten we want to play.

Jack Skywalker.5674:

lighter.2708:

stopped reading after the first point..

say what..if you just swap invocation to retribution and use double stab trait you can avoid even more CC..

No…not really…if you get baited to dodge you are f@cked. Thats why most herald builds run both Retri and Invocation. I would love to see empty vesel be moved to an Elite Specialization so that we can have 1 stun break per legend and no 2 mandatory trait lines for whatever the kitten we want to play.

I would argue that that retribution is more flexible to drop than invocation, but overall the almost mandatory trait lines in sPvP is a problem for all classes across the board, not only Rev. Elite lines are 100% mandatory for all classes.

On other classes that I am well familiar with, you cannot play warrior without defense trait line. Mesmer as well you are have to trait inspiration. Both healing and conditional removal are tied to these lines, which are mandatory in sPvP. Now if anet give all trait lines a variant of damage, suvivability and mobility, that will be great. Until that happens, most classes are locked between 2-3 trait lines to select from beside elite lines which are mandatory. Currently Rev has only 1 build functional in sPvP and in PvE. Most classes as well have only 1 or 2 functional builds.

Lily.1935:

…

What are 90-100% of all Revenant builds running? Invocation. If you are not running it you are doing it wrong. And that is a serious issue. This limits build diversity by a third. Which is huge. And at least 80% of them are Running Herald(Just guesses on my part for percentage but from what I’ve seen that’s about accurate). This is an absolutely devastating situation for the future of the Revenant profession.

…

Rev is currently the most pigeonholed profession I can think of.

Condi (mallyx) builds seriously lack stability and Power (shiro) builds seriously lack condi cleanse!

In most builds herald and invocation trait lines are a must while alternatives are more or less bad. Two trait-lines are almost mandatory to anything you do.

Ilias.8647:

Lily.1935:

…

What are 90-100% of all Revenant builds running? Invocation. If you are not running it you are doing it wrong. And that is a serious issue. This limits build diversity by a third. Which is huge. And at least 80% of them are Running Herald(Just guesses on my part for percentage but from what I’ve seen that’s about accurate). This is an absolutely devastating situation for the future of the Revenant profession.

…

Rev is currently the most pigeonholed profession I can think of.

Condi (mallyx) builds seriously lack stability and Power (shiro) builds seriously lack condi cleanse!

In most builds herald and invocation trait lines are a must while alternatives are more or less bad. Two trait-lines are almost mandatory to anything you do.

Yep.

Ilias.8647:

Lily.1935:

…

What are 90-100% of all Revenant builds running? Invocation. If you are not running it you are doing it wrong. And that is a serious issue. This limits build diversity by a third. Which is huge. And at least 80% of them are Running Herald(Just guesses on my part for percentage but from what I’ve seen that’s about accurate). This is an absolutely devastating situation for the future of the Revenant profession.

…

Rev is currently the most pigeonholed profession I can think of.

Condi (mallyx) builds seriously lack stability and Power (shiro) builds seriously lack condi cleanse!

In most builds herald and invocation trait lines are a must while alternatives are more or less bad. Two trait-lines are almost mandatory to anything you do.

Lol. That’s every profession in PvP…

Since when invocation became mandatory? Retri+herald stab trait is still enough to shrug off any cc. Stunbreak on swap is nice perk to have sometimes but definitely not mandatory. The only mandatory line rev has is herald really. I would argue about retri being mandatory as well due to dwarf battle stance+stab and dmg reductions which is hard to let go (if you played with berserker amulet like me).

Burtnik.5218:

Since when invocation became mandatory? Retri+herald stab trait is still enough to shrug off any cc. Stunbreak on swap is nice perk to have sometimes but definitely not mandatory. The only mandatory line rev has is herald really. I would argue about retri being mandatory as well due to dwarf battle stance+stab and dmg reductions which is hard to let go (if you played with berserker amulet like me).

Stability does not remove CC,it just prevents it. You can’t dodge while stuned so thats why I would argue that Invocation is mandatory for empty vesel. Most players would bait a rev’s dodges out before CC-ing.

Preventing cc is more important and far more effective than taking it and waste energy/legend to stunbreak. Its also uite hard to bait out as theorytically you can have perma stab. Pair that with two blocks on 10 and 12cd and youre fine really.

Lily, I agree with a couple of your points such as rev needing access to a ranged condi weapon and more legends usable underwater, but reading many of your posts you clearly have not played it to its full potential and any buffs you’re suggesting would push rev over the line it’s currently straddling between OP and absolutely broken.
Many of your issues are a problem for most professions in the game, like pigeon-holed or useless trait lines, so realistically none of these problems are going to be fixed without a major trait rebalance from Anet.

The only way to “fix” revenant is to separate pve and pvp balance. Any and all buffs at the moment will only serve to make rev an even greater powerhouse in pvp. More stun breaks? Condi cleanse on shiro? These kinds of suggestions are pointless and are coming from people playing the class wrong/poorly.
I’ve noticed that half this thread is arguing over Invocation being a mandatory trait line. You can easily drop it for Retribution, the damage reduction and stab make up for the traits lost in that line. Depending on the match up, you’ll want to grab one or the other. They both have their pros/cons and it’ll depend on the classes you face to decide on which one you’ll want to choose. Empty vessel is strong, but it’s only a part of what makes Invocation one of the better lines to grab.

Some of you need to get good with the profession before you complain about what it needs/doesn’t need.

Both Riathen and Burtnik are correct, please listen to what they said.
Except the PvP balance split that's not going to happen.

Riathen.2641:

Lily, I agree with a couple of your points such as rev needing access to a ranged condi weapon and more legends usable underwater, but reading many of your posts you clearly have not played it to its full potential and any buffs you’re suggesting would push rev over the line it’s currently straddling between OP and absolutely broken.
Many of your issues are a problem for most professions in the game, like pigeon-holed or useless trait lines, so realistically none of these problems are going to be fixed without a major trait rebalance from Anet.

The only way to “fix” revenant is to separate pve and pvp balance. Any and all buffs at the moment will only serve to make rev an even greater powerhouse in pvp. More stun breaks? Condi cleanse on shiro? These kinds of suggestions are pointless and are coming from people playing the class wrong/poorly.
I’ve noticed that half this thread is arguing over Invocation being a mandatory trait line. You can easily drop it for Retribution, the damage reduction and stab make up for the traits lost in that line. Depending on the match up, you’ll want to grab one or the other. They both have their pros/cons and it’ll depend on the classes you face to decide on which one you’ll want to choose. Empty vessel is strong, but it’s only a part of what makes Invocation one of the better lines to grab.

Some of you need to get good with the profession before you complain about what it needs/doesn’t need.

My concern is stagnation. And Stability is no substitute for stun breaks. And Vice Versa. Playing the necromancer long enough where they had extremely long cool down stun breaks for the first year or so of their life, very very little stability, no scaling defensive mechanics, slow life force generation, extremely quick death shroud decay and no vigor has given me a very solid perspective on defensive mechanics and how important they are. The Revenant isn’t in the same position the necromancer was, however there are similarities to them and we can learn from another profession in GW1 in which their position is very similar too.

To assume that simple balance fixes will solve the revenant’s problems is inaccurate and misguided. Looking back at the Paragon from GW1 they where extremely popular in pvp and PvE for a quite a while. They didn’t face very many changes through out the history for GW1 and their popularity slowly declined even though they weren’t ever worse than they where before. They had some nerfs, some buffs but nothing that Fundamentally changed much of their skills. The profession was nearly unplayed last I was in the game. Its lack of skills, lack of change and builds that where way too similar to one another caused the serious stagnation of the Paragon. The revenant is running that very same risk and the red flags are all there.

My experience with necromancer has shown me even further that those small incremental changes do not solve larger problems. Revenant has a serious diversity problem in its build making. I never said that Invocation wasn’t a good trait line without Empty Vessel. And you shouldn’t equate that to what I’m saying.

You say it would cause balance problems. But that isn’t an argument. Every change, however minor or major, can cause balance problems. The point becomes is it worth the risk for the longevity of the game and the profession. And the answer in this case is absolutely yes. Everyone I’ve talked to outside of these forums and even half the people in the forums seem to agree that the revenant has a serious diversity problem.

And I know that’s Anecdotal and so is what I’m about to say, but here it goes. Revenant is one of the most popular professions in my guild and also the least played. Everyone Loves it, but they are bored of it.