So I’ve been stewing on a nice, big, multi-page “this is what I want from the Revenant” post, but then ANet went an implemented a lot of what I wanted to suggest. Thanks a lot, guys, for ruining a good rant :p
However, I still think there a big, gaping flaw in the Revenant—specifically, too much of your build is a foregone conclusion once you’ve chose which two legends you want to equip. This is because there is an optimal legend and an optimal trait line for each legend. For example, if you choose Mallyx for a legend, you are shooting yourself in the foot if you don’t also take the Corruption line, and don’t pack mace/axe. They are too tightly coupled.
The best ways I can think of to help with this is:
Weapons: Give weapons different effects depending on legend, similar to the way that elementalists utilities change with attunement. Thanks to the way the combat in GW2 works, this would actually be really easy.
For example, staff could offer many forms of support besides just healing. Have it instead grant healing in Ventari, retaliation or protection in Jalis, Might in Shiro, or Resistance in Mallyx. This keeps the staff a support wepon, but makes it synergize with each legend no matter which one you pick.
Or for another example, take axe. Instead of temporal rift causing Torment no matter what, have it cause Torment in Mallyx, Vulerability in Shiro, Weakness in Jalis, and Blindness in Ventari. Again, it’s a condition weapon, but those conditions can help tank, support or damage depending on legend.
Traits: This is a lot harder to solve. It seems like the traits were modelled off of elementalist traits—in the same way that ele has a trait line for each attunement plus arcane, Revenant is designed to have a trait for each legend plus invocations.
That sort of design works for the elementalist, who is going to have access to every attunement regardless of what their trait loadout is, so it makes sense to build with 3 elemental trait lines or 2 plus arcane. However, for a revenant that can only have two legends equipped, it doesn’t make sense to do anything but equip the two legend-specific traits plus invocation, because every line is so tightly married to a specific legend.
The best way I can think to counteract this, is to focus more on the things that are common between legends within the trait lines. This is especially important for the minor traits that come baked-in with the trait line itself—for example, it’s hard to justify taking Salvation unless you have Ventari equipped, because the grandmaster minor trait only helps Ventari.
This idea is pretty radically different from how the traits are currently arranged, but I think it could be done. There are common desirable features that are sorely missing from the trait lines now that could easily be added—like reducing cooldown on legend swap, increasing energy regeneration, and decreasing upkeep costs on toggle skills in addition to the usual universal helpers of extra % damage, or conditions/boons. The number of legend specific traits needs to be lowered, and the number of universal traits needs increased. Making the changes to weapons will help with this somewhat, since then weapon-specific traits can synergize across legends, but more could be done.
Honestly, we need more ways of controlling our energy production anyway, and traits is the best way to do it. Maybe lower passive regen to 3/sec, and trade out some traits to increase regeneration while affected by a condition/boon. Maybe grant reduced toggle upkeep while channeling. Or grant boons when using a legend utility (ANY utility, not a specific legend like Demonic Defiance). That sort of thing.
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The addition of weapon swap, adjusting cooldown/activation times, and tweaking modifiers was greatly appreciated, and it’s definitely the biggest step to making Revenant meet its full potential, but there’s still a little bit more that’s needed to make the class match its potential.
(edited by Abnaxis.4593)