Guild Wars 2

Random.4691:

TBH I’m not sure why they went any of these routes with the Revevant, if it’s not broken, why fix it, don’t try and reinvent the wheel, ect ect.

I Think that the revenant is something that can be fixed with tweak here and there, so is not completely broken.
I’m all for them trying new and weird things if they make it viable by the launch time

My thoughts with the Mallyx legend:
The self inflicted conditions remind me of necro but with less usability. I’d either tone that down a bit or make it so we can spread them to the target or purge/turn into boons, something along those lines.
The teleport skill which also teleports targets, skill #9, I’d rework this because it is a bit odd. One thought for a rework would be to forgo the targeting and make it self cast which then teleports the enemy away and gives them cripple and some damage, that way it can stay a knokback. Alternatively, it could still be a ground cast skill but cripples anything around you as you are teleported away.

The more I play on Revenant the more I feel like the stances need some passives going on. Mallyx would be more fun if you gained the ability to transfer conditions on attack, and gained might when inflicted with them.

People keep talking about lack in build variety, but I would like to talk about it in slightly different terms…

The legends mechanic makes for extremely few meaningful choices in building out a revenant. Utilities are, by far, the greatest source of customization for characters. Take (say) warrior, for example. With 4 healing skills, 20 utilities, and 4 elites, that’s 13.680 different skill loadouts you can bring for for 6-0 slots.

Revenants, on the other hand, have 12 options for the 6-0 slots—assuming there will eventually be 4 legends for which we can pick 2. Heck, even if they add a fifth legend, we’ll have a whole 60 possible utility loadouts to choose from

And to add insult to injury, Revs don’t get weapon swap. Factoring in swap, warriors have well over a million different specs that can run with before factoring in traits(1.231.200 to be exact), while the revenant will be lucky to break 3 figures by the time they finish adding weapons.

Now, some of those million+ builds the warrior has available to them won’t be viable, but that’s an issue for balance—in a well-balanced system, all million choices would be interesting and fun to play. Even if ANet managed to perfectly balance the Revenant it would be boring because the legend mechanic MASSIVELY pigeonholes the options available to players, reducing the interesting choices/customization available to us by 3+ orders of magnitude.

The class really, really needs weapon swap. It also needs many more legends than have been proposed thus far, and those legends need to have a more interesting dynamic beyond swapping out slot 6-0 (as has been suggested by others). These are the only things that give the class build variation, which is what lets players make it their own.

My thoughts after the weekend:

Needs weapon swap: With each weapon currently more-or-less tied to a legend, and the ability to take two legends, your weapon choice is only really viable with half your build. Staff is really only usable with Ventari, mace/axe shines with Mallyx, and hammer is just…there.

Needs more utilities per legend: Desperately needs this. The current 3 utilities for each legend leave a fair bit to be desired, choice wise. The current lack of options vastly limits the number of builds and also the quality of the builds available.

Legends:
—Mallyx: Still seems the most complete to me, by far. It is very similar to a corruption/curses necro. On that note, sometimes the 3+ condi trigger felt very difficult to reach, especially in group settings where AoE condi removal is prevalent.
—Jalis: Legend is meh. Its damage reduction largely depends on taunt and its 50e elite. The problem with that is that the taunt is really only available on a 50e cost utility, and when you get disabled (if you even take that trait.) It could really benefit from some form of further damage reduction. Perhaps reduced damage while under Retaliation (since the trait line seems to encourage retal), or the inclusion of prot outside of the prot-on-disable trait.
—Ventari: I don’t know what to really say about Ventari. It is basically nothing but healing. It seems a bit too hyper-focused. For instance, even Corruption (the condi/Mallyx line) has uses in a power build. Ventari seems to be ONLY about heals and condition removal. With the way it currently is, I can’t really see myself taking Salvation/Ventari over two other legends and Invocation. It really needs some other form of utility, similar to how Water Magic isn’t just solely focused on red-barring.

Weapons:
—Hammer: I find it still to be goofy. It is a ranged weapon, but lacks anything consistent to help keep targets at range (a la Point-Blank Shot, cripple, immob, etc.) It has a long cast time AoE KD with a big animation, and that’s about it. Splitting “Phase Smash” into a leap/return could help. Perhaps have Field of the Mists have a small, directionally focused, knock-back on wall spawn.
—Staff: I know it is a utility/healing weapon, but its damage is abysmal. It is still a weapon and thus should still be perceived as a threat, versus the foam noodle it currently is.
—Mace: I think it is in a decent spot. I felt there was some responsiveness issues with it, though. Nothing seemed to really queue properly after Searing Fissure for me. And speaking of Searing Fissure, I feel its cast time is far too long for what it does.
—Axe: I think this one is also in a decent spot.

Overall, I find the two biggest areas in need of improvement/inclusion to be additional legend utilities and the inclusion of weapon swaps.

1.improve mace attack speed in #1 and #2
2.increese staff range and make some misty effect around the staff cuz its abit hard to see it wen u auto attack all staff are so thin
3.ventari’s tablet should be insta active wen channel ventari and disapear wen channeling away and the movment of the tablet should be instant wituout inturapting the revenants current action which i thinks hould lead to the decreese in casting time of the healing skill #7 and the movment healing of the tablet will eaither changed to just aoe regain only or can heal player on and off wen passing by them once 5 sec(5 sec on 5 sec off 5 sec on 5 sec off)
4.staff #2 seems useless and #3 should turn each dmg into heals or inscreese boon duration each 500 dmg absorved
idea for #2 900 range magical leafs slow and weaken a foe and if they have boons they get dmg, set some limit so rev wont spam slow on every 1
,#4 this should increese healing and give vigor and cripple foes
5. give axe #4 stun
and #5 increese the radious of the effect
6. increese hammer dmg #1 #2 and shorten #2 and #5 there should be 2 sec cast standing on not moving, and the skills hammer and the rev movment animation should be the same action time and if rev is interupted the hammer explodes and gives stability in the 300 radious of the skill’s hammer
and #1 skill animation should like the hammer flys off he’s hand without the accoul throw
7. mallyx heal skill – if i have 3 dots of condi i get extra heal and 3 might or 4 dots and 4 might
the jump utilitie, that pushback aoe should work like the guardian’s hammer #5
the corruption trait there is 1 that copies trait, give it 15% to copy all condi on 300 radious from the hitted foe
8.jalis – the spinning hammer utilitie should give 1 vunlv per hit and increesed dmg
and the stability one with the falling rocks should give weaknes to foe who stand on it

An idea t make sure that stances feel different would be that the stances had a whole armor/weapon set linked to them. Would be annoying to get full ascended gear if that were the case, but then swapping stances would TRULY feel like a role swap, because your stats would change as well. Zerker gear with Shiro, but then group needs Healy…swap to Ventari, and there you have a hybrid zerker/cleric build.
PvP….glass cannon build not doing too hot, cause condis being a problem? Swap to Jalis with staff and Tanky gear.
To compensate, increase cool down of swapping legends to also make it so you have to be sure you want to change rolls. Maybe 20 seconds? Would definitely need testing in PvP where this type of gameplay could be major.

I almost think that to give the revenant the utility it needs, it needs one more legend available out of the four/five rather than the two that it is using. The play style would be more similar to the elementalist that way, giving strong utilities to cast for most situations, but still shelving the legends that you don’t need.

Thematically, the class is awesome. But mechanically, the class still needs work in order to thrive among other classes.
Some of the quirks I can mention about the class in its current state:

Goods:
- Skills are potent (like hammer #2 or staff #5)
- Animations are very pleasing on both skillbar switch and skills themselves
- Great group utility with skills like Inspiring reinforcement
- Voiceovers on skills is cool tech
- So much healing

Bads and nitpicks:
- Low overall damage
- Not easy to splash legends
- Traits are not as splashable as desired
- Ventari move tablet cast time prohibits fluid movement and attacks (could be instant)
- Staff orbs are too small and last for a short amount of time
- Staff#2 is unrewarding for the effort of landing the hit on a skill for just inflicting weakness
- Hammer#3, while cool in concept, takes a long time to cast at range, only to be very vulnerable after casting the skill.
- Using non-auto skills are counter-intuitive as legend utilities cost too much to be useful at the moment.
- Cast times on skills like ventari elite or jalis elite are a bit long for the payoff
- Aftercast on skills such as mace#2 are long enough to prevent immediate combos
- Lack of skill types to combo with runes
- Fragments that spawn from the tablet with trait are a bit far to run to
- Instant legend swap seems like it needs to be baseline, but the swap still needs to play the voiceovers need to be played fully as with the shortened version

Some general Revenant comments:

Damage and condition durations are too low, across the board

Some casting times should be reduced (e.g., mace #2), or those skills should be buffed

Maybe tweak some energy costs for big skills downward

There needs to be more utilities to select from, for every legend mode. In the current set, some skills are very situational (e.g. Unyielding Anguish), or they only work well with certain builds. The class really needs more flexibility here.

The class has a problem with melee/range flexibility. Regardless of what weapon you choose, you can only be effective at either melee or range, not both. If you pick a melee weapon, you can’t range. If you pick hammer, you lose a lot of damage in melee range.

Engi and Ele have more flexibility in this aspect. Engi has kits, and Ele staff and scepter don’t lose their effectiveness in melee range. The short-range Ele weapon, daggers, also have > than 130 range on the weapon skills. Rangers and Mesmers which also have distance-dependent weapon skills can weapon swap.

I don’t know if weapon swapping is the best way to address this, or if it could be handled through legends/utilities, but I think this is a major problem with the class.

Here’s how you make Revenant viable ANet:

1) Weapon skills shouldn’t cost energy. The weapon skills are designed like normal weapon skills (rotational and something you want to use all of) and not like Thief weapon skills (each filling a unique role and spammable). Making these cost energy doesn’t make sense.

2) Makes 4 utilities for each Legend and a set of 4 neutral utilities. Glyphs would work perfectly for this.

3) Give each Legend passive effect/mechanic that increases their Energy regeneration. For example:
Mallyx: Gain 4% condition duration and 1 energy regen each time you are afflicted with a condition (5 stacks max).
Jalis: Gain 3% damage reduction and 1 energy regen each time you are hit.
Ventari: Increase healing done by 4% and 1 energy regen when you heal yourself or an ally.
Shiro: Increase Ferocity by 4% and 1 energy regen each time you critically strike or bleed an enemy.

4) Lastly. Give the Revenant some way to alter his main 1-5 skills in combat. There are two options here.

A) Give them a second weapon set and link it to a Legend. So you could equip the Hammer with Jalis and Staff with Ventari. Add the Legend Equip interface to all instances of the weapon equip interface in such a way it’s clear they’re linked.

B) Add a new F skill that either gives you a new set of skills based on your Legend OR is instead a basic set of skills (ie Mist Based) that has 900 range and some mobility.

Without some degree of the above there just isn’t enough nuance to this profession. The fact that ANet is so showing it off without any reference to something like the above being on the way to make the profession nuance more than “choose one weapon set and two legends” is a bit bothersome.

My partner was discussing this with me this weekend and had a good idea imo.
Allow the Revenant a utility bar by not being attuned to a legend. This should of course mean that the legends themselves should provide some sort of bonus while being channeled, otherwise there is little incentive to lock your utility to that legend.

Dastion.3106:

….
2) Makes 4 utilities for each Legend and a set of 4 neutral utilities. Glyphs would work perfectly for this.
….

Also, since the Revenant is seemingly a redesign of the Ritualist, Spirit Weapon skills could become legend neutral utilities. Most even translate well.
Offensive ones might look something like:
—Nightmare Weapon: Next X attacks are converted to life-steal.
—Splinter Weapon: Next X attacks also hit enemies near your target.
—Shadow Weapon: Next X attacks blind.
—Ghostly Weapon: Next X attacks are unblockable.

Then there are the more defensive/utility orientated ones, which could look like:
—Resilient Weapon: For X seconds, gain armor and Resistance if suffering from a condition.
—Spirit Light Weapon: For X seconds, heal on an interval.
—Weapon of Warding: Block the next X attacks.
—Weapon of Renewal: Your next X hits restore Y% energy.

I would keep the GW1 mechanic of only being able to have one active at a time though and also have them be a shorter duration than venoms, both for flavor reasons as well as to help differentiate them from venoms.

Ohoni.6057:

Drop the Hammer:
Mallyx: Each impact adds several bleed stacks

How about Confusion to represent concussion? Bleeding from a ghostly hammer seems a little strange.

Neeja.4579:

Hammer Bolt:
- Jalis/Ventari: Unchanged
- Mallyx/Shiro: Melee attack with increased damage and cleave up to 5 targets.

Make Jalis one of the melee hammers. The historical Jalis did NOT use hammer as a melee weapon.

You’d also want to tweak some of the other skills – reverse the way Coalescence of Ruin works (so the biggest damage hit is at close range) and make the jump behave like a normal leap rather than having the teleport back.

KronosBaelfire.6289:

Anet could do both if they maybe split the two and have weapon skills have CDs and the legendary utilities use the energy bar. But having both even if the weapon skills only use a small amount of energy is pointless. Splitting it still achieves the classes energy purposes and doesn’t waste it on the weapon skills.

Let me rephrase: In Guild Wars 1, the majority of skills had both energy costs and cooldowns..

This allowed the skills to balance off one another when it came to sustained use. Some had a high ratio of energy cost to cooldown, and could be used to put out a lot of damage (or control, or whatever) quickly, at the cost of then having to recover and recharge. Others had a ratio where if those were the only skills you used you could keep using them indefinitely, but they’d still chew into your energy, slowing down the time it takes to recover between bursts and retaining the potential to overtax your energy if you had a lot of them.

Revenant weapon and legend skills have a similar relationship. The 2-5 skills are sustainable if those are all you use, but they’ll still slow your recovery or push you to exhaust yourself further. Legend skills are the burst skills, that will allow you to expend a lot of energy for quick results, but you’ll then need to recover afterwards. This interplay between the skills, forcing you to choose which ones you use rather than just spamming things on recharge, seems to be exactly the playstyle they’re looking for with the revenant, and if you really can’t handle it… well, there are eight other professions to choose from.

Now, it might be that the rewards for being able to do this just don’t measure up to the additional resource management and awareness required, but that’s a seperate issue.

voidwater.2064:

The class has a problem with melee/range flexibility. Regardless of what weapon you choose, you can only be effective at either melee or range, not both. If you pick a melee weapon, you can’t range. If you pick hammer, you lose a lot of damage in melee range.

Engi and Ele have more flexibility in this aspect. Engi has kits, and Ele staff and scepter don’t lose their effectiveness in melee range. The short-range Ele weapon, daggers, also have > than 130 range on the weapon skills. Rangers and Mesmers which also have distance-dependent weapon skills can weapon swap.

Even with engineer, pistol and rifle are both weapons that while they can be used at range, they do have the capability of doing significantly more damage at close range. They have the range versatility that most professions have with a weaponswap in a single set.

The last line is, I think, the key. Revenant weapons are much more specialised. You can vaguely get some range versatility with mace using Searing Fissure, but the range of that is less than dagger elementalists get. Staff has about as much ranged capability as guardian greatsword, and hammer relies on Coalescence of Ruin for much of its damage, which is penalised for close range. As you observe, ranger longbow and mesmer greatsword have the same mechanic… but each of those have a both a pushback to help maintain distance, and a weaponswap in case they are forced into closer range combat. Revenants using hammer have neither – even the maligned Unyielding Anguish doesn’t teleport the enemy far enough to make a real difference.

I couldn’t agree more with what OP said! Glad the upkeep skills problem has been resolved internally.

Changing weapon skills based on the legend is quite interesting, because so far I’m not convinced: why would a pure healer need to be melee at all cost? I know it was supposed to be DPS at first, but I’m really not into forcing a weapon based on the role: DPS elementalist can use a staff or daggers or a scepter… If I wanna be Mallyx I don’t have much use of a staff, my choices are restricted.

Also, what seems needed is a 4th utility on each Legend. The Revenant, while I’m completely in love with the concept, seems really limited: what if I want Jalis but not his upkeep? Also, it would be absurd other classes have access to 20 utilities and the Revenant 12…

And also a personal demand: change the way the Revenant wields the staff. It looks like it weighs 2 tons. It’s ok to fight using two hands, but the neutral stance should have the Revenant only using one hand, to look a bit more “majestic” (especially when walking with the staff drawn: it’s really awful) ^^

Staff uses the same animation (apart from a few skills) as hammer, that’s why. It’s why I thought the revenant staff in the HoT trailer was a hammer: because Rytlock uses the charr hammer animations with it.

draxynnic.3719:

if you really can’t handle it… well, there are eight other professions to choose from.

Mmmk, making comments like this only gets you reported and doesn’t help the thread. Everyone is simply suggesting ideas to help improve the class and the last thing we need is someone insinuating that they shouldn’t play a class based on a suggestion to help improve it. Moving on…

phokus.8934:

It’d be nice if the legends had a passive or on active effect while being attuned.

Now this is a great idea considering most professions have some form of passive abilities and Rev doesn’t seem to get any and no automatic buffs to help it. Someone mentioned previously that we need more support along with increased dps and I have to agree. I like being able to support my team and do some damage in the process and not have to rely on others to buff me but to do both means that either my weapon skills/armor will buff me for the dps while my utilities/traits help with support or vice versa. Work it out Anet! ^.~

And as for Shiro for the next legend, pleeeeeease for the love of all Anet Gods and Goddesses, Sword/Sword for weapons with Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon style animations!!! \o/

You’d also want to tweak some of the other skills – reverse the way Coalescence of Ruin works (so the biggest damage hit is at close range) and make the jump behave like a normal leap rather than having the teleport back.

I suspect that this is not possible (or at least not likely). The reason is because I don’t believe it’s actually a leap at all. It’s a magic trick. All it is is a ranged attack in which the “real you” is made invisible and indestructible while a “fake you” is sent as a projectile. The real you never moves. The reason they can’t have the real you move is because you aren’t limited to targets you can physically reach, like with the Thief’s Infiltrator’s Arrow.

Basically, if they allowed you to stay where you appear to end up, then players could use it to trivialize jumping puzzles and other terrain challenges, or alternately you could use it as a true leap, but then they’d need to either reduce the range considerably or require it to path-to-target which would make it less often usable.

KronosBaelfire.6289:

phokus.8934:

It’d be nice if the legends had a passive or on active effect while being attuned.

Now this is a great idea considering most professions have some form of passive abilities and Rev doesn’t seem to get any and no automatic buffs to help it.

I also think its a great idea, here is what i suggested earlier

Legendary Dwarf Stance: Have a 30% chance to gain protection and retaliation for 6 seconds every time you are hit. Some internal cooldown.
Legendary Demon Stance: Have a 60% change to apply 1 stack of burning that last 5 seconds when you hit a target. Some internal cooldown.
Legendary Centaur Stance: Have a 30% chance to gain regeneration for 10 seconds every time you are hit. Some internal cooldown.

I’ve been thinking about this for some time.

Honestly, I love the Revenant. I love how it feels, I love how it plays.

But it still needs improvements.

Aside from balancing the numbers for damage, which is a minor thing to do in the long run, I think the real problem is lack of options, also known as build diversity.

Honestly, I like the idea. Other classes get skills #1-5 two sets via weapon swap during combat, but are otherwise set, and skills #6-10 that can be changed into anything out of combat but are frozen during combat.

By comparison, the revenant’s paradigm is reversed… sort of. Their utility set is handled the way weapons are for 6 of the 8 other classes. But their Weapon Set isn’t handled the way that the other classes’ utilities are.

And that’s part of the problem.

While giving the class unlimited weapon skill selection wouldn’t work, what if you could, instead, select two weapons… but not for weapon swapping. Instead, you select two weapons and then, when not in combat, could select for each weapon slot which of the two weapon skills you would use?

For instance, select hammer and mace/axe; then you select #1, the AA attack, to be the hammer; #2 and 3 be the mace’s #2 & 3; #4 selecting the axe #4, and #5 hammer #5.

This way you don’t get the danger of having unlimited weapon selection but still get some diversity that you can exchange between fights.

Another possibility could be that each weapon has a standard, basic ability, that gains a modifier based on the legend you are channeling. For example, perhaps for hammer #5, it does its base damage aoe, and gains the knockdown while channeling Jalis, while gaining some kind of condition(s) while channeling Mallyx.

honestly, I don’t think having one weapon to choose from and having it be either melee or ranged as being a big issue; the vast majority of the fights in the game either is good, with a few exceptions; in pve, once you know a fight you know which weapon will be best and can switch to it before it starts.

But having less diversity than any other class can be frustrating, so some options should be present.

I don’t think linking weapons to legendaries is a good idea, as it sets builds even further into stone, thus losing even the ability to change weapons, as your legend you are channeling locks you into a weapon as well. Likewise, I think giving them standard weapon swapping takes away from the differences that the Revenant is supposed to have.

As a side note, I think at least a tiny bit of diversity in utilities needs to be included anyway. I do like the idea of swapping utilities instead of weapons, but everyone should at least have access to their racial skills if nothing else.

I also want to note that while the Revenant does seem to have some decent in-combat mobility, its out of combat mobility, obviously, sucks. I hate having to take traveller runes for my only option.

So maybe tweak a couple skills: for instance, the Road skill from Jalis could grant several seconds of swiftness (and that makes a lot of sense. After all, its a road. The primary reason for roads is to facilitate travel), and perhaps Mallyx’s unyielding torment or whatever could offer 2 seconds of superspeed.

And the centaur trait line should offer 25% speed increase standard. not “I can outrun a centaur,” but “I AM a centaur!”

:)

My absolute favorite idea: have some skills increase energy and some decrease, with passive regen (if any) moving toward the middle. Not mine originally, but here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/revenant/A-Dynamic-Solution-for-Energy-s-Problems/first#post5282045

This is my take on the idea: skills 6/7-0 (not sure where healing should go) represent you channeling the legend, so they increase the energy of the legend flowing through you. As you channel more and more, energy goes up.

Skill 1-5/6 represent taking the power of the legend and focusing it through your weapon, channeling it away from you before the legend overtakes you.

If you go over the threshold in either direction, bad stuff happens. Not just “can’t use skills, not enough energy,” really bad stuff. Off the top of my head: going above the threshold inflicts taunt, burn, and torment on yourself as the legend overpowers you. Maybe even make the bad stuff different for each legend (e.g. taunt in Mallyx, stun in Ventari, and petrify in Jalis), but there should be a CC with damaging conditions alongside it. If you didn’t completely mess up your opponent with the unleashing of your mist powers, you’re hosed.

Going below the threshold should also be bad, but not quite so bad because the 1-5/6 skills are less powerful than the 6/7-0 skills. Again off the top of my head, have it inflict a pulsing blind, slow, and/or weakness as the mists drain from your body, robbing you of your source of power and sight. Enough that you are severely weakened, but you can still run away.

With these changes, get rid of regen on legend switch, instead retaining whatever energy level you are at, and open up some possibilities for cross-legend chains. Bonus points if you make the 1-5 skills function differently in each legend, so discharging your energy in (say) Ventari vs. Mallyx works differently.

I would play the crap out of a revenant that worked like this, though I doubt my wish will come true.

What about completely remove cooldowns. Then each skill except the AA had an increasing cost each time it’s used, and lowers its cost over time as it isn’t used.

I’ll also agree with others that simply having a weapon change with legend the way eles do with attunement might be a good solution.

Morfedel.4165:

I’ll also agree with others that simply having a weapon change with legend the way eles do with attunement might be a good solution.

And i disagree with it being a good solution or weapon swap in general. Maybe i want to play sword/shield Jalis?

skowcia.8257:

Morfedel.4165:

I’ll also agree with others that simply having a weapon change with legend the way eles do with attunement might be a good solution.

And i disagree with it being a good solution or weapon swap in general. Maybe i want to play sword/shield Jalis?

I think he meant the weapons skills would change with legend, not the weapon itself. I’d be down with that—then f you want to play a sword/shield Jalis, the skills could change to actually be useful in Jalis.

If the intention was to completely link weapons with legends and allow swapping, however, I’m not down with that. The problem as it stands is that every weapon is too coupled to a specific legend; coupling it more is not going to help, it’s just going to reduce variety even more.

Abnaxis.4593:

skowcia.8257:

Morfedel.4165:

I’ll also agree with others that simply having a weapon change with legend the way eles do with attunement might be a good solution.

And i disagree with it being a good solution or weapon swap in general. Maybe i want to play sword/shield Jalis?

I think he meant the weapons skills would change with legend, not the weapon itself. I’d be down with that—then f you want to play a sword/shield Jalis, the skills could change to actually be useful in Jalis.

If the intention was to completely link weapons with legends and allow swapping, however, I’m not down with that. The problem as it stands is that every weapon is too coupled to a specific legend; coupling it more is not going to help, it’s just going to reduce variety even more.

I have seen suggestions that would force us to pick certain weapon with their assiociated legend. And i believe thats what he meant. Still..weapon swap is not needed, what is needed are weapon skill that will get modified with your legend like ele glyph

skowcia.8257:

Morfedel.4165:

I’ll also agree with others that simply having a weapon change with legend the way eles do with attunement might be a good solution.

And i disagree with it being a good solution or weapon swap in general. Maybe i want to play sword/shield Jalis?

I’m not sure you understood what I was saying. Like ele get one weapon set. Have it change based on legendary like weapons doo for Ele. So sure you can run a sword and shields jalis just your other legendary would also be said n shield. Just abilities would change.

skowcia.8257:

Abnaxis.4593:

skowcia.8257:

Morfedel.4165:

I’ll also agree with others that simply having a weapon change with legend the way eles do with attunement might be a good solution.

And i disagree with it being a good solution or weapon swap in general. Maybe i want to play sword/shield Jalis?

I think he meant the weapons skills would change with legend, not the weapon itself. I’d be down with that—then f you want to play a sword/shield Jalis, the skills could change to actually be useful in Jalis.

If the intention was to completely link weapons with legends and allow swapping, however, I’m not down with that. The problem as it stands is that every weapon is too coupled to a specific legend; coupling it more is not going to help, it’s just going to reduce variety even more.

I have seen suggestions that would force us to pick certain weapon with their assiociated legend. And i believe thats what he meant. Still..weapon swap is not needed, what is needed are weapon skill that will get modified with your legend like ele glyph

No, abnaxis is right.

And if you check a post I made s could posts higher you’ll see I said it was a bad idea for build diversity.

I made a couple suggestions. One included having one weapon with core skills that modified based on legend. Second included hybrid from two weapon sets. Third was my idea that others commented first and i was agreeing with: treat them like ele weapons are.

But revenant doesnt need weapon swap. Engi does fine without it so does ele. Its an issue of revenant desing that they tied weapons too close to specific legend, nothing else. Making it similiar way to ele glyph would solve that issue while still keeping weapon roles.

Staff would still be a support for Shiro for example, just in a offensive way as opposed to ventari which focus on healing.

skowcia.8257:

But revenant doesnt need weapon swap. Engi does fine without it so does ele. Its an issue of revenant desing that they tied weapons too close to specific legend, nothing else. Making it similiar way to ele glyph would solve that issue while still keeping weapon roles.

Staff would still be a support for Shiro for example, just in a offensive way as opposed to ventari which focus on healing.

Nonsense, ele and engie both have weapon swaps—they’re called kits and conjured weapons. Elementalist actually has the second-most options for weapons they want to bring to a fight, second only to warrior—and that’s not even counting attunements.

Reducing the coupling between specific weapons and specific legends will help but it’s not going to solve the problem by itself. Every single class—including engie and especially ele—has vastly more versatility on the 1-5 skills for range and utility than Revenant, even if legends changed how the weapon skills worked.

Math here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/revenant/Lack-of-Customization-the-Real-Rev-Problem

I love the spirit weapon idea. It can be taken a little further.

The original spirit weapons were just buffs, but GW2 has given us more concepts to work with. Full-on conjures might not be needed either. Mantras or glyphs could temporarily replace individual weapon skills with whole new abilities while leaving the other skills intact. With the energy mechanic, the replacement could even be a toggle with upkeep.

Abnaxis.4593:

skowcia.8257:

But revenant doesnt need weapon swap. Engi does fine without it so does ele. Its an issue of revenant desing that they tied weapons too close to specific legend, nothing else. Making it similiar way to ele glyph would solve that issue while still keeping weapon roles.

Staff would still be a support for Shiro for example, just in a offensive way as opposed to ventari which focus on healing.

Nonsense, ele and engie both have weapon swaps—they’re called kits and conjured weapons. Elementalist actually has the second-most options for weapons they want to bring to a fight, second only to warrior—and that’s not even counting attunements.

Reducing the coupling between specific weapons and specific legends will help but it’s not going to solve the problem by itself. Every single class—including engie and especially ele—has vastly more versatility on the 1-5 skills for range and utility than Revenant, even if legends changed how the weapon skills worked.

Math here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/revenant/Lack-of-Customization-the-Real-Rev-Problem

And revenant has legend swap instead. That thing was supposed to be strong to make up for the lack of extra skills but it dindt worked out well as they made them these utilities too weak. I know pretty well how many access to x skills engi and ele can have, but wepaon swap is not a solution by any means. They always can come up with additional f2 mechanic where we taking avatar of current channeled legend similiar to necro ds to add some extra abilities. Its not a problem, just extra work for them.

I like the Spirit Weapon idea. Add one in that grants +600 range to your next X attacks and that would help with potential single weapon issues. For those attacks your weapon fades to mist and the attacks occur by a misty figure beside the target.

skowcia.8257:

Abnaxis.4593:

skowcia.8257:

But revenant doesnt need weapon swap. Engi does fine without it so does ele. Its an issue of revenant desing that they tied weapons too close to specific legend, nothing else. Making it similiar way to ele glyph would solve that issue while still keeping weapon roles.

Staff would still be a support for Shiro for example, just in a offensive way as opposed to ventari which focus on healing.

Nonsense, ele and engie both have weapon swaps—they’re called kits and conjured weapons. Elementalist actually has the second-most options for weapons they want to bring to a fight, second only to warrior—and that’s not even counting attunements.

Reducing the coupling between specific weapons and specific legends will help but it’s not going to solve the problem by itself. Every single class—including engie and especially ele—has vastly more versatility on the 1-5 skills for range and utility than Revenant, even if legends changed how the weapon skills worked.

Math here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/revenant/Lack-of-Customization-the-Real-Rev-Problem

And revenant has legend swap instead. That thing was supposed to be strong to make up for the lack of extra skills but it dindt worked out well as they made them these utilities too weak. I know pretty well how many access to x skills engi and ele can have, but wepaon swap is not a solution by any means. They always can come up with additional f2 mechanic where we taking avatar of current channeled legend similiar to necro ds to add some extra abilities. Its not a problem, just extra work for them.

The real problem is build diversity combined with having ranged/melee options.

1) You can only switch between two sets of utilities that are already predefined for you. This matches with other classes having only two weapon sets that have predefined skill sets. However, other classes can change their utilities at will between fights, where you are stuck with selecting another predefined set of 5 skills for skills 1-5; this severely limits build diversity in comparison to other classes. This is an issue I agree with. The revenant has too few options compared to the other classes.

In other words, their utility swapping is much like other classes weapon swapping; but their weapon is nothing like other classes utilities, and is much more restrictive even than the elementalist and engineer.

2) Many people are complaining that they don’t have ranged options for two of the three available weapon sets, stuck in melee, and that makes it difficult. For each of the elementalist and engineer weapon sets, not even including weapon kits, they have some range with their attacks; I don’t entirely buy their arguments actually, as I think most enemies can be fought in melee just fine, and both melee weapon sets had methods to close the range, not including even the skills of the legends, but I can see why it would bother people.

I really do believe that if all Revenant does is swap legends to a set number of skills per legend, that Revenant will fail and require a massive rework.

Maybe Revenant should have access to weapon swap. As of right now the only customization is your traits and weapons.

It’s been said, Revenant should receive some kind of other skill to slot in or out with the legend. Players have compared the idea to Elementalist Arcane skills. That’s where I’ll stop with that piece. I won’t pretend to know the thousands of man hours in different departments needed to do such a thing.

I’m excited for Revenant still, but I worry for its place in the game.

Morfedel.4165:

1) You can only switch between two sets of utilities that are already predefined for you. This matches with other classes having only two weapon sets that have predefined skill sets. However, other classes can change their utilities at will between fights, where you are stuck with selecting another predefined set of 5 skills for skills 1-5; this severely limits build diversity in comparison to other classes. This is an issue I agree with. The revenant has too few options compared to the other classes.

In other words, their utility swapping is much like other classes weapon swapping; but their weapon is nothing like other classes utilities, and is much more restrictive even than the elementalist and engineer.

2) Many people are complaining that they don’t have ranged options for two of the three available weapon sets, stuck in melee, and that makes it difficult. For each of the elementalist and engineer weapon sets, not even including weapon kits, they have some range with their attacks; I don’t entirely buy their arguments actually, as I think most enemies can be fought in melee just fine, and both melee weapon sets had methods to close the range, not including even the skills of the legends, but I can see why it would bother people.

1. Thats why they have to make 2 extra utility skills for current legend and bring up the gap. Jalis uses long ranger hammer but doesnt have ranged attack skills? Make 2 extra utiltiies that focus on ranged combat. Imo its laughable that rev has olny 12 utility skills compared to old classes with 20 and its something i been complaining for a while.

2. If you choose d/d ele youre pretty much stuck in melee. Naturally their melee is not a “real melee” as they have a bit longer range but you dont have ability to shoot fireballs from 1200 range at will. Engi is the olny one that can swap between close-medium-long range atm. Howered i dont see a issue with full pure melee if the class have enough sustain to perform well there.

skowcia.8257:

1. Thats why they have to make 2 extra utility skills for current legend and bring up the gap. Jalis uses long ranger hammer but doesnt have ranged attack skills? Make 2 extra utiltiies that focus on ranged combat. Imo its laughable that rev has olny 12 utility skills compared to old classes with 20 and its something i been complaining for a while.

2. If you choose d/d ele youre pretty much stuck in melee. Naturally their melee is not a “real melee” as they have a bit longer range but you dont have ability to shoot fireballs from 1200 range at will. Engi is the olny one that can swap between close-medium-long range atm. Howered i dont see a issue with full pure melee if the class have enough sustain to perform well there.

2. Bologna. D/D ele is one Ice Bow or Fire Axe away from ranged. with Conjurer, you can keep it up constantly.

You can’t just ignore the weapons elementalist an engie can pull from their utilities. They make a massive difference in versatility.

+1 to Skowcia’s ideas. Very nice write up and agree with most of it.

Abnaxis.4593:

skowcia.8257:

1. Thats why they have to make 2 extra utility skills for current legend and bring up the gap. Jalis uses long ranger hammer but doesnt have ranged attack skills? Make 2 extra utiltiies that focus on ranged combat. Imo its laughable that rev has olny 12 utility skills compared to old classes with 20 and its something i been complaining for a while.

2. If you choose d/d ele youre pretty much stuck in melee. Naturally their melee is not a “real melee” as they have a bit longer range but you dont have ability to shoot fireballs from 1200 range at will. Engi is the olny one that can swap between close-medium-long range atm. Howered i dont see a issue with full pure melee if the class have enough sustain to perform well there.

2. Bologna. D/D ele is one Ice Bow or Fire Axe away from ranged. with Conjurer, you can keep it up constantly.

You can’t just ignore the weapons elementalist an engie can pull from their utilities. They make a massive difference in versatility.

But who use axe? I dont even know skills on conjured axe as nobody use it. Ice bow? People pick it olny for it strong aoe on skill 4 then drop it as everything else is useless there. I think you need to try harder.

skowcia.8257:

But who use axe? I dont even know skills on conjured axe as nobody use it. Ice bow? People pick it olny for it strong aoe on skill 4 then drop it as everything else is useless there. I think you need to try harder.

Fine (although has anyone used axe since Jul 9th update? It might be viable now…)

If an elementalist wants to be effective at range and in melee, they can pack a staff and switch to lightning hammer for high melee DPS and a cleaving blind / blast-finisher auto attack. D/D might not have effective ranged options, but neither does a warrior running GS/Axe-Mace. Just because they can spec to only melee/only ranged, doesn’t mean they have to.

Revenant doesn’t have that choice. They can either be ranged or melee, not both. For that matter, they can’t switch for more support, more AoE, or more condis either. They get to pick one focus with their weapon, with no way to switch in combat—better hope it’s a good one…

Abnaxis.4593:

If an elementalist wants to be effective at range and in melee, they can pack a staff and switch to lightning hammer for high melee DPS and a cleaving blind / blast-finisher auto attack. D/D might not have effective ranged options, but neither does a warrior running GS/Axe-Mace. Just because they can spec to only melee/only ranged, doesn’t mean they have to.

Revenant doesn’t have that choice. They can either be ranged or melee, not both. For that matter, they can’t switch for more support, more AoE, or more condis either. They get to pick one focus with their weapon, with no way to switch in combat—better hope it’s a good one…

Thats the reason the Revenant needs some kind of conjured Mist Weapons IMO

Not like the ele-weapons but more like an upkeep skill that gives you a mist weapon for the cost of energy – this would also fit perfectly in the whole mist topic

If Revenant got “Spirit Weapons,” I would hope that they go a completely different route with them than Guardians, more like the current Revenant hammer summons. I would want it to be a thing that is constantly attacking with fast but tiny hits, rather than something that spends most of the time just hovering around and then does some big attack. Or maybe they don’t auto-attack at all, just the “command” attacks, but on a much shorter cooldown than Guard versions, so you’re intended to just work them into your melee rotation.

Abnaxis.4593:

skowcia.8257:

But who use axe? I dont even know skills on conjured axe as nobody use it. Ice bow? People pick it olny for it strong aoe on skill 4 then drop it as everything else is useless there. I think you need to try harder.

Fine (although has anyone used axe since Jul 9th update? It might be viable now…)

If an elementalist wants to be effective at range and in melee, they can pack a staff and switch to lightning hammer for high melee DPS and a cleaving blind / blast-finisher auto attack. D/D might not have effective ranged options, but neither does a warrior running GS/Axe-Mace. Just because they can spec to only melee/only ranged, doesn’t mean they have to.

Revenant doesn’t have that choice. They can either be ranged or melee, not both. For that matter, they can’t switch for more support, more AoE, or more condis either. They get to pick one focus with their weapon, with no way to switch in combat—better hope it’s a good one…

But staff is also effective at melee range, all it damage comes from aoe. You just lava font everything. Leta also not forget that conjures weapons has charges either way.

Sure revenant doesnt have that choice but he dont need it either. If you talking about pve then theres not many encounters where you want to use ranged wep unless you want to range every boss, but then prepare for insta kick. Meta in pve is pure melee with staff ele being excption but its still used in melee for stacking purposes. In pvp there also melee builds without range option (or subpar ranged) which does fine, d/d ele actually being over the top.

Imo instead of asking for weapon swap, ask for 4th upkeep utility that will let you conjure mist weapon. That will fix your problem, weapon swap is not a solution. Not to mention that it wont happen for a really simple reason;

Light and medium classes has one class without weapon swap. Revenant was designed to fill this gap, by adding another class in heavy category without weapon swap.

skowcia.8257:

But staff is also effective at melee range, all it damage comes from aoe. You just lava font everything. Leta also not forget that conjures weapons has charges either way.

Sure revenant doesnt have that choice but he dont need it either. If you talking about pve then theres not many encounters where you want to use ranged wep unless you want to range every boss, but then prepare for insta kick. Meta in pve is pure melee with staff ele being excption but its still used in melee for stacking purposes. In pvp there also melee builds without range option (or subpar ranged) which does fine, d/d ele actually being over the top.

Imo instead of asking for weapon swap, ask for 4th upkeep utility that will let you conjure mist weapon. That will fix your problem, weapon swap is not a solution. Not to mention that it wont happen for a really simple reason;

Light and medium classes has one class without weapon swap. Revenant was designed to fill this gap, by adding another class in heavy category without weapon swap.

I don’t think you understand the difference between a ranged weapon and a melee weapon.

Yes, staff does same damage in melee as it does at range. Aside from a couple exceptions, that’s how all ranged weapons work. However, melee weapons do more total DPS, and all have damage mitigation/survivability moves (dodges, blinds, prot, etc) in their move sets that you can include in your DPS rotation without taking a severe DPS hit. So yes, you can use a staff in melee and it will do the same amount of damage as it does at range, but it will do less damage than LH and it won’t help you survive—only escape—if you keep yourself surrounded by elite mobs, whereas I go toe-to-toe with loads of mordrem in Silverwastes all the time with LH.

Revenant needs to be able to switch out 1-5 so they can fill multiple damage roles—which includes melee, ranged, CC, condi, direct DPS, support, and probably a bunch of other roles I’m, forgetting— just like everyone else can. Changing utilities isn’t enough to allow this. The combat in GW2 wasn’t built around camping in a single set of 1-5 moves all the time.

If ANet comes out with some way of doing this that doesn’t involve normal weapon switching, fine. However, it needs to be fun and interesting. Saying “Revenant doesn’t get weapon switch so all armor weights have a non-weapon-switching profession” is stupid. Revenant should only not get weapon switch if it leads to interesting gameplay, not to fulfill some arbitrary symmetry requirement.

But range is not really needed, why you push so much to get ranged option if you put on melee set? If you know you need a range weapon just swap to hammer before encounter. Whats so hard about that one? If you dont like melee then you probably looking at wrong class to play as revenant is descripted as a brawler profession.

All the roles you mentioned can be done via utility skills and they already are. Shiro for direct dps, cc, mobility. Jalis for melee, support, tanking. Ventari for support. Mallyx for condi.

They could come up with a mist weapon similiar to kits which replaces your wep skills to bring more skills in combat, but ask yourself if engi kit gameplay is any good. In my eyes that kind of gameplay sux and is a reason why i and many others dont play engi. Its the least playable profession for a good reason.

Weapon swap on the other hand will make revenant gameplay clunky and even worse than it is now. Cause what if i want to swap legend but at same time i want to keep my weapon as i dindt used cd’s yet? Run olny 1 weapon set? To put myself against huge disadvantage compared to any other rev which use second weapon? And if we dont make weapon swap with legend then what..press 1 key for weapon swap, 1 for utility swap? Lol

I won’t speak about weapon swaps, utility swaps, numbers or anything like that. They already have feedback on that. Instead, I will focus on engaging gameplay.

I think that every legend should have some “secondary mechanic” to itself.

The reason why Mallyx is imo the best legend so far and has awesome risk/reward design is because it has secondary mechanic his Traitline can easily make interactions with.
His secondary mechanic are conditions on himself and their management.

Other two professions, especially Jalis, look so blunt in comparison.

While we could technically consider managing Tablet as secondary mechanic for Ventari, the Salvation traitline can combo with… it’s not enough.
Moving Tablet has little exciting play and risk/reward mechanic. It’s just necessary mechanic, fun, but doesn’t bring much decision-making like Mallyx and self-conditions.

• My idea for Ventari secondary mechanic would be something like this: % of Healing Done to allies and yourself by your single Tablet is “saved” on the Revenant. When you swap from Ventari legend, this saved healing is being released from the Revenant and heals allies within 5 next seconds as Healing over Time (HoT) effect.
  One of the main problems with Revenant and Ventrai healing is that it lacks effective, interesting HoT. It has bursts of healing, but only HoT it can provide is very short duration Regeneration. I agree with it, as other professions should provide more Regeneration, like Guardian or Necromancer.
  Second problem is that it’s healing is non-existant outside of Ventari. This suggestion fixes both problems.
  And it gives choice for healing Ventari Revenant – When to change legends? You don’t want to just camp Ventari all the time, because once you swap, the HoT would be enormous, but you waste it since your group may not need so much healing at the moment – overall HP/S potential goes down. If you time it correctly, however, you might keep steady flow of healing all the time. Decision-making.

• Jalis is different. It has absolutely no “secondary mechanic” now, at all. It should be bound to Tanking role and protecting allies, but I feel that Jalis might get some changes, especially to Rite of the Great Dwarf, in near future, so I just leave it as bland suggestion. If I come up with something interesting, I will update this post.

Secondary mechanics could not only help make Traits more interesting, not based only on Energy, but also create opportunity to reward good gameplay i.e. good use of secondary mechanic would give you bonus Energy gains: more Energy regeneration for Mallyx the more conditions he holds on himself, bonus Energy when you swap to Ventari depending on how good HoT on the other legend was etc.

Cheers,
Rym

EDIT: Wild idea I had just after finishing this post was that rewards for good play could come not only with gameplay uses, but also specific Legend’s opinions.

How cool would that be if by playing Legend “right” it could praise you sometimes with a dialogue and if played badly complain about the Revenant?

Something like when you play Mallyx to this legend’s limit i.e. hold tons of conditions on yourself, inflicting them everywhere and getting more and more energy from it he could say some cool thing like “You’re really a definition of Anguish!” etc.

Just a random thought.

Several important points have already been addressed on the previous posts, but I’d still like to highlight an important issue with the Revenant.

When it compares to the other professions that don’t have access to weapon swap, the Revenant is/feels very limited in CC, damage and evasion skills. Other players have already discussed this in greater detail, but it basically needs a weapon swap or the ability to channel more than 2 legendary stances. Three legendary stances would be great, so that we can match the 3 specializations accordingly.

Dibaryon.7469:

or the ability to channel more than 2 legendary stances. Three legendary stances would be great, so that we can match the 3 specializations accordingly.

I was rather disappointed myself that we could only use 2 Legends at a time. It would be nice if they changed it to more than two.

Pazu.8320:

In regard to weapon swap: Engi has 15 skills even without a kit equipped, and he gets to customize his bar; This goes up to 19 with one kit and 23 with 2 kits, which are common situations. Ele has 25 skills. Revenant has 15 and cannot customize outside of choosing his legends (also can’t chose which skills to bind to which keys). Adding a weapon swap would bring this number up to 20 skills… still with the lack of customization of skills. Ele and engi also have flexibility to include both ranged and melee attacks, whereas Rev can choose only one. Even necro has 20 skills when you consider deathshroud, so why should Rev be limited to only 15?

Rev needs at the least either weapon swap or more skills tied to each legend for us to choose from.

Also, whatever happened to this supposed strong in-combat mobility?

I don’t think Revenant needs to have X number of skills. He just needs to be able to use the ones he has better. They ought to overhaul energy management and get rid of the cooldowns on utility skills. Let us use them as much as we want, as long as we have the energy. Make energy a higher skill-cap mechanic; something that requires good positioning, combos, and timing.

For example, there should be traits that boost energy when you hit multiple enemies, revive an ally, use an elite skill, a heal skill, etc. There should be delayed energy gain effects, such as sacrificing 20 energy to gain 50 later. There should be skills that give energy when you successfully block an attack or stun an enemy.

Right now everything just costs energy and has an arbitrary cooldown on top of it. Energy gain is purely passive and BORING. Let us boost it through skillful play, and let us use the limited skills we have more frequently than other classes to compensate.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Dibaryon.7469:

or the ability to channel more than 2 legendary stances. Three legendary stances would be great, so that we can match the 3 specializations accordingly.

I was rather disappointed myself that we could only use 2 Legends at a time. It would be nice if they changed it to more than two.

The problem with that is, there are only four non-elite legends planned for you to choose from. Might as well just make all of the legends accessible at that point…

ANet really needs more than the four non-elite legends they have lined up. If we had more to choose from, a lot of the issue with lack of options would be greatly helped.