I’m not sure how stealth is connected to the giant demon ape thematically. Nor do I see a reason why we need stealth on a soldier profession. In fact, it’s generally accepted in the fantasy genre that heavy armour is bad for stealth, because heavy armour is noisy. Magic can overcome that, but that’s the realm of mesmers and (most people consider) thieves. If at some stage we get an elite specialisation with a legend associated with stealth, then that may change, but Mallyx is not that legend.
To those who think Scarlet hate means she’s succeeded as a villain:
People don’t hate Scarlet like Game of Thrones fans hate Joffrey.
They hate her the way Star Wars fans hate Jar Jar Binks.
Well, original Mallyx was like eight times player’s character height hunched and looked like kittened off demonic gorilla, I imagine it’d be hard to remain stealthed when you look like that. Original aspects of Mallyx was a lot of removal of various effects, crap load of forced re-locations, adds and summoning Tormented Souls, not hiding. In fact, he used to aggro right away.
Besides, stealthing condition applier is something we surely need less of, not more. Two most hated condition specs (Condition Thief and Mesmer) are exactly that and aren’t exact definition of “fun to play against”.
And Revenant playstyle doesn’t really go well with Condition playstyle which consists of multiple hits and has no real advantage by attacking out of stealth.
Besides, stealthing condition applier is something we surely need less of, not more. Two most hated condition specs (Condition Thief and Mesmer) are exactly that and aren’t exact definition of “fun to play against”.
Even with, Revenant would still be the weakest stealth class since condition application beyond Mace autoattack requires energy use. Elite requires energy via upkeep ability means less stealth time or low condition application.
The issue with Thief/Mesmer hatred is because of how easy it is to apply stealth over and over through multiple abilities/fields. (Apply conditions from range/stealth/apply conditions from range/stealth/determine if you are going to win/stealth again and run or finish) Revenant would only have this option with Mace autoattack and that’s a much better counterplay experience than what currently exists with Thief/Mesmer.
Engineer is less hated for this reason but that’s because it’s stealth is not able to applied over and over although some would argue that Toss on Elixir S is annoying too because that is because of it’s AoE stealth duration.
I think the potential is there for the Revenant to provide a fun and effective condition applying playstyle. With the Corruption traits, runes and sigils that helps with condis, and some tweaks to the Mallyx legend, things could be good. If one of the utilities could be a condition transfer, and make EtD cause Torment to do more damage to foes inside its aura, I think it would be in good shape.
