Guild Wars 2

Currently there is little or no synergy between Jalis and Mallyx, or between Mallyx and Ventari. There is some between Jalis and Ventari because they both offer defense and sustain. Mallyx is left out because his conditions don’t stack high enough or fast enough. Maybe Mallyx will work with Shiro, but there’s no way to tell at this point. Synergy between defensive legends and offensive ones is little or none. Weapons are too focused on their specific legend to be of use to another legend (staff and hammer are useless to Mallyx). I hope these suggestions give the devs some ideas that may help the class.

1. Remove weapon effects and make weapons a “blank slate”. This means make each weapon have a standard base damage and little or no condition application on its own. Make every weapon have roughly the same number of Control skills.

2. Take those effects and add them to specific traits. Make Mallyx traits add conditions to weapon slot skills. Make Ventari traits add healing to weapon slots. This would have the effect of applying the legend you choose to any weapon. The difference in weapon would come from it’s attack animation speed and range. This would allow the Revenant to use any two legends without the weapon being useless to one legend. So for example, make a Mallyx trait add burning to weapon slot #2 regardless of weapon. Make a Ventari trait add healing to #3.

3. Change the energy cost and cooldowns of all Revenant skills. Every skill right now costs BOTH energy and has a cooldown. This is somewhat nonsensical and redundant. Either make the weapon skills cost no energy with cooldown, or the utility skills cost no energy with cooldown. Personally I think the weapon skills should have basic cooldowns with no energy cost, and the utility skills should have no cooldown (or very low, 3-5 seconds) with high energy cost.

4. There should be weapon skills which boost energy gain when used properly. There should also be traits in Invocation which enhance energy gain conditionally.

Example traits:

• Gain +40 energy at 25% health. 30s cooldown
• Sacrifice and extra 25 energy when activating an elite skill. Gain +40 energy after 30 seconds.
• Gain +1 energy for each enemy you strike. 1s cooldown per target.
• Lose up to 50 energy when you begin reviving an ally. You revive 1% faster per point of energy spent in this way.
• Gain +5 energy per nearby ally (360 radius) when you use your healing skill (#6).

Example skills:

• Strike up to 5 nearby enemies (360 radius) gain +10 energy per hit.
• Lose 10 energy per second and gain 150 Ferocity for 5 seconds. If you took no damage during this time, you gain full energy.
• Gain +20 energy per nearby dead ally.
• Lose 5 energy per second and gain +20% outgoing healing for 10 seconds. When this ends gain energy based on the amount of healing done to allies.

If each trait specialization is going to be tied to one legend, then Invocation (which has no legend) should be about energy gain and expenditure. Also, there needs to be a reason to take a trait line without taking the legend associated with it. Otherwise there would be no reason to pick 3 legend lines. Every build would take 2 legends + Invocation. The traits in legend lines need to affect skill slots and other non-legend actions (such as dodging, blocking, healing, etc.)

For example, you need to be able to make a choice in your build. Do you take 2 legends + Invocation to boost those 2 legends? Or do you take 3 legend-specific trait lines, ignore Invocation, and gain the passive trait effects of a 3rd legend while having access to only 2 on your F1/F2 bar?

Edit/Followup:

Currently as I see it, if Revenant build systems and skill balance isn’t significantly changed, Every Revenant in PvE will run roughly the same build:

• Take Shiro (the dps spec)
• Take Invocation for fury, stun break, and faster swap
• Take Glint (elite spec) for whatever it does, OR take Mallyx for some condition damage.

They might take Jalis over Glint/Mallyx for some defense, but given the nature of PvE, Shiro and Invocation will be required no matter what. Unless of course HoT requires pure tanks and healers…

Xenon.4537:

1. Nerf weapon effects into a homogenous state at baseline. This means make each weapon have a standard base damage and little or no condition application on its own. Make every weapon have roughly the same number of Control skills.

2. Take those nerfs and rework them into buffs through trait lines. Make Mallyx traits add conditions to weapon slot skills. Make Ventari traits add healing to weapon slots. This would have the effect of applying the legend you choose to any weapon. The difference in weapon would come from it’s attack animation speed and range. This would allow the Revenant to use any two legends without the weapon being useless to one legend. So for example, make a Mallyx trait add burning to weapon slot #2 regardless of weapon. Make a Ventari trait add healing to #3.

Really like the idea. The difference between having weaponskills be changed/improved by the traitlines instead of the activ legend like some suggested is that you can stack the effects of 3 different legends at the same time which could be really powerful. But it has to be because Invocations is already really important because of the many boni you get for switching legends.

For Shiro more damage would be the most basic bonus, other than that I think shadowsteps could be really cool.
Jalis could apply boons like resistance but that would be really close to Guardian. Instead it could add stuns, because hammerstun warrior!

@LunarNacht.8913

Thanks! I’ve thought more about that idea, and I wanted to give some example build situations that would arise from it.

Build #1:

This is a hybrid DPS/control build using 3 legends to add control effects at the cost of Invocation.

• You take Curruption (Mallyx), Retribution (Jalis), and the Shiro line.
• You equip Mallyx traits which add the torment to the #1 slot, and burning to the #2 slot.
• You equip Shiro traits which boost the base damage of the weapon up to match standard power weapons (before damage modifiers).
• You equip Jalis traits which add a knockback to #3, and a stun to #5.
• The previously listed effects are passively applied through traits, and remain active regardless of the active legend.
• You slot in Shiro to F1, and Mallyx to F2. You gain Shiro’s power-based utility skills while channeling F1, and you gain Mallyx’s condition-based utility skills while in F2.
• Your legend swapping benefits are reduced due to lack of Invocation, but you gain the passive effects (weapon skill buffs) of Jalis even though you can’t actively channel him or use his utilities.

Build #2:

This is a hybrid DPS/control build using 2 legends with Invocation

• You take Shiro, Jalis, and Invocation.
• You equip Shiro traits which add the weapon power, and Jalis traits which add the control effects to weapon skills.
• You equip Invocation traits which allow you to swap legends faster, stunbreak on swapping, and gain various ways to boost energy generation.
• You slot in Shiro to F1, and Jalis to F2. You have their passive trait effects as well as the ability to channel them. You lack the passive benefits of a 3rd legend, but Invocation makes up for that by enhancing your energy management and allowing you to swap between Shiro and Jalis more frequently and quickly.

Build #3:

This is a hybrid build idea to illustrate the possibility of equipping a legend without it’s trait line or weapon.

• You take Mallyx traits, Shiro traits, and Invocation.
• You slot in Mallyx to F1, and Ventari to F2.
• Your Shiro traits boost your base weapon damage, Mallyx adds the conditions, and Invocation enhances the energy.
• Even though you took no Ventari traits, you can channel him in F2 to heal allies and cleanse conditions via the utilities. You can also cleanse via Mallyx’s Pain Absorbtion.
• Your stat set would be Sinister, and your playstyle would be to stack conditions and moderate power damage through active Mallyx boosted by passive Shiro, while cleansing and topping off allies with active Ventari.

Xenon.4537:

Edit/Followup:

Currently as I see it, if Revenant build systems and skill balance isn’t significantly changed, Every Revenant in PvE will run roughly the same build:

• Take Shiro (the dps spec)
• Take Invocation for fury, stun break, and faster swap
• Take Glint (elite spec) for whatever it does, OR take Mallyx for some condition damage.

They might take Jalis over Glint/Mallyx for some defense, but given the nature of PvE, Shiro and Invocation will be required no matter what. Unless of course HoT requires pure tanks and healers…

This lack of fundamental build diversity in the traits is what I see as one of the glaring design flaws of the Revenant, and I too am worried that Revenants will mostly be running Shiro/Invocation + Other.

Genesis.8572:

Xenon.4537:

Edit/Followup:

Currently as I see it, if Revenant build systems and skill balance isn’t significantly changed, Every Revenant in PvE will run roughly the same build:

• Take Shiro (the dps spec)
• Take Invocation for fury, stun break, and faster swap
• Take Glint (elite spec) for whatever it does, OR take Mallyx for some condition damage.

They might take Jalis over Glint/Mallyx for some defense, but given the nature of PvE, Shiro and Invocation will be required no matter what. Unless of course HoT requires pure tanks and healers…

This lack of fundamental build diversity in the traits is what I see as one of the glaring design flaws of the Revenant, and I too am worried that Revenants will mostly be running Shiro/Invocation + Other.

Given Anet’s track record, I have a feeling you are right. I’m sure they are listening to feedback right now, but development for AAA games is like sailing the Titanic. They can’t just turn the ship around on a dime. Most of the current Revenant is going to stay the way it is at launch. I think the most we can expect is buffs and nerfs to traits, and some tweaking on damage numbers. Given the structure of the class so far, I predict every build in PvE will be Shiro + Glint + Invocation.

Basically the class needs some fundamental changes to the way energy is used and generated, and to the way weapons receive effects (damage, conditions, control, and healing). There needs to be more synergy between every legend, and there needs to be a reason to use something besides mace/axe on Mallyx, or something besides hammer on Jalis. I’m predicting these problems will persist for a while until Anet feels like they’ve gathered enough feedback to decide a course of action.

never played revenant but reading carefully through a lot of the feedback posts i think your ideas are a great way to address one of the major problems for revenants based on their class mechanic.

in my opinion, the legends itself should have some customization as well though, maybe 9 utilities you can chose from per legend? heal and elite skills could be fixed per legend

Tarkan.5609:

never played revenant but reading carefully through a lot of the feedback posts i think your ideas are a great way to address one of the major problems for revenants based on their class mechanic.

in my opinion, the legends itself should have some customization as well though, maybe 9 utilities you can chose from per legend? heal and elite skills could be fixed per legend

I think Anet intends to add more utility skills. When I played it, I had the option to select the utility slots with that little arrow over the slot. However there were only 3 utilities and 1 heal available, so there weren’t options to chose from at the time. It seems to me like they will add more later. So for example you won’t HAVE to run pain absorption on Mallyx if you don’t want to. There should be more Mallyx skills in the future, as well as every legend.

I just hope they don’t try to solve this by adding default boring weapon swap. There are much cooler ways to build the Revenant that would allow it to be unique.