Guild Wars 2

UPDATE: Alright guys, now that weapon swap will be added to fix the Revenant, this thread has lost its purpose (or rather fulfilled its purpose?) and can be closed. I just wanted to thank you all for 3000+ views and 100+ responses, thanks for the discussions, all the useful feedback and the creative suggested solutions. I don’t know if Anet ever looked into this thread, but even if they didn’t, I think that it still did a good job in making people think about and form opinions on the subject.
Anet chose to let us swap weapons, so it is very very unlikely that any of our other ideas/solutions here will be added to the Revenant profession. As for the ongoing discussions, other threads are probably more suited to continue these than this one now.
Thank you all!
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original post:

The anomaly of the Revenant

• Currently, six out of eight classes have the ability to swap weapons in combat
• The other two classes (Elementalist and Engineer) do not have this ability, because they naturally have a huge variety on their #1-#5 skill bar due to their class mechanics (Attunements + Conjures / Kits)
• The Revenant is the first class that completely lacks any possibility to change weapon skills in combat

Why the ability to switch between Legendary Stances does not justify the lack of weapon swapping at the moment

• On first glance, the ability to switch between Legendary Stances means a huge variety on the Revenants #6 – #0 skill bar, since they basically can use twice as many skills in combat there compared to all the other classes
• On the other hand though, the way these Legendary Stances are designed mean a lot less variety compared to all the other classes, since each Legend is completely tied to it’s five fixed skills with zero alternative options
• The advantages and disadvantages are in good balance here
• But since these advantages and disadvantages are in a good balance, there’s no reason at all to further disadvantage the Revenant by not allowing to swap weapons / not providing any way to change weapon skills!

The problem

• As soon as you decide to use Mace/Axe or Staff, no matter what Traits or Legendary Stance you use, you will never have any efficient way to engage in ranged combat
• Vice versa with Hammer
• The Revenant is the only class with this issue

Possible solutions

1. Allow weapon swap
2. Add Utility Skills to the legends, that provide something similar to Conjured Weapons or Kits
3. Completely change weapon skills depending on which stance you’re using (Elementalist-Attunement-style)
4. Only slightly change weapon skills depending on which stance you’re using (for example, Mace/Axe basically keeps it’s skills when changing from Mallyx to Jalis, but the skills lose their condition applying and get CC/protective effects instead, plus all skills turn into ranged versions of themselves)
5. Give us something like ‘Death Shroud’: Each legend allows us to swap between our weapon and five legend-based skills by pressing F2
6. Tie Legendary Stances to their respective weapons (so swapping stances auto-swaps your weapon, or swapping weapons auto-swaps your stance)
7. Completely switch legends with weapons: Legends determine your #1-#5 skills, weapons determine your #6-#0 skills (probably the biggest Revenant redesign of all possibilies, needs a lot of creativity)

edit: Updated regularly when useful new ideas get brought up

I personally would like to see something similar to what the elementalist does, where you get different weapon skills based on your current invocation.

Note that the Revenant is the only class that can switch their skills #6-#0

bearshaman.3421:

I personally would like to see something similar to what the elementalist does, where you get different weapon skills based on your current invocation.

This could be neat. Not happy with 5 wep slots only, at any rate.

It can swap slots 6-10, where everyone else can swap 1-5. HOWEVER….

Everyone else can customize 6-10. Revenant can’t customize 1-5.

Ergo, lower customization.

Technically, if you look at the interface, it feels like all is in place to allow you to customise your 6-10 talents depending on your legend.

For sure, Revenant would feel a little short on utilities if all he had was those that come by defaut with 4 stances.

stof.9341:

Note that the Revenant is the only class that can switch their skills #6-#0

Note that this does nothing to address the core problem.

Note that elementalists cannot switch from a melee form to a range form either with their atunement swaps.

Now I posted this else where but I will say that from a lore perspective, I can understand not wanting to do what I suggested. Each legend has its iconic weapon. That’s fair.

What I propose is instead, have 6-10 be customizable for each legend individually. Then have the weapon included in the swap when you switch legends. That way you have two legends that you are easily able to switch between all the way across.

If this is too customizable, then at least have the invocation change 1-10, even if 6-10 are fixed. Not sure how the weapon would work at that point, but it’s an idea….

stof.9341:

Note that elementalists cannot switch from a melee form to a range form either with their atunement swaps.

Note that elementalists do have conjuration weapons at their disposal.

Genesis, what do you see as the core problem?

I’d like to see swapping Legends alter the weapon skills themselves as well as the utility. Would be a possible solution to the grief over lacking weapon swap AND give the potential to adapt to different situations, as in range battle vs close quarters. Example: Hammer skills while channeling Jalis are melee and cc/protective, mid-ranged and supportive when channeling Ventari, mid- ranged and conditional when channeling Malyx, Long ranged and offensive when channeling “Shiro” ext.

I agree Fiddle Irk, my only concern is this may make the class too customizable. trying to think how to balance this….

stof.9341:

Note that elementalists cannot switch from a melee form to a range form either with their atunement swaps.

…but slot a summon and do it that way…what works great. Ice bow.. lightning hammer..or maybe FGS? All viable ways to change the range of battle on the fly AND that without an attument swap needed.

Basaltface.2786:

stof.9341:

Note that elementalists cannot switch from a melee form to a range form either with their atunement swaps.

…but slot a summon and do it that way…what works great. Ice bow.. lightning hammer..or maybe FGS? All viable ways to change the range of battle on the fly AND that without an attument swap needed.

I have a feeling though that the weapons are intentionally tied to a particular legend. Like an iconic weapon, in the sense of King Arthur and Excalibur. Which means making a weapon usable with a legend that doesn’t use that weapon breaks with the flavor of the class. can you see Arthur running around with a staff?

Revs are still in beta. They may add stuff that will enable them to change stance skills later.

Fiddle Irk.9710:

I’d like to see swapping Legends alter the weapon skills themselves as well as the utility. Would be a possible solution to the grief over lacking weapon swap AND give the potential to adapt to different situations, as in range battle vs close quarters. Example: Hammer skills while channeling Jalis are melee and cc/protective, mid-ranged and supportive when channeling Ventari, mid- ranged and conditional when channeling Malyx, Long ranged and offensive when channeling “Shiro” ext.

Ok, after some thought, I think this could work. For one simple reason. It doesn’t change your armor.

Most of the stats you get for a particular build is going to come from armor. So even if we had access to a full set of weapons skills, and a customizable set of utility and elite skills for each legend, autoequiped on invocation, you would still be specced for certain legend(s) over others, and the others would be very suboptimal.

That ol noob.7083:

Revs are still in beta. They may add stuff that will enable them to change stance skills later.

I agree, but that hasn’t been stated either. So we make suggestions to the designers based on the information we have.

bearshaman.3421:

Basaltface.2786:

stof.9341:

Note that elementalists cannot switch from a melee form to a range form either with their atunement swaps.

…but slot a summon and do it that way…what works great. Ice bow.. lightning hammer..or maybe FGS? All viable ways to change the range of battle on the fly AND that without an attument swap needed.

I have a feeling though that the weapons are intentionally tied to a particular legend. Like an iconic weapon, in the sense of King Arthur and Excalibur. Which means making a weapon usable with a legend that doesn’t use that weapon breaks with the flavor of the class. can you see Arthur running around with a staff?

Well the issue is that you got your king arthur legend slotted and his excalibur equipped, sure it fits cause its his iconic sword…but you also got maybe robin hood as your second legend (yea a stupid example but whatever). Whats with him? His iconic weapon is a bow and lets assume for a moment robin cant really fight with a sword (what he technically can do but like i said its just an example) and especially not the legendary excalibur …so whats with him? Why is he even equipped? Why would you even swap to the “bow-less” robin in battle if arthur got his blade perfectly fine under controll? Yea sure.. the rev is a lore cyrclejerk class…but the rev just channels the legend´s powers and does not fully become it, thats how i see it.

Basaltface.2786:

bearshaman.3421:

Basaltface.2786:

stof.9341:

Note that elementalists cannot switch from a melee form to a range form either with their atunement swaps.

…but slot a summon and do it that way…what works great. Ice bow.. lightning hammer..or maybe FGS? All viable ways to change the range of battle on the fly AND that without an attument swap needed.

I have a feeling though that the weapons are intentionally tied to a particular legend. Like an iconic weapon, in the sense of King Arthur and Excalibur. Which means making a weapon usable with a legend that doesn’t use that weapon breaks with the flavor of the class. can you see Arthur running around with a staff?

Well the issue is that you got your king arthur legend slotted and his excalibur equipped, sure it fits cause its his iconic sword…but you also got maybe robin hood as your second legend (yea a stupid example but whatever). Whats with him? His iconic weapon is a bow and lets assume for a moment robin cant really fight with a sword (what he technically can do but like i said its just an example) and especially not the legendary excalibur …so whats with him? Why is he even equipped? Why would you even swap to the “bow-less” robin in battle if arthur got his blade perfectly fine under controll? Yea sure.. the rev is a lore cyrclejerk class…but the rev just channels the legend´s powers and does not fully become it, thats how i see it.

Look at Fiddle Irk’s suggestion, and my response as far as the game mechanic possible fix.

If they are intending your idea on the class (just channeling their powers, not becoming an incarnation of them), then I would go with the elementalist solution, where the1-5 skills are determined by weapon equipped AND current legend invoked.

bearshaman.3421:

Basaltface.2786:

stof.9341:

Note that elementalists cannot switch from a melee form to a range form either with their atunement swaps.

…but slot a summon and do it that way…what works great. Ice bow.. lightning hammer..or maybe FGS? All viable ways to change the range of battle on the fly AND that without an attument swap needed.

I have a feeling though that the weapons are intentionally tied to a particular legend. Like an iconic weapon, in the sense of King Arthur and Excalibur. Which means making a weapon usable with a legend that doesn’t use that weapon breaks with the flavor of the class. can you see Arthur running around with a staff?

No, but if you know the story of king Arthur, you know that he ran around with Daggers, Shields, and Spears, and small mentions of other weapons. Historical/legendary heroes from our past aren’t stupid. They know that there are different tools for different situations (Even Robin Hood knew when to use a bow and when to use a sword/staff/dagger/etc.). While 8 Classes got the memo, Revenants apparently lost that common sense.

There are several ways to fix this. The simplest is to allow weapon swapping. You can also restrict the Revenant, by allowing only one melee weapon set and one ranged weapon set, instead of allowing dual melee/dual ranged options, which would still restrict the class more than you see from other professions.

Chrispy.5641:

bearshaman.3421:

Basaltface.2786:

stof.9341:

Note that elementalists cannot switch from a melee form to a range form either with their atunement swaps.

…but slot a summon and do it that way…what works great. Ice bow.. lightning hammer..or maybe FGS? All viable ways to change the range of battle on the fly AND that without an attument swap needed.

I have a feeling though that the weapons are intentionally tied to a particular legend. Like an iconic weapon, in the sense of King Arthur and Excalibur. Which means making a weapon usable with a legend that doesn’t use that weapon breaks with the flavor of the class. can you see Arthur running around with a staff?

No, but if you know the story of king Arthur, you know that he ran around with Daggers, Shields, and Spears, and small mentions of other weapons. Historical/legendary heroes from our past aren’t stupid. They know that there are different tools for different situations (Even Robin Hood knew when to use a bow and when to use a sword/staff/dagger/etc.). While 8 Classes got the memo, Revenants apparently lost that common sense.

There are several ways to fix this. The simplest is to allow weapon swapping. You can also restrict the Revenant, by allowing only one melee weapon set and one ranged weapon set, instead of allowing dual melee/dual ranged options, which would still restrict the class more than you see from other professions.

agreed. the one melee/one ranged set idea is one I haven’t seen proposed yet.

and yes, I know they used other weapons, I was more getting at a reason for why the design team may have made the weapons so obviously bent towards a particular legend. that’s all.

Too lazy to re-type/paraphrase it here, however, since it is relevant I figured I’d at least link the following post.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/revenant/Weapon-Swapping-would-be-CLUMSY-for-Revenant/first#post5273407

If your going to give Rev swap, why on earth restrict it? Classes with swap are not restricted to one of each, and many use two of “range” or “melee” to suit their play style and what they wanna do. And how would you define weapons as melee or range? Swords and daggers are melee but you can throw both for a certain range or have a skill with a “greater than melee” range for almost every profession with almost every weapon. An think of the Legend swapping altering weapon skills this way, it adds the flavor of how that Legend would use the weapon =P

while i do recognize reven needs some tweaks, im in favor of no weapon swap as long as they can have 2 utilities set in battle wich dont share CD and free of CD on demand elites. would be too op

AzureSky.3175:

I played my Revenant with Mace/Axe today, and the problems appeared pretty quick: As soon as you decide to use Mace/Axe, you will never, no matter what Traits or Legendary Stance you use, you will *never have any efficient way to engage in ranged combat

This is a problem. If we kept the current system and added a bunch of optional utilities to the stances (some of which included ranged pulls/gap closers/etc then it could work. But even dagger ele’s ‘melee’ is actually 300+ range. The rev’s melee is really melee.

Fiddle Irk.9710:

If your going to give Rev swap, why on earth restrict it? Classes with swap are not restricted to one of each, and many use two of “range” or “melee” to suit their play style and what they wanna do. And how would you define weapons as melee or range? Swords and daggers are melee but you can throw both for a certain range or have a skill with a “greater than melee” range for almost every profession with almost every weapon. An think of the Legend swapping altering weapon skills this way, it adds the flavor of how that Legend would use the weapon =P

Then the class would be the same as the Elementalist (and would end up with more weapon skills overall).

The Revenant will have 5 Terrestrial weapon sets (we have 3 now, but presumably, two more will be added for the last two legends and trait lines), and 1 aquatic weapon set. If the Revenant has 5 legends (we know it will have at least 5 legends), then it will have 30 possible weapon sets. Compare that to the Elementalist’s 24 possible weapon sets.

So, yeah, lets totally take away what makes the Elementalist unique for the latest and greatest thing.

….Seriously though , lets not. There’s gotta be a better solution than that. And the best solution might be to just allow weapon swap with no strings attached.

Tora.7214:

while i do recognize reven needs some tweaks, im in favor of no weapon swap as long as they can have 2 utilities set in battle wich dont share CD and free of CD on demand elites. would be too op

Then those Utility skills need to be more powerful. The thing that changes the tide of most fights in this game is what weapon/attunment/kit you have equipped more than your utility skills, which are only that….utility, not your main method of engagement.

I played the Rev a little, and while I like the idea of swapping between 2 stances at any give time I don’t think limiting weapons to a particular stance is working so well. Stance swapping on the fly means that you’re able to change your role on the fly as necessary, but locking a weapon into a stance means you actually better not swap legends in mid combat. You don’t really have the time to get Out of Combat to switch your weapon out because you switched your stance.

If they can come up with a good solution I would be all for it. Either a regular weapon swap, or something like the Ele’s where it changes your 1-5 skills depending on what stance you’re in. Honestly though when I think healing, I don’t think melee, I think ranged. Why staff is melee on Rev I am not sure….since it’s supposed to be paired with healing stance….

I do think it’s kind of neat that the 6-0 skills change depending on what stance you are in, so it really puts more value into that stance. Ventari is healing, so your traits reflect that. It would be nice if there were a couple of alternatives though so you could tweak it slightly but it’s still an interesting concept.

Thanks bearshaman, Fiddle Irk, Basaltface, Chrispy, Crise, Tora, GreyWraith and Lilyandra for the discussion and the constructive feedback so far! I updated the topic and included most of the suggestions you made.

About the ‘King Arthur + Excalibur / Robin Hood + bow’ thing… it is already possible for a Revenant to use Legends with completely unrelated weapons, like using a staff while having Mallyx and Jalis equipped. So I think you should either be allowed to swap weapons, since you can already mix up weapons and legends anyway, or the weapons should be tied so close to their legends, that swapping legends auto-swaps weapons (and vice versa). Both solutions would be fine with me.

stof.9341:

Note that the Revenant is the only class that can switch their skills #6-#0
Note that elementalists cannot switch from a melee form to a range form either with their atunement swaps.

I’m just going to assume that you didn’t read anything beyond the topic title, since there are answers to both of your statements in the very first post (I mentioned why switching #6-#0 skills does not make up for being unable to swap weapons in the Revenant’s case. I also mentioned the Elementalist’s Conjures).

That ol noob.7083:

Revs are still in beta. They may add stuff that will enable them to change stance skills later.

That’s why this thread even exists. Because Revs are still in beta and we are providing feedback on how to improve it with future changes.

Tora.7214:

while i do recognize reven needs some tweaks, im in favor of no weapon swap as long as they can have 2 utilities set in battle wich dont share CD and free of CD on demand elites. would be too op

Maybe this problem could be avoided if changing stances would drain a fair amount of energy?

Chrispy.5641:

Then the class would be the same as the Elementalist (and would end up with more weapon skills overall).
[…]It will have 30 possible weapon sets. Compare that to the Elementalist’s 24 possible weapon sets.
So, yeah, lets totally take away what makes the Elementalist unique for the latest and greatest thing.

I think Rev and Ele would still differ enough. While Rev would have more weapon sets than Ele in total, Ele could still use 4 of them in battle ( +1 skill set), while Rev can only use 2 ( +2 skill sets). So Ele has access to 25 different skills during battle, whereas Rev only has 20. And if an Ele decides to use conjured weapons, he’d even have access to up to 8 weapon sets (or 45 skills in total). So, compared to the Revenant, he’d still be far more diversive in my opinion. I think this idea isn’t that much worse than allowing weapon swap… I think both are okay

GreyWraith.8394:

If we kept the current system and added a bunch of optional utilities to the stances (some of which included ranged pulls/gap closers/etc then it could work.

To be honest, for me gap closers or ranged pulls wouldn’t be enough. I play PvE only, and I love melee, but there are times when I simply do not want to get close to an enemy. Maybe I’m a noob, but I usually switch to ranged weapons when fighting Lupi, the Statue of Dwayna, the Melandru Priest in Arah P4, I use ranged weapons while pulling the Dredged Powersuit in FotM, etc etc… due to bugginess, the Shadow of the Dragon in the Mystery Cave is almost impossible to kill if you don’t use ranged weapons :/ and I guess the Mordrem Teragriff Boss in Tangled Paths is pretty hard as well if you can’t use them…

What do you guys think about these solutions:

• Adding Utility Skills to legends, that provide something similar to Conjured weapons or Kits
• Completely switch legends with weapons: Legends determine your #1-#5 skills, weapons determine your #6-#0 skills (you can still swap legends but not weapons)

Of course the latter one would mean redesigning Revenant completely and would require a lot of creativity… but it’d make Revenant pretty unique in a way…

If you play a staff ele and enter combat you will never be able to match a melee character in melee combat. Range locking isn’t a revenant only thing.

Linnael.1069:

If you play a staff ele and enter combat you will never be able to match a melee character in melee combat. Range locking isn’t a revenant only thing.

To be honest, I only do PvE, so I can’t really talk about PvP or WvW here.
But if I want to do some high melee DPS in PvE with my staff ele, I just conjure a Fiery Greatsword and burn through all the mobs.
I do not know if Fiery Greatsword can ‘match a melee character in melee combat’, but I am definitely NOT range locked.

AzureSky.3175:

Linnael.1069:

If you play a staff ele and enter combat you will never be able to match a melee character in melee combat. Range locking isn’t a revenant only thing.

To be honest, I only do PvE, so I can’t really talk about PvP or WvW here.
But if I want to do some high melee DPS in PvE with my staff ele, I just conjure a Fiery Greatsword and burn through all the mobs.
I do not know if Fiery Greatsword can ‘match a melee character in melee combat’, but I am definitely NOT range locked.

Yes because FGS is melee or high dps.

… lolwut

Linnael.1069:

Yes because FGS is melee or high dps.

… lolwut

Yeah okay, not really melee, then conjure a Lightning Hammer if you want to, still not range locked :X

Well revenants can use the lightning hammer too :o

stof.9341:

Well revenants can use the lightning hammer too :o

Then show me where I can get a lightning hammer when I’m in a dungeon with two warriors, a guard and a thief…

edit: Inb4 I should use a warrior banner for melee combat

The only place where classes without weapon swap are truly range locked is underwater, so can we stop this pointless debate about range. Sure not all configs have optimal damage at all ranges, however, they certainly have better options than the Revenant as we know it.

If nothing else, then for them the utility skills that for Revenants are esentially kits with some flare can supplement that range. They have options right now, Revenant doesn’t. If it only used one handed weapons then we might have a bit more wiggle room. However, with only four one handed weapons (if we believe current rumors) some of them exclusively off-hand. There just won’t be enough skill combinations for either weapon skills or utility skills. As Revenant I feel like super locked down engi right now, only Revs kits happen to play with utilities and we can only bring two of them (or if you look at it differently we have to bring two of them).

Crise.9401:

The only place where classes without weapon swap are truly range locked is underwater, so can we stop this pointless debate about range. Sure not all configs have optimal damage at all ranges, however, they certainly have better options than the Revenant as we know it.

If nothing else, then for them the utility skills that for Revenants are esentially kits with some flare can supplement that range. They have options right now, Revenant doesn’t. If it only used one handed weapons then we might have a bit more wiggle room. However, with only four one handed weapons (if we believe current rumors) some of them exclusively off-hand. There just won’t be enough skill combinations for either weapon skills or utility skills. As Revenant I feel like super locked down engi right now, only Revs kits happen to play with utilities and we can only bring two of them (or if you look at it differently we have to bring two of them).

well as (almost) full time engi i can tell you that you are anything but locked down with that class. Main weapons are all ranged, cept the shield..and even thats technically ranged if you count the secondary skill of 5 as an attack BUT you got a toolkit with melee attacks, block and pull, a bomb kit with ranged aoe attacks, a ground targeted nade kit that can be either your mid range or your melee solution (or both at the same time), an elixir gun with uses in all ranges and a strong evade and heal, a conic aoe flamethrower for short range AND a 1500 range mortar whenever you want em…if you have any of these equipped….or you use none of them and take elixirs or gadgets or turrets… or you do it like i do and mix it up (HT-BK-EG-EB-MK). Also rifle got skills to push the enemie away from you while also pushing you away AND clearing immob and chill in the process, deliver a painfull buckshot into the enemie´s face that gets stronger the closer you are to your foe and even an immob and a ground targeted jump that you can either use as gap closer OR to jump away from your enemie a bit…or you just jump directly onto the enemie from melee range for a double hit with a cherry of vun ontop…and a leap finisher. With engi you can make builds that prepare you for the most of whats ahead if you want to, or you specialise in a specific weapon\skill type and you still can make an amazing build. P\P condi? No issue. Cele\rifle? Sure go for it. Gadgeteer? Yea man suit yourself. HGH\potion? Yea why not, and while you are at it try the elixir gun with that, cause it benefits from the trait too or just dont, do what you want. With the rev you are locked down big time and i really dont like that. I dont think i need to mention the way of the ele…and how quickly a summon weapon can be pulled out (AND SHARED OMG HOW EPIC) or an attument can swapped. I mean sure.. sure its the beta, nothing is done 100% i get it… but something needs to be done with the rev´s mechanic and stats to either make the 2 legends\1 weapon stuff viable or there needs to be a weapon swap or an ele like addon to the weapon so that its attacks\playstyle change depending on the legend OR extra skills for the legends to swap em out like regular skills. Thats atleast my 2 cent on that theme.

edit: Also engi can use kits underwater… so thats that

Elementalists do not use conjures to fix their range limitations, so for all intents and purposes the elementalist class is restricted by range.

I do agree that revenant’s utilities are too situational (in PvE, at least) to work as a replacement for weapon swapping. But I think people are offering massive, class-changing solutions to otherwise “easy” to solve problems:

1. Give to each legend a forth utility skill that fills in some holes;
2. Tweak the hammer (and perhaps the staff) to handle melee/ ranged situations a bit better;
3. Add four new utility skills that are not bound by legend and can be slotted in any legend, with effects that fill in the gaps too.

There, most of the problem is fixed on paper, and the revenant would get as many utilities as the other professions.

Regarding the elementalist comparison, I have three observations:

First, there are conjures. Sure, they’re a temporary solution, but you may only need it temporarily, and I find that if you have the 25 charges trait and you can pick up your second conjured weapon, you’re likely to have recharged the utility by the time the second weapon runs out.

Second, dagger does give you a fairly melee-esque option with the option to go to water for a little more range if you need it (sure, it’s only 600, but that’s often enough). Going staff or scepter commits you to more range (but see below), but this is like a mesmer or a ranger taking two ranged options: you’ve done it by choice.

Third, when people say ‘melee’, what they often mean is ‘the capability to DPS at melee levels when an enemy is in your face’. Elementalists can do this: many people would say that scepter, FGS and even staff are actually most effective at close fighting, and the fact that they do have longer ranges available simply adds to their versatility. Instead of being stuck at range, then, the staff or scepter elementalist is practically being able to have their cake and eat it too. The revenant hammer, however, is similar to mesmer greatsword and ranger longbow: not only does it not match a melee set for damage, but the damage it does do is handicapped at close range.

To make matters worse, the rev hammer doesn’t have any gap openers like mesmer greatsword, ranger longbow, and, it has to be said, elementalist staff have. Revs don’t even have access to movement speed buffs for kiting. A hammer rev caught in melee basically has no good options apart from throwing legend skills like Vengeful Hammers… and because of energy costs, that’s even more of a temporary solution than an elementalist invoking a conjure.

Another solution would be to make all the autoattacks range-adaptive.

Here are some examples:

• Staff. You swing your weapon for a melee attack. If you do not hit a target in melee range, you hold your staff for a brief moment and spawn 2 weak shard projectiles: 1 stops at mid distance, and the other goes up to long range. Closer enemies will be hit by both projectiles, but the melee attacks are still superior.
• Hammer. You swing your hammer and prepare to throw it. If your swing hit a target in melee range, you skip the toss and follow-up with a knockback hit. Otherwise, you toss the hammer and it does increased damage if it flies farther than 400.
• Mace. You swing your weapon for a melee attack. If the target is out of melee range, a mist projection of you appears in front of them to perform a weaker version of the attack.

do not tie weapon swap to legends, that will totally ruin a lot of possible play styles. It needs weapon swap but not like that. I used revanent on a guild raid tonight and though the lack of weapon swap is harmful I found often that I wouldnt want a different weapon whilst swapping, but i did also feel I needed the ability to change weapons to be even at 60% the usefulness of other classes.

I was in the raid leaders party, we had a fight against an equal sized opponent guild.
Used sentinel gear mainly. Hammer. Dwarf/Mallyx

Veil > Dwarf Elite – protects the raid leader on initial engage. During this time I would have liked a melee weapon and not the hammer that is indirectly tied to the dwarf legend.

Instead I ended up trying to hang on the edge of the fight so i could pop in and out using the 600 range utilities (#7 and #0 – others not that useful) to support the group and commander whilst making use of mainly Hammer #2.

So basically would have had that first section of the fight all melee if i could in order to better support and deal damage. The Mace #2 and the #3 blasts would been very helpful. Hammer is no use in melee range due to slowness of attacks always leaving you in danger if you wanted to use the blasts.

When regrouping would been when I would switch to Hammer, use #4 to protect the group from projectiles and blast fields whilst under no pressure. When next push repeat above.

When range needed help I switched to Mallyx whilst still using hammer. I would drop unyielding anguish on our range to give them breathing space and use the hammer #5 for the stuns and using #2 for ranged dmg whilst remaining in the field. I would then liked to swap to melee in order to do some quick attacks on the enemy to force the retreat but of course I had absolutely no ability to have quick attacks with the sluggish hammer that has limited dmg.

I just found that trying to play the legends with the “linked” weapons was basically impossible as they didnt meld well with the playstyles necessary to make use of them, but also that most the time I just felt that half the utilities had absolutely no usefulness and thus I actually ended up using about 1 heal, 2 utilities maximum.

—Mallyx = heal/unyielding anguish only as with the lack of survival skills (blocks/weapon leaps/invunrabilty) meant it was suicidal to try make use of the other skills as would be burst down on approaching enemy…

— Dwarf = heal/Inspiring Reinforcement/Rite of dwarf – The taunt was useless in general due to being so slow moving everything got out of range before it arrived, and the spinning hammers just sucked energy for no reason, especially as none of the weapons let you safely enter melee due to the above noted lack of defensive skills and utilities.

………..
I really enjoyed playing the Revenant but there just no place for them in the team unless they get weaponswap or some other way to customise the ability to be useful in both melee and ranged fights which EVERY other class has the ability to do… it currently is style over substance.
….
Weaponswap will fix alot of the issues and also mean that utilities will get more use because you be able to position yourself without insta-dying. And remember, weaponskills use energy and as such you can not endless spam them and the utilities which makes me believe that it would not imbalance the class by giving them the weaponswap.

So:
-Weapon swap required
-Defensive skills required (blocks/invulnerability/leaps)
-IF you insist that no weapon swap should be allowed then a 900 range main-hand weapon is definitely needed to combo with the Axe offhand, and not just what I expect to be the pure melee dps main hand sword.

Basaltface.2786:

stof.9341:

Note that elementalists cannot switch from a melee form to a range form either with their atunement swaps.

…but slot a summon and do it that way…what works great. Ice bow.. lightning hammer..or maybe FGS? All viable ways to change the range of battle on the fly AND that without an attument swap needed.

Please stop spreading this, it’s hardly true. While it might look good on paper, in pvp you hardly ever see conjured, they’re not really that great. The only conjure that was in almost every build is FGS, but since it was nerfed again, sometimes you don’t even bother to use it. In pve this doesn’t really matter, because most people use staff anyway and will have range from both. Not even mentioning icebow is used only for a few seconds before it’s dropped again. In most cases the chosen weapon will determine your range for most of the time, period.

Conjured are not like kits, they have long cooldowns, are not that great in many scenarios and are usually used only for some specific effects, not like something that can fully replace your weapon skills unlike kits.

This doesn’t change the fact I think revenant does either need weapon swap or change of weapon skills with legend swap.

Conjured may not be used in sPvP but they used a lot on WvW by ele’s. Sure it mainly used for 2 skill’s (#4&#5) on ice bow, and the fgs is used mainly as an escape mechanism but they can be used for that.

Sure kits are more useful in changing skills 1-5 but the option is there for the ele’s. I can see without weaponswap I be trying to pick up every conjured weapon i see if i play revenant in its current setup

Just a minor note, unless it’s already been explicitly stated elsewhere, they’ve not finished everything for the Rev, which may also include an alternate weapon set. Afterall, a Rev’s COMPLETELY useless underwater this weekend.

Think of it like an elementalist only backwards…. an elementalist swaps attunements, and gets 5 new skills…

A revenant swaps legends, and gets 5 new skills.

Neither class can weapon swap, and an elementalist can choose its 5 utilities…. the same way a revenant can choose its 5 weapon skills.

Of course the revenant only has 2 legends available at a time instead of 4 attunements… but perhaps they might make it so you can swap between any of the 4… and make the heal skills share a cooldown or increase the recharge on legend swapping or something.

I agree as it stands the utility swap does not give enough to deal with the no weapon swapping. The utilities are frozen to a build for each legend This means that during a fight your stuck with a build you did not create and you have to learn how to best play it with out having the ability to switch weapons which could aid in that. As it stands the weapons do not transfer over to the new legend well. My thoughts on how to improve this is like some have said. Increase the number of utility skills the legends have access to, include a ranged and melee weapon channel or kit into those new utility skills that a revenant can channel while they channel the legend if they so desire.
This is the best option to keep from having weapon swap. if you don’t add the weapon channel or kit type skills then I don’t see a way around the weapon swap being added. as things sit now.

Those that do not have weapon swap Elementalist and Engineer both have ways to offset this by taking kits and conjured weapons. This so far is not true of the Revenant. They are at a disadvantage as it stands.

I do not like the idea of having legends control effects of weapons. Personally I see the weapon you wield as your choice of play style. It would make more sense that you channel the weapon of the legend if you choose to. And the weapon skill be decided by your weapon you choose to wield.

draxynnic.3719:

Regarding the elementalist comparison, I have three observations:

First, there are conjures. Sure, they’re a temporary solution, but you may only need it temporarily, and I find that if you have the 25 charges trait and you can pick up your second conjured weapon, you’re likely to have recharged the utility by the time the second weapon runs out.

Second, dagger does give you a fairly melee-esque option with the option to go to water for a little more range if you need it (sure, it’s only 600, but that’s often enough). Going staff or scepter commits you to more range (but see below), but this is like a mesmer or a ranger taking two ranged options: you’ve done it by choice.

Third, when people say ‘melee’, what they often mean is ‘the capability to DPS at melee levels when an enemy is in your face’. Elementalists can do this: many people would say that scepter, FGS and even staff are actually most effective at close fighting, and the fact that they do have longer ranges available simply adds to their versatility. Instead of being stuck at range, then, the staff or scepter elementalist is practically being able to have their cake and eat it too. The revenant hammer, however, is similar to mesmer greatsword and ranger longbow: not only does it not match a melee set for damage, but the damage it does do is handicapped at close range.

To make matters worse, the rev hammer doesn’t have any gap openers like mesmer greatsword, ranger longbow, and, it has to be said, elementalist staff have. Revs don’t even have access to movement speed buffs for kiting. A hammer rev caught in melee basically has no good options apart from throwing legend skills like Vengeful Hammers… and because of energy costs, that’s even more of a temporary solution than an elementalist invoking a conjure.

The Loremeister speaks wisdom.

I think they will add additional utility skills for the different legendary stances for diversity purposes. It still feels weird to have your 1-5 skills locked without being able to weapon/attunement swap.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Think of it like an elementalist only backwards…. an elementalist swaps attunements, and gets 5 new skills…

A revenant swaps legends, and gets 5 new skills.

Neither class can weapon swap, and an elementalist can choose its 5 utilities…. the same way a revenant can choose its 5 weapon skills.

Of course the revenant only has 2 legends available at a time instead of 4 attunements… but perhaps they might make it so you can swap between any of the 4… and make the heal skills share a cooldown or increase the recharge on legend swapping or something.

There is a symmetry, but it’s not perfect.

Elementalist trades a bit of build versatility for in-combat versatility. They get twice as many weapon skills, but all of those weapon skills are decided by a single set, while most professions have more control over the individual skills they have. However, elementalists still have the conventional behaviour for their 6-10 skills.

Revenants make a similar trade for their non-weapon skills. They get to have twice as many as other professions, but in exchange, instead of being able to choose them individually, they have to choose two sets of five. However, while the elementalist gets conventional access to their 6-10 skills, revenant does not get conventional weaponswaps in the 1-5 slots.

So while the elementalist is only paying the price of versatility over customisation on the weapon skills, the revenant is paying the price of versatility over customisation on the 6-10 skills but also pays an additional price on the weapon skills. And this is perhaps additionally painful because revenant weapons aren’t as versatile as elementalist skills.