Guild Wars 2

draxynnic.3719:

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.

Note quite. I’ll point this out again. This being the playtest, they have just enough stuff in place for people to test the class, but there is much that is missing. But one of the fallacies people keep holding to (I did as well for a while, until I realized my mistake):

THE UTILITY SKILLS AREN’T FIXED!

They only have 1 heal, 3 utility, and 1 elite for each legend available at time of playtest because that was the minimum needed. We don’t know what that will look like in the end, but you can pop up the boxes that let you swap them around. So there will be some flexibility for the revenant on those skills once HoT drops.

Unless the pop up boxes to swap skills still being there is just an oversight, but here’s hoping.

If it isn’t an oversight, then the revenant will have flexibility (not as much per legend as other classes, but swapping makes up for that I think) on its 6-10 skills. And that would balance out I think against other classes, as far as the 6-10 skills are concerned.

That leaves what’s to be done about the weapons skills, because the utility swapping WITH the ability to set up your utility skills for the 2 legends you set as your choices doesn’t make up for a lack of swapping or versatility in general.

I’ve suggested this before, but I’ll say it again. The three options I see for weapon skills is either:

standard weapon swapping,

weapons skills changing based on the legend (similar to how elementalist works, but not as good since you only have access to two legends at any one time, as compared to the 4 possible attunements for an ele),

or tying weapon swapping to legend swapping (with or without the option to decide for yourself which weapon is tied to which legend, though I suspect the weapons may be obviously tied to a particular legend for a reason).

I’d like to add that I don’t really think it’s too bad lacking melee weapons as long as you have a ranged weapon equipped (speaking of PvE only). There are few situations where you think “woah, I better switch to melee now or I’ll be in trouble”, the only one I can think of right now is projectile-reflecting enemies. But if I play on my Ranger for example, and I’m too lazy to swap to sword, I’ll just longbow enemies in the face if melee combat is required for stacking reasons etc, even if it’s less effective.
I have not yet tested Hammer on Revenant, can’t really say how broken it is in melee combat.

But what is absolutely problematic, is being locked into melee combat. You can always use ranged weapons in melee combat, but never melee weapons in ranged combat. And if you really have to keep your distance to an enemy, your only choice is to run around useless and wait for your 12 and 15 second CDs on #4 and #5 to pass, so you can use a skill once in a while…

AzureSky.3175:

1. Completely change weapon skills depending on which stance you’re using (Elementalist-Attunement-style)

1. 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)

These two are the best choices. The other choices force you into a type of playstyle. For example, what if I didn’t like Staff but wanted to use Ventari?

TheBlackLeech.9360:

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 honestly hoped this would be the case. It’d be nice if they changed the switching mechanic to where each Function key corresponded to a Legend, ie. F1 is Mallyx, F2 is Jalis, F3 is Ventari, F4 is Shiro, F5 is Glint.

AzureSky.3175:

But what is absolutely problematic, is being locked into melee combat….

D/D Elementalist don’t agree with this.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

AzureSky.3175:

But what is absolutely problematic, is being locked into melee combat….

D/D Elementalist don’t agree with this.

I never played D/D, but if I did, I’d probably bring a Frost Bow to PvE, just in case :/
I mean, not everyone may like Frost Bow, but at least the option is there.

That’s how I use most of my chars (except for Ele and Ranger currently), I give them close combat weapons, and create my build around these close combat weapons. And then I add a ranged alternative weapon in the second weapon slot, just in case. They aren’t overwhelmingly awesome using these, since their builds are still centered around their close combat weapons (and I don’t change my builds often), but they’re okay :0

Again, PvE only of course…

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

AzureSky.3175:

But what is absolutely problematic, is being locked into melee combat….

D/D Elementalist don’t agree with this.

I wouldn’t call D/D on elementalist exactly melee, at least not quite as melee as the Revenants melee options (if memory serves you have around 300 range on that setup, revenants melee options have less range than that) and Ellies have movement skills, I sure hope the remaining Legends and weapons address this because right now mobility options are bit lacking.

It really should be that switching legendary stances also switches weapons. It would just be wrong to see Shiro (or even Jalis) with a staff.

The play style with the revenant is currently tied down too much. The weapon skills need to be able to change. Having them change when you switch stances makes the most sense — you don’t get to customize at all, but you get a full bar change when you swap.

Aye.8392:

It really should be that switching legendary stances also switches weapons. It would just be wrong to see Shiro (or even Jalis) with a staff.

The play style with the revenant is currently tied down too much. The weapon skills need to be able to change. Having them change when you switch stances makes the most sense — you don’t get to customize at all, but you get a full bar change when you swap.

Terrible idea and will encourage camping in one Legend.

I mentioned it before, but I think than rather than having weapon swap or completely different skills, I think the same skills should have variations based on the legend.

A skill may have a longer range under a certain legend, or have an additional effect like healing or conditions. But it’ll be essentially the same skill, and keep the same name and icon.

For example, right now staff #1(3) creates healing orbs. What if that was the effect under Ventari, and the other legends made those orbs do different things?

• Shiro: Explode on contact with enemies, dealing AoE damage and vulnerability. If traited for staff mastery, also gives might to allies.
• Mallyx: Explode after 3s, dealing random DPS and Control(chilled, blind, etc) conditions on both enemies and self. Also gives resistance to allies if traited.
• Jalis: Give protection to self or allies. Also gives stability to allies if traited.
• Ventari: Heal self or allies. Also give regeneration to allies if traited.

stof.9341:

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

They can’t customize those slots, so it’s actually far more restricting. No matter how you focus your build, like Condition, DPS, or Support, you will always have at least half of your utility skills totally useless since those utility skills themselves are specialized for specific builds. Swapping to Demon stance is not going to help you much if you aren’t geared for condition for example.

MithranArkanere.8957:

I mentioned it before, but I think than rather than having weapon swap or completely different skills, I think the same skills should have variations based on the legend.

A skill may have a longer range under a certain legend, or have an additional effect like healing or conditions. But it’ll be essentially the same skill, and keep the same name and icon.

For example, right now staff #1(3) creates healing orbs. What if that was the effect under Ventari, and the other legends made those orbs do different things?

• Shiro: Explode on contact with enemies, dealing AoE damage and vulnerability. If traited for staff mastery, also gives might to allies.
• Mallyx: Explode after 3s, dealing random DPS and Control(chilled, blind, etc) conditions on both enemies and self. Also gives resistance to allies if traited.
• Jalis: Give protection to self or allies. Also gives stability to allies if traited.
• Ventari: Heal self or allies. Also give regeneration to allies if traited.

This is basically what i though would be best solution without changing too much, and would at the same time make the class way more interesting.

Basically most skills would have a
Some components that changes based on the legend.

phys.7689:

MithranArkanere.8957:

I mentioned it before, but I think than rather than having weapon swap or completely different skills, I think the same skills should have variations based on the legend.

A skill may have a longer range under a certain legend, or have an additional effect like healing or conditions. But it’ll be essentially the same skill, and keep the same name and icon.

For example, right now staff #1(3) creates healing orbs. What if that was the effect under Ventari, and the other legends made those orbs do different things?

• Shiro: Explode on contact with enemies, dealing AoE damage and vulnerability. If traited for staff mastery, also gives might to allies.
• Mallyx: Explode after 3s, dealing random DPS and Control(chilled, blind, etc) conditions on both enemies and self. Also gives resistance to allies if traited.
• Jalis: Give protection to self or allies. Also gives stability to allies if traited.
• Ventari: Heal self or allies. Also give regeneration to allies if traited.

This is basically what i though would be best solution without changing too much, and would at the same time make the class way more interesting.

Basically most skills would have a
Some components that changes based on the legend.

I would be ok with that as well except that’s probably a huge change and it’s not too likely they will do it at this stage.

Weapon swap in the meanwhile is probably very easy for them to implement.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Terrible idea and will encourage camping in one Legend.

While I agree that whatever they do with regards to weapon skills be it any of the various ideas thrown around that not being able to customize either side of your skill bar nearly as much as any other class is generally not a good idea.

How would his ideas incentivize camping in one legend?

AzureSky.3175:

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

But with this situation (2 weapon sets AND 2 utility sets) you have to deal with balancing the fact that you have 2 heals, 6 utilities, and 2 elites available, whereas a guard, thief, etc. has 1, 3, and 1. Especially if ANet does add additional utility skill options for each legend (I’m certainly hoping they do), I worry that in order to balance it the rev utilities will either end up getting a massive nerf hammer or have really huge energy costs/high cooldowns.

As for the range/melee locked issue that a lot of people are bringing up, I’m not sure I see it. Lots of folks “lock” themselves into melee especially as it is, and in fact a lot of meta builds require it. You ooc swap when you are going to have to fight at range (it’s not a big surprise when you fight the Shadow of the Dragon, for example). The solution here (and this is something folks have asked for for a LONG time) is a quick ooc weapon set swap with preset options (like GW1 had, but strictly out of combat). This is not something that is unique to rev, although I understand how it’s more easily seen.

There’s also been a lot here about how bad it is that the hammer “locks” you into range, and that’s a little bit misleading. Unlike the mesmer GS or ranger LB, there is no damage reduction to being in melee, and in fact tightly stacked players or NPCs means it’s easier to take advantage of piercing. I think another small tweak that could be made to the hammer in particular would be a small burst of spirit hammers at the point of impact to simulate a cleave, but then I would remove the piercing aspect.

The staff melee locking doesn’t look like an issue, either. Potentially auto-attacks could be tweaked into a sort of wide swing (slightly increase the range) to be more akin to the ele dagger, but healing in melee is actually better than ranged, since in many aspects of the game melee is preferred. In PvE you can do decent DPS while healing, and in a melee train in WvW you’ve got additional healing for the frontline without losing damage. Build with it as a bunker setup for PvP, and you’ll want to stay on point anyway. That being said, I would like to see at least 1 truly ranged skill, like the guard staff 2.

As for the idea of directly pairing weapons with legends, please no. Some of the best uses of the rev that I’ve seen have mixed weapons and legends. Saw a surprisingly effective staff/Jalis setup in CoF that did huge damage thanks to the addition of the whirling hammers. I can see a simulated condi bomb with Mallyx being really useful as part of a power build (staff, hammer, sword) in an organized PvP or WvW team as well. Draw out all of their cooldowns, then have your actual condi players drop their bomb.

Turkadactyl.5308:

As for the range/melee locked issue that a lot of people are bringing up, I’m not sure I see it. Lots of folks “lock” themselves into melee especially as it is, and in fact a lot of meta builds require it. You ooc swap when you are going to have to fight at range (it’s not a big surprise when you fight the Shadow of the Dragon, for example). The solution here (and this is something folks have asked for for a LONG time) is a quick ooc weapon set swap with preset options (like GW1 had, but strictly out of combat). This is not something that is unique to rev, although I understand how it’s more easily seen.

I think this is a bigger problem for PVP and WvW than in PVE. With no ability to switch to ranged, the Rev can be kited very easily by other players till they’re dead.

Sure the fact that revenant has two heals and two elites in combat is important when balancing those skills. However, if no legend gets more than five skills at this rate Revenant will have the least utilities out of all the professions regardless of its unique gimmick.

Elementalist has the most weapon skills in combat, yet she still has standard number of utilities to choose from. So why should the in-combat utility count have direct correlation to the number of weapon skills accessible in combat. Either they need to beef up the legends to have some skill choice or if not provide that missing element of choice on the left side of the skill bar. This whole discussion, in its many forms and number of suggestions all comes down to profession depth and customization.

The Revenant as we have seen it is obviously a specialist profession, he can theoretically only optimally perform with one of his two legends after all thanks to how the weapon sets are designed.

I called it the tech demo profession in another topic because that is also what it is, each legend and weapon set is so carefully crafted and designed in conjunction with one of the trait lines that you will almost always want to choose one such set of three. You choose your legends and your weapon and that is two out of the three trait lines chosen for you basically… and unless the power traits change the game significantly invocation seems as the go to third trait line as well. We literally have predefined packages to choose from with barely any customization within them and each of them houses some cool new gimmicks unique to Revenant, but I would give up on some of those in a heartbeat for more open customization.

Staff + Ventari/Jalis setup is probably the only one where both of the legends play well, if the remaining weapon sets provide similar overlap for the remainder of the legends then we might have some of the depth we are looking for (especially once we get access to more one handed weapons) but right now we just don’t know.

Turkadactyl.5308:

But with this situation (2 weapon sets AND 2 utility sets) you have to deal with balancing the fact that you have 2 heals, 6 utilities, and 2 elites available, whereas a guard, thief, etc. has 1, 3, and 1. Especially if ANet does add additional utility skill options for each legend (I’m certainly hoping they do), I worry that in order to balance it the rev utilities will either end up getting a massive nerf hammer or have really huge energy costs/high cooldowns.

I think this will happen to a certain degree anyway, since Rev always has access to 2 heals, 2 elites etc., even if he can only carry one weapon. Right now in return the Revenant is at least unable to choose these skills as freely as other classes do…

Turkadactyl.5308:

As for the range/melee locked issue that a lot of people are bringing up, I’m not sure I see it. Lots of folks “lock” themselves into melee especially as it is, and in fact a lot of meta builds require it. You ooc swap when you are going to have to fight at range (it’s not a big surprise when you fight the Shadow of the Dragon, for example). The solution here (and this is something folks have asked for for a LONG time) is a quick ooc weapon set swap with preset options (like GW1 had, but strictly out of combat).

Yeah, and exactly that is the big problem. Locking yourself by using meta builds has always been voluntary. Revenant is the first class that forces you to do so.
Bringing additional weapons to swap them out of combat has always been voluntary. Revenant is the first class that forces you to do so (at least if you want to be useful in ranged combat and usually use Mace/Axe…) .

Turkadactyl.5308:

There’s also been a lot here about how bad it is that the hammer “locks” you into range, and that’s a little bit misleading. Unlike the mesmer GS or ranger LB, there is no damage reduction to being in melee, and in fact tightly stacked players or NPCs means it’s easier to take advantage of piercing. I think another small tweak that could be made to the hammer in particular would be a small burst of spirit hammers at the point of impact to simulate a cleave, but then I would remove the piercing aspect.

Like I said somewhere else, I think being locked into range is far less problematic than being locked into melee, I didn’t test the Hammer myself, but I agree with you here.

Turkadactyl.5308:

The staff melee locking doesn’t look like an issue, either. Potentially auto-attacks could be tweaked into a sort of wide swing (slightly increase the range) to be more akin to the ele dagger, but healing in melee is actually better than ranged, since in many aspects of the game melee is preferred. In PvE you can do decent DPS while healing, and in a melee train in WvW you’ve got additional healing for the frontline without losing damage. Build with it as a bunker setup for PvP, and you’ll want to stay on point anyway. That being said, I would like to see at least 1 truly ranged skill, like the guard staff 2.

I agree with all of this. Of course healing can be much more effective when in melee. But that’s not really the problem, I think it’s great that the staff is a melee weapon, the problem I see is that you have no alternative to engage into ranged combat. If you face a boss that you do not want to get too close to, the best you can do is run around and heal everyone else.

I agree with OP. I hope this thread gets more visibility.
Solutions 1 or 3 are the best options for me.

Seriously, why no weapon swap? Only because like that there is 1 class for each type? Seems stupid.

Revenant can get 5 new skills from 6 to 0, but those are s bit underpowered compared to other classes, and are not customizable. This makes up for the swap already.

Also all revenant skills have cooldown AND energy cost, why?

If Revenant should really only have 5 skills per legend, you’d end up with 12 utility skills, 4 heals and 4 elites in total for all 4 legends. The other classes all have about 4 heals, 3 elites and 20 utilities, so it seems likely that 2 additional utility skills per legend will be added for balance reasons.
I guess the chances for some extra variety are pretty high here.
And if Anet really sticks to their no-weapon-swap decision, and does not want to add variety to the weapons, I can only hope that they’ll fix the problems by adding ‘kits’…
I’d still prefer weapon swap or ‘attunements’

AzureSky.3175:

If Revenant should really only have 5 skills per legend, you’d end up with 12 utility skills, 4 heals and 4 elites in total for all 4 legends. The other classes all have about 4 heals, 3 elites and 20 utilities, so it seems likely that 2 additional utility skills per legend will be added for balance reasons.
I guess the chances for some extra variety are pretty high here.
And if Anet really sticks to their no-weapon-swap decision, and does not want to add variety to the weapons, I can only hope that they’ll fix the problems by adding ‘kits’…
I’d still prefer weapon swap or ‘attunements’

As I posted elsewhere, it may be be easier if ArenaNet added a new utility skill category for Revenant that allowed players to swap out any legend’s utility skill with one of these general Revenant utility skills.

I would like to add one possibility that has not been listed.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/revenant/Suggestion-Legend-specific-1-5-skills/first#post5279427

I like this thread, it is the most complete on the lack of flexibility of the class.

Silverkey.2078:

I would like to add one possibility that has not been listed.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/revenant/Suggestion-Legend-specific-1-5-skills/first#post5279427

I like this thread, it is the most complete on the lack of flexibility of the class.

So basically a legend specific kit skill… that has different skills based on the weapon used (so I guess it is actually more like a conjure weapon, minus dropping a copy of it, that is tied to your equipped weapon).

Personally I would be happy if only our customization matched other professions more closely, there is really no need to have as many skills as the elementalist, quality over quantity (within reason of course).

No it does not have any link to the weapon. Else it is too much different skills. It only depends on the legend.

Silverkey.2078:

No it does not have any link to the weapon. Else it is too much different skills. It only depends on the legend.

So kits then, without re-reading your post would the kits use be limited eg by your available energy? Your math with the skill numbers kinda throws me for a loop. I mean how would that equal three weapon sets (you would have 20 skills if I understood correctly).

Well you have 1 weapon set (5 skills), 2 “kits” (10 skills) and 2 utility sets (10 skills).
I am not sure how energy should be handled. My feeling is that it should not affect skills 1-5 in the first place. But it would be possible to use the energy to fuel the “kits”, yes.

This was my #1 complaint about the revenant, and I appreciate OP for making a nicely-organized and thoughtful first post.

The revenant needs weapon swapping of some sort. It is far too restrictive without it.

I agree. They can fix the damage easily (it’s just a number). They can add a gap opener for hammer and a better gap closer to staff. But the lack of flexibility and customization is a tough one and needs more than a few tweaks.

Silverkey.2078:

Well you have 1 weapon set (5 skills), 2 “kits” (10 skills) and 2 utility sets (10 skills).
I am not sure how energy should be handled. My feeling is that it should not affect skills 1-5 in the first place. But it would be possible to use the energy to fuel the “kits”, yes.

I see, dunno if I would count the kit activating skill as a full utility skill personally. Also the second kit for your currently inactive legend is behind two cost factors already so its not exactly the easiest to get to in combat especially depending on the cost of the kit activator (ie. since stance swapping resets you to 50 energy that could be both a hindrance or a boon depending on situation and cost of access to your second kit.

So the way I would count it would be that you readily have access to 5 weapon skills + 4 utility skills * 2 (or 5 depending how you count the activating skills). So at most that is still 20 skills that you have access that would be comparable to say attunement swapping of the elementalist imo.

Well that does depend on how you activate it. It can be as a kit, meaning it takes a utility slot. Or it can be triggered as a weapon-swap (if you swap weapons, you switch to currently activated legend-skills, swap again, back to your weapon). It can be similar to death shroud, activated using the F1-F5 slots (F1= become the legend, F2=swap legend)…

But even 20 skills is still an improvement compared to the current 15, especially because it adds the most needed 1-5 flexibility.

REV IS NOT GETTING WEAPON SWAP. so stop asking for it.

Kotte.2460:

REV IS NOT GETTING WEAPON SWAP. so stop asking for it.

And you know this how exactly?

Kotte.2460:

REV IS NOT GETTING WEAPON SWAP. so stop asking for it.

Yeah. And we will never have a wardrobe feature. And the Standard Edition of Heart of Thorns will never come with an extra character slot. Anet does never backpedal on previous decisions based on community feedback.

Seriosly dude, we’re not even asking for weapon swap, we’re just giving feedback on the Revenant, and most of us agree that it needs more diversity to fix some severe problems this profession has right now.
While weapon swap would be one of the easiest and smoothest ways to do this, we are also discussing other solutions here that could solve these problems without adding weapon swap. We’re open to all good new ideas.

Turkadactyl.5308:

As for the range/melee locked issue that a lot of people are bringing up, I’m not sure I see it. Lots of folks “lock” themselves into melee especially as it is, and in fact a lot of meta builds require it.

{snip}

There’s also been a lot here about how bad it is that the hammer “locks” you into range, and that’s a little bit misleading. Unlike the mesmer GS or ranger LB, there is no damage reduction to being in melee, and in fact tightly stacked players or NPCs means it’s easier to take advantage of piercing. I think another small tweak that could be made to the hammer in particular would be a small burst of spirit hammers at the point of impact to simulate a cleave, but then I would remove the piercing aspect.

For the first: That’s their choice, not something they’re forced into because their profession doesn’t give them a choice.

To the second: You don’t understand how the hammer actually works. A large proportion of the hammer’s DPS comes from using Coalescence of Ruin on recharge at max range. The description may be a bit obscure, but what it translates to is that targets in the 800-1200 range bracket (where the third impact takes place) actually take twice as much damage from the skill as targets in the 0-400 range bracket (the first impact).

While I haven’t done all the maths, this means that hammer is actually probably similarly affected by close range as mesmer greatsword and ranger longbow. Both of those have a #2 skill that is not reduced by close range (Mirror Blade can actually be improved by close range in some situations) and the mesmer and ranger have more tools to deal with an opponent at close range than the hammer revenant does, apart from popping Vengeful Hammers. (Which, to be fair, often does the job… unless you’re in tight confines and they slam into a wall and disappear.)

bearshaman.3421:

Note quite. I’ll point this out again. This being the playtest, they have just enough stuff in place for people to test the class, but there is much that is missing. But one of the fallacies people keep holding to (I did as well for a while, until I realized my mistake):

THE UTILITY SKILLS AREN’T FIXED!

They only have 1 heal, 3 utility, and 1 elite for each legend available at time of playtest because that was the minimum needed. We don’t know what that will look like in the end, but you can pop up the boxes that let you swap them around. So there will be some flexibility for the revenant on those skills once HoT drops.

Unless the pop up boxes to swap skills still being there is just an oversight, but here’s hoping.

I took it as simply being that you can rearrange them if you so chose – I could see an advantage to putting Pain Absorption next to Embrace the Darkness, for instance. We haven’t been told anything about being able to customise the utilities when in a stance, and if that was part of the profession’s design, I expect we would have been told (everything I’ve read has given me the opposite impression, but I’m not in a position to drag up quotes to establish just how well-founded that impression actually is). If that option IS available… then that will certainly change a lot.

However, there’s also the consideration that the weapons of engineers and elementalists are fairly general-purpose (most end up doing their best damage at close range while still being reasonably effective at ranges of at least 600) while revenant weapons are highly specialised (hammer behaves like greatsword and longbow – it’s not just ranged, it has reduced effectiveness at close range – while the melee weapons have a maximum range of a little over 400 on their effects, which is not much longer than the range on most elementalist dagger skills).

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

AzureSky.3175:

But what is absolutely problematic, is being locked into melee combat….

D/D Elementalist don’t agree with this.

D/D elementalist has a 600 range option (water autoattack). That’s shorter than 900 or 1200 on most ranged weapons, but it’s certainly not melee.

+ D/D elementalist has so much mobility that you can come back to melee much easier than the revenant staff.

The second solution sounds like Anet could put that in place with minor stress. Auto swap weapons with legend swap.

@DresdenAllblack
Really no, please! I don’t know why everyone thinks that is a good idea. The weapons don’t work that tightly with the legend that you want to switch them together. I gave somewhere else the example that staff actually pairs very well with Jalis and hammer very well with Ventari. There is no reason to switch both at the same time except removing some of the flexibility the weapon switch brings back.

Even not counting conjures a dagger ele has 400 range on his fire auto and 600 on the water one.

Another thing is that being range locked to range is not an issue because even a staff ele can drop his attacks at point blank, while a mace or staff revenant can’t use his melee only attacks on distant targets at all.

DresdenAllblack.1249:

The second solution sounds like Anet could put that in place with minor stress. Auto swap weapons with legend swap.

That’ll ruin the class. Even plain old weapon swap would be 100x better than that.

Silverkey.2078:

Or it can be triggered as a weapon-swap (if you swap weapons, you switch to currently activated legend-skills, swap again, back to your weapon). It can be similar to death shroud, activated using the F1-F5 slots (F1= become the legend, F2=swap legend)…

I like that idea… will add it to the thread starter post. Thanks!

The weapons don’t work that tightly with the legend that you want to switch them together. I gave somewhere else the example that staff actually pairs very well with Jalis and hammer very well with Ventari. There is no reason to switch both at the same time except removing some of the flexibility the weapon switch brings back.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

That’ll ruin the class. Even plain old weapon swap would be 100x better than that.

While it would increase variety and solve some problems, it’d decrease flexibility. I guess you’re right, it’s not an optimal solution… The idea originates from the fact that the weapons seem to be designed to fit one particular legend each, so they probably could even increase flexibility if they made the weapons less legend-bound… but that’s a different topic and already has been mentionend a lot of times I guess.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

DresdenAllblack.1249:

The second solution sounds like Anet could put that in place with minor stress. Auto swap weapons with legend swap.

That’ll ruin the class. Even plain old weapon swap would be 100x better than that.

Not really. Think of it as a normal weapon swap that now lets you change up the utility skills you have paired with it.

Regardless, I think that they are not going to add weapon swap at least initially to the class. At least not until after we have had time to play around with the finished product. One of the things they said outright when the class was announced (you can go back and read it) is that the class wouldn’t have weapon swap. I went back and read it cuz I was pretty sure I wasn’t understanding what they envisioned for the class.

Silverkey.2078:

@DresdenAllblack
Really no, please! I don’t know why everyone thinks that is a good idea. The weapons don’t work that tightly with the legend that you want to switch them together. I gave somewhere else the example that staff actually pairs very well with Jalis and hammer very well with Ventari. There is no reason to switch both at the same time except removing some of the flexibility the weapon switch brings back.

At this point this idea is being offered as an option over no weapon swap at all, which is the stated intention when they presented revenant way back when. It’s not that this is better than normal weapon swap, it’s that its better than no weapon swap at all.

The problem I see with having the legend auto-swap your weapon is what’s the difference? You basically just gave Revenant default weapon swap in addition to utility swap. I would rather you stick with 1 weapon, but have it’s skills be determined by traits.

The weapon should come “blank” and it’s effects should be derived from traits which are already inexorably tied to the legends. If you take Mallyx, the traits should add conditions to specific 1-5 slots. If you take Shiro, the traits should add a damage modifier to specific 1-5 slots. These traits should remain in effect no matter which legend you currently channel. That way you can be in Mallyx, but retain the damage modifiers of Shiro. Or you could swap to Ventari but still apply conditions from Mallyx.

IMO legend swapping itself should only affect your 6-0 slots. This would open up the most build diversity because you could use any weapon you feel like for any build. The only difference would be attack speed, range, and animations.

Do any of you even play an ele, some of the misconceptions about the class are so off base it is astounding. Dont try and compare two classes when you have 100% no idea how one of the classes works. God that some of you latched onto the conjors idea is too funny.

A d/d ele and a staff ele are just as ranged locked as a rev(the class is not even complete yet) and they both work.

Xenon.4537:

The problem I see with having the legend auto-swap your weapon is what’s the difference? You basically just gave Revenant default weapon swap in addition to utility swap. I would rather you stick with 1 weapon, but have it’s skills be determined by traits.

The weapon should come “blank” and it’s effects should be derived from traits which are already inexorably tied to the legends. If you take Mallyx, the traits should add conditions to specific 1-5 slots. If you take Shiro, the traits should add a damage modifier to specific 1-5 slots. These traits should remain in effect no matter which legend you currently channel. That way you can be in Mallyx, but retain the damage modifiers of Shiro. Or you could swap to Ventari but still apply conditions from Mallyx.

IMO legend swapping itself should only affect your 6-0 slots. This would open up the most build diversity because you could use any weapon you feel like for any build. The only difference would be attack speed, range, and animations.

I#m totally with you and the idea to apply special effects on all weapons and make the weapons itself more baselined

but:

the roles of the Rev SHOULD Change with the Legend Swap – so the additional stuff on the weapons should be bound directly to the active legend (not via Traits) – We need to >>swap << Roles in mid combat like every other class does so permanent trait buffs are not the way

Also every weapon skill should be “unique” – not every #1 skill should give the same effect on every weapon – instead every weapon skill should get its own legend benefit

e.g. Mace 2 + Mallyx = apply torment Mace 2 + Jalis = blind foe for 1 s Mace 2 + Ventari – apply regeneration mace2+shiro gain might
while mace 3 on mallyx = apply cripple mace 3 + ventari = AoE Heal Mace 3 + Jalis = Weakness Mace 3+ Shiro = vulnerability

Hammer for Example should profit very heavily on Cripple chill and stuff if on mallyx while it should rely on maybe reflection and movement speed on Jalis – the result is the same “keep away from me and don’t do me DMG” but the way its achieved is different

Shinji.2063:

Do any of you even play an ele, some of the misconceptions about the class are so off base it is astounding. Dont try and compare two classes when you have 100% no idea how one of the classes works. God that some of you latched onto the conjors idea is too funny.

A d/d ele and a staff ele are just as ranged locked as a rev(the class is not even complete yet) and they both work.

D/D ele has 600 range in water attunement with their auto attack. Mace revenant has a range of 480 apart from long-recharge axe skills (the offhand seems to be a bit like guardian and mesmer offhands in that it can be useful coupled with both melee or ranged), and their autoattack is melee. Staff revenant has a max range of 600 with the once-every-ten-seconds Warding Rift that does piddling damage and is mostly about the blind, but is otherwise stuck in melee.

D/D ele, let alone D/F ele, is much less locked into melee than either.

Scepter ele has 900 range on paper, but the playstyle often relies in being in close to blast fire finishers and stack Might, and therefor they’re often quite effective in melee (although probably not as much as dagger eles) while also having a longer reach. Staff ele has 1200 range, but none of their attacks are reduced in effectiveness due to being in close range, and if you don’t have an ally to keep the enemy pinned down, it’s usually easier to keep the enemy within your fields where they’ll take the most damage from your persistent area effects if you stay close by the fields yourself to keep melee enemies in the fields. So when you can’t simply play artillery at long range, a staff ele can fight quite effectively at close ranges.

The main DPS skill of revenant hammer, Coalescence of Ruin, does half damage if the enemy is in the 0-400 range bracket (which they usually will be unless the enemy is using long-range attacks themselves or you have an ally to keep them distracted) compared to when the enemy is in the 800-1200 bracket.

Both elementalist staff and scepter are much less range-locked than the revenant hammer. Sure, they’re not as effective as melee weapons in close range, but at least they don’t lose effectiveness like revenant hammer does.

Reven hammer just needs to lose it’s hammer range restrictions.

Or get a gap opener. Mesmer GS works well with range restriction, but it has cripple + gap opener.

But I still want to see my legend-specific skills

AzureSky.3175:

6. Tie Legendary Stances to their respective weapons (so swapping stances auto-swaps your weapon, or swapping weapons auto-swaps your stance)

This is by far my favorite idea. I can’t imagine any stance other than Ventari wanting to use the staff, so bringing up a staff when you switch to Ventari makes a lot of sense to me. Likewise, I think malyx and the hammer go really well together.

Revenant needs a way to switch between melee and range in the middle of combat, and I think the above option is the only one which does this easily and in a way that makes logical sense.

I got an idea how to fix melee/range thing.
Replace “Charged Mists” grandmaster trait (Invocation specialization) with new trait.
Name: “Mysterious Walk”
Immobilize, Chill and Cripple does not have effect on you, if those effects are applied to you, you gain their respective boon (condition convert).

Imobilize -> Swiftness (10s)
Chill -> Resistance (2s)
Cripple -> Swiftness (10s)

I will be happy with melee weapon and this trait.

Ceesa.1350:

AzureSky.3175:

6. Tie Legendary Stances to their respective weapons (so swapping stances auto-swaps your weapon, or swapping weapons auto-swaps your stance)

This is by far my favorite idea. I can’t imagine any stance other than Ventari wanting to use the staff, so bringing up a staff when you switch to Ventari makes a lot of sense to me. Likewise, I think malyx and the hammer go really well together.

Revenant needs a way to switch between melee and range in the middle of combat, and I think the above option is the only one which does this easily and in a way that makes logical sense.

I third this. Would help a heck of a lot.