Guild Wars 2

Valandil Dragonhart.2371:

I main an ele. I want to melee and range

So use D/D and conjured bow?
Or Staff and conjured hammer.

You already have 20 weaponskill cooldowns with attunement and 35 total with conjured weapons.
You also want weaponswap? Jesus… That would be a pool of 55 skill cooldowns.

No thanks, Ele is already pretty good.
If you didn’t notice, before weaponswap Revenant had 13 cooldowns and 2 upkeeps, and it is the only class that can’t customize and choose utility skills.

Eles have lightning hammer and engis have tool kit though so they can already do melee range damage. Other classes also have the option to change to ranged/melee or pure ranged attacks. Shouldn’t revs have that option as well?

Don’t worry, the vast majority is happy about weaponswap. The only unhappy ones are a few elementalists who can’t use their 37-skills-in-a-row class and some people who made weird suggestion instead of superior weaponswap and wanted their solution to be used instead.

Genesis.8572:

In reality what the class needs, regardless of whether it has a weapon swap or not, is customization which work toward the classes mechanics rather than those themes specific to each legend. That way there can be crossover, options, and synergy between legends, weapons, and traits rather than just four clear undiverging paths up the customization tree.

This is indeed beside the point of weapon swapping.

Way to totally skip half of what was said just so you can be spend your moment in the spotlight as an aloof pretentious prick.

You missed this.

Conncept.7638:

This whole class is designed around dependency rather than synergy, to the point of rendering the very customization system moot. You know how ANet just took out dozens of traits because either people took the weapon/utility skill the trait affected and the trait, or neither? That’s exactly what they are doing with this entire class so far.

It is pertinent to weapon swapping, because with the current weapon skills, all the addition of weapon swap did was further cement that overdependence in place. Adding weapon swap ‘as-is’ has trivialized the choice of your second legend as much as the first. They might as well combine weapon swap and legend swap at this point and be done with it, because that is exactly what players are going to do. That’s even what the developer did in the livestream, never used a hammer skill in Shiro stance, never used a sword skill in Jalis stance.

But wait? Why is that a bad thing? They can just generalize the weapon skills later right?

Except you also ignored this.

Conncept.7638:

Genesis.8572:

Conncept.7638:

And honestly, this hasn’t made that big of a difference and the class is still disappointing, so far as customization is concerned this rose the Revenants four build decisions up to… FIVE! I can hardly contain my excitement.

I certainly don’t think that the Revenant is close to done, as I agree that it needs more build variability via its trait design and utility options. Weapon skill flexibility was simply one of the issues.

I really hope you are right, but a lot of the developer comments really sound like they are totally okay with the revenant launching with this pitiful level of build customization.

The developers have already stated that the legend selection is meant to be the customization option of the Revenant, in stream and on the forums. They do not currently nor have previously shown any intent to generalize skills and traits, add utilities, or increase customization in any way. That is something we have to convince them is needed. And this change was a bandaid solution in hopes that they won’t have to.

So no, it isn’t innately a bad thing, and the revenant could have good build diversity with or without weapon swap; however it is related in this context, and something we should all be wary of, because of the direction its taking the design of the class and the fact that the players are blindly supporting it without realizing what it very likely means.

Conncept.7638:

Way to totally skip half of what was said just so you can be spend your moment in the spotlight as an aloof pretentious prick.

I am not sure how what I wrote warranted this harsh of a response. I am not obligated to respond to everything you write nor did I feel like it at the time – as I increasingly loathe wall-of-text discussions – so I ask you to respectfully not interpret my post as being dismissive or malicious in nature.

This is unneeded and a lazy way to attempt to solve a problem of diversity.

Ele’s and Engi’s who have a mechanic to get more skills do not get weaponswap, because they have another way to get those extra skills.
In the same way Revenant had another way, rather than swapping weapons they swapped utility skills. Either way they get their extra skills on a swap.

The problem was that utility skills as a result were not customizable, unlike utility skills for other professions. Leaving Revenants with two types of skills that are static, Weapon (like everyone else) and utility (unlike everyone else).

What Revenant really needed was simply more utility skills. To allow the player to choose which of the X number of utility skills available under each Legend he/she would socket.
But that would mean more effort as new utility skills had to be designed and made. Weaponswap is just a cheap bandaid, Revenants should not have it. They get to many skills for cheap now while maintaining their professions mechanic of energy rather than cooldowns for utility skills. But at the same time they are stuck with static skills that they cannot customize.

Terrahero.9358:

This is unneeded and a lazy way to attempt to solve a problem of diversity.

Ele’s and Engi’s who have a mechanic to get more skills do not get weaponswap, because they have another way to get those extra skills.
In the same way Revenant had another way, rather than swapping weapons they swapped utility skills. Either way they get their extra skills on a swap.

The problem was that utility skills as a result were not customizable, unlike utility skills for other professions. Leaving Revenants with two types of skills that are static, Weapon (like everyone else) and utility (unlike everyone else).

What Revenant really needed was simply more utility skills. To allow the player to choose which of the X number of utility skills available under each Legend he/she would socket.
But that would mean more effort as new utility skills had to be designed and made. Weaponswap is just a cheap bandaid, Revenants should not have it. They get to many skills for cheap now while maintaining their professions mechanic of energy rather than cooldowns for utility skills. But at the same time they are stuck with static skills that they cannot customize.

Even with customizable skills you still don’t have range change as every other class, plus you don’t get more weaponskill cooldowns to use.
Elementalists has 20 weaponskill cooldowns only with attunement, allowing infinite rotations with no wait time. Not even factoring conjured weapons (Ice Bow, seriously).

DeathPanel.8362:

Julie Yann.5379:

So, how are on swap sigils going to work now, will they get proc’d with legend swap, weapon swap, or both?

Swap sigils never proc’ed with legend swap.

Yes they do, I tested it last weekend and the proc’d every 9 secs on legend swap.

Julie Yann.5379:

DeathPanel.8362:

Julie Yann.5379:

So, how are on swap sigils going to work now, will they get proc’d with legend swap, weapon swap, or both?

Swap sigils never proc’ed with legend swap.

Yes they do, I tested it last weekend and the proc’d every 9 secs on legend swap.

I can confirm this. It was prior to weaponswap however

Xenon.4537:

Genesis.8572:

Xenon.4537:

Good job guys. You complained and begged for an unimaginative solution, and you got it. Now the class is doomed to be boring as all hell. There were plenty of way better ideas than duct-taping default weapon swap to the class.

Sometimes the best and most practical fixes to problems are not the most imaginative ones nor should they be.

That is just depressing. If this is how humans think, I’m ashamed to be one.

Educate yourself with Occam’s razor, you need to.

Julie Yann.5379:

DeathPanel.8362:

Julie Yann.5379:

So, how are on swap sigils going to work now, will they get proc’d with legend swap, weapon swap, or both?

Swap sigils never proc’ed with legend swap.

Yes they do, I tested it last weekend and the proc’d every 9 secs on legend swap.

In that case I must’ve missed it when I played last week.

To be honest, weapon swap is a pretty bad solution to revenant design.

But its a quick workable solution to revenant play.

I think its a short sighted solution to concept with a number of design flaws, and will in the end make the class more generic, however it is a solution that works better than what they previously had.

Short version:
Bad solution for the class, but better than nothing

Let’s hear your suggestion then

Eleazyair.5716:

Xenon.4537:

Genesis.8572:

Xenon.4537:

Good job guys. You complained and begged for an unimaginative solution, and you got it. Now the class is doomed to be boring as all hell. There were plenty of way better ideas than duct-taping default weapon swap to the class.

Sometimes the best and most practical fixes to problems are not the most imaginative ones nor should they be.

That is just depressing. If this is how humans think, I’m ashamed to be one.

Educate yourself with Occam’s razor, you need to.

Occams razor isnt about the best design being the simplest.

Occams razor is about assuming that the predictions that assume less explanations are more usable than the ones that assume more.

Its also not a truism, merely a philosophy.

Its basically for making predictions, not designing solutions, and its also incorrect at times

http://scienceblogs.com/developingintelligence/2007/05/14/why-the-simplest-theory-is-alm/

Kidel.2057:

Let’s hear your suggestion then

Its in my post history, but it doesnt matter any more.
The die is cast, they chose this one because at this stage they d rather go for a solution thats simple and tested.

Definately understandable on a deadline, but in the long term, ehh

Let me guess, it was something like “swap weapon when you swap legend”, right?
Or change weaponskills according to current legend (that is basically the same thing with less gear involved)? Like attunements.
Or changing a couple of effects/conditions on skills based on attunement… ops legend.

All horrible choices. Legendswap has to be done every 10 seconds, I may want to keep my melee/ranged skills longer. Those 2 swaps have very different reasons to be done.

If Revenant didn’t get a weapon swap, this would mean that this class would have the least amount of skills out of all of the classes in the game. Only 10 skills that Revenant would be able to use in battle(Being able to switch legends to switch utilities,giving it technically 15). This doesn’t remove the meaning of other classes because for example, elementalist has access to 25 skills at all times and actually including conjures, the elementalist can have another 20 skills on their utility, giving them a grand total of 41 individual skills, and engineer can almost have the most skills, with more skills than every proffesion on its utility bar alone, but in total the engine can have about 35 individual skills within their use. So not letting Revenant have a weapon switch would make it a lot less appealing that other classes.
Also it wouldn’t be fair to heavy armor classes as they would have the least amount of skills combined in relativity to the other classes, because currently an engineer can use more individual skills in combat than a guardian and warrior combined, so if rev didn’t get the weapon swap, heavy armor classes would be missing a lot of the love that the other classes get.

Valandil Dragonhart.2371:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFVAOvvMtoc

Ignore the elements and the skills which can (and can’t) be used for a given scenario, the precedent has been set here. I’m sure engi’s wouldn’t mind a weapon swap ability either.

Well for Engi, unless they’re cele pistols and rifle have absolutely 0 synergy with eachother so there would be absolutely no point to weaponswap, especially when they have kits they can instantly change into. Honestly, for ele, its already so OP you don’t need kittening weaponswap when you already have 20 skills.

Honestly complaints from ele mains are like complaints from the spoiled children that get everything they ever want.

nearlight.3064:

Well for Engi, unless they’re cele pistols and rifle have absolutely 0 synergy with eachother so there would be absolutely no point to weaponswap, especially when they have kits they can instantly change into.

Agreed. Even when the engineer e-spec gets the hammer, the lack of weapon swap will likely be a complete non-issue, since they can easily cover melee (bombs, tools), semi-melee (flamethrower), ranged (grenade, elixir), and long-range (mortar) through their kits without even touching their standard weapon skills.

I can’t read the title, can you make it bigger? Like capital-capital letters?

Kidel.2057:

Let me guess, it was something like “swap weapon when you swap legend”, right?
Or change weaponskills according to current legend (that is basically the same thing with less gear involved)? Like attunements.
Or changing a couple of effects/conditions on skills based on attunement… ops legend.

All horrible choices. Legendswap has to be done every 10 seconds, I may want to keep my melee/ranged skills longer. Those 2 swaps have very different reasons to be done.

You just hit on another bad design element, too heavy a need to swap legends every 10 seconds.

If you dont swap you sacrfice huge energy every 10 secs.
And due to design swapping really dilutes your play.
Most malltx util is tied to condi
Most ventari is about healing

Having to swap to contrasting purposes for every legend basically means 10 seconds of not having what you need.

Also utilities are generally used according to need, not on rotation, so swapping off cool down will lock them out when you need em.

Problematic design reinforcing problematic design.

Perhaps they should have made Legend swapping have a 0 sec CD, but give you a stacking debuff that reduced the amount of energy you got back upon swap. So:

You have 0% energy > Legend swap
You have 50% energy, 1 stack of 10 sec duration debuff “If you swap legends while this is active, you receive 10 less energy” > Legend Swap at 10 sec
You have 40% energy, 1 stack of 10 sec debuff, 1 hidden stack of <10 sec debuff.

Each instance of the debuff would tick away on its own just like any condition or boon that stacks. If you swapped 5 times within 10 seconds, you would get 0% energy on swap but you would still get the swap effects from the Invocation line.

Still, I do think that Revenants had poor ability for dealing with anything beyond 600 units if they did not equip the hammer; it doesn’t even matter if you had Jalis equipped because Jalis isn’t even a long-range legend.

Phys, are you changing the subject? I still want to hear your creative alternative for weaponswap
And I don’t see any problem in changing legend every 10 or more seconds.
Other classes use their mechanic even more often (expecially Warriors since last patch).

Kidel.2057:

Phys, are you changing the subject? I still want to hear your creative alternative for weaponswap
And I don’t see any problem in changing legend every 10 or more seconds.
Other classes use their mechanic even more often (expecially Warriors since last patch).

Or perhaps you can just look at his post history for it like he said already…. What does it matter now anyways? It’s been changed.

I hope we aren’t forced to swap Legends every 10 seconds to be effective. That’s annoying and one of the reasons I don’t play a Elementalist anymore. With weaponswap, I’m already afraid we’re going to be pigeon hole’d into doing that now at least with the weapons.

Meh.

The Revenant did struggle in certain situations without the ability to hold a ranged and melee weapon – and some instances like level 30 fractals and mordrem bosses actually require swapping to a ranged weapon.

That said, I feel that the extreme weakness of no weapon swap was a defining feature of Revenant. At the least, I hope that weapon swap is bound to legend swap and there is a penalty to legend swap cooldown and the default 50 energy if you do use two weapons instead of one :/

Gerrand.3085:

I hope that weapon swap is bound to legend swap

Not this again…
Why should I change weapon and range if I simply go from Shiro to Mallyx to get energy and the other dps upkeep? Or to stunbreak.

If you want that limit just grab a software that makes you weaponswap and legendswap at the same time emulating 2 keys in 1.

I’ve never understood the want for that. Plain old weaponswap is 10x better than legend bound weapon swapping.

Weapon swap (or an alternative mechanic) was definitely needed, so I can’t complain about this much. But I am left with one big concern. Revenant has very few weapon choices.

For example, if I play condi Rev, then I equip Mace/X in one set, and what in the world do I put in my other weapon set? There is no functional weapon I can equip for the second set…The best I can think of is Mace/Axe and Mace/Sword, but this still leaves condi. Rev without any range, which is the same problem they had before weapon swap.

Power Rev is better, but still lacking in build diversity atleast where weapons are concerned. Almost all direct damage Revs by necessity will be Hammer and Staff or Sword/X.

Or will this not be as big of a concern as I am imagining? I know that Necro and maybe Mesmer, for example, also have limited weapon choices, but I don’t play those professions much, so I don’ t know how much effect it has on them.

fluidmonolith.3584:

Weapon swap (or an alternative mechanic) was definitely needed, so I can’t complain about this much. But I am left with one big concern. Revenant has very few weapon choices.

For example, if I play condi Rev, then I equip Mace/X in one set, and what in the world do I put in my other weapon set? There is no functional weapon I can equip for the second set…The best I can think of is Mace/Axe and Mace/Sword, but this still leaves condi. Rev without any range, which is the same problem they had before weapon swap.

Power Rev is better, but still lacking in build diversity atleast where weapons are concerned. Almost all direct damage Revs by necessity will be Hammer and Staff or Sword/X.

Or will this not be as big of a concern as I am imagining? I know that Necro and maybe Mesmer, for example, also have limited weapon choices, but I don’t play those professions much, so I don’ t know how much effect it has on them.

Has next to no affect on them, honestly, Revenant will be fine with just one weapon for Condi.

Sword would also be a nice weapon to pair with axe/mace because don’t forget that conditions benefit from Vulnerability now (Which sword applies a lot of) and the sword #3 also grants about 7 stacks of might.