Guild Wars 2

Legendary aspect – an ability to use one skill of inactive legend (under f3 button).

Why:
Legends are too well defined. Each practically hogs a given role (healing, tanking, boon spam etc), and totally takes that away from you when you swap it out. Traits and weapons offer some substitute, but often it’s far from enough to warrant a stressless legend swap and with it a full, versatile revenant build and gameplay experience.

How it’s done

A player is allowed to choose one skill from each of his 2 equipped legends to be available when that legend is inactive. That skill then gets assigned to F3 button and is available when he’s using the other legend.

Example:

Our rev chose Ventari/Jalis build.
He then assigns Jalis’ Forced Engagement as his legendary aspect from Jalis.
Now when in Ventari stance he can still use above skill for some extra cc and sustain.

From Ventari he chose Ventari’s Will/Project Tranquility. When in Legendary Dwarf Stance he can summon Ventari’s tablet and heal his allies and himself as it passes through them triggering on heal effects (as he chose healing skill to be slotted in Ventari’s aspect).

Balance

Basically not a big issue here if you ask me – rev’s cooldown and costs are already handling that part. Skill you use as legendary aspect is the same one you have on your inactive legend. It’ll consume it’s share of energy and go on it’s cooldown which will remain in effect as you swap legends.

Only two things that come to mind outside of that are:
1. Small bump to Jade Winds cooldown in pvp only, to prevent double cast with aspect->swap legend to shiro -> jade winds.

2. Changing Demonic defiance to work only when in Legendary Demon Stance.

How to implement it

Unlock each legend’s aspect as you finish it’s training in training panel. Simple!

Ventari’s aspects special changes

As ventari is about spawning, moving and managing your tablet, his aspect skills should include the following:

1. No matter which skill is chosen for Ventari’s aspect, all of them would spawn a tablet (if not already present) and be ground targeted, moving tablet to the selected location.

2. Unless “Ventari’s will” was slotted, the act of moving tablet would be that and nothing more. No on heal effect triggers, no project tranquility, no healing as it passes through allies. The traited regen stays, as it’s not related to the skill but the tablet itself.

3. Puryfying essense (the insta condi-cleanse) would be activated after tablet reaches it’s goal. Else we risk cleansing in the tablet’s old position (which is bad in most cases) and watch it boldly arrive at the scene to…do nothing since it already used up the skill.
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4. All else would be activated the moment you press your button and take effect as it normally does (so instant for protective solace, while after one second or so for Energy Expulsion and Natural Harmony).

I think this sounds like a good idea, and it would really address Revenant’s poor versatility. However, there are some questions that need to be answered first:

1) Can you slot only regular utility skills into F3, or can you also slot healing and elite skills? I know you mention elite skills in your example, but is it best to allow elites too, or just regular utilities? What about healing skills?

2) Do skills in the F3 slot trigger ‘on heal’ (if slotting a heal skill) or ‘when using an elite’ (if using an elite skill) effects from traits and runes?

I was worried about how Ventari would work with this, but your solution sounds pretty reasonable. I’m not sure that I agree with unlocking the F3 through a Grandmaster trait though…I’d rather see it built in by default and available regardless of what specializations and traits you choose. I think making it trait-dependent would limit a lot of the build diversity this system would otherwise create. For example, if I want an F3 ability in both legends when I use a Jalis / Ventari build, then I would require to specialize in both Salvation and Retribution … I think that would be a bit limiting.

Finally, some careful balancing would probably be needed with the introduction of this system. There are some very potent utilities that could produce very powerful builds if they’re always available, even after legend swap (e.g. Phase Traversal or Riposting Shadows in PvP, perhaps the Glint facets, etc).

1. healing skills most definitely.

It’ll give you better shot at burst healing, but at expense of burning both heals and being that much longer without any healing skill at all.

Also yes for elites. With legendary aspects it is possible to attempt double cast of same elite (cast it with an aspect, swap legend -> 50 energy restored, cast original), or reverse of that.

With that in mind, three of them still get an easy pass:
Glint has very long cooldown. No way to abuse it.
Mallyx’s isn’t that strong, and it’s traits have their own internal cooldown to prevent abuse.
Ventari’s is a heal, and also has a proper energy cost. Also you’re allowed to spam it in his stance and no harm happens because of it.

The two top offenders are Jade Winds (especially) and Rite of the Great Dwarf.
Jade Winds however have an internal cooldown of 5s (with 3s stun duration). Maybe it should be upped a bit for spvp, since alacrity could push it dangerously close to 3s.

As for Right of the Great Dwarf – well this one is hardest to balance because it’s balancing mechanic is in the energy cost and stacking. It’s does not stack at all, so casting it prematurely after first cast is just a waste of time and (literally) energy.
But then again recently the lowered it’s cost in spvp to 40, and if you wait 5s for next cast you’ll recharge 25…i think A-net wants us to use it more then once in succession. Maybe it would make the lackluster Jalis more saught after?

I feel Rite is the hardest elite to balance but also that it’s A-net that should decide if they want it balanced at all, or want more rock & roll dwarven action.

2. Yeah, no reason not to.

The “on heal” and “on elite” runes already have their own balancing mechanic in form of internal cooldown. Also it would be nice to see that icd actually used to it’s best ability without being forced to a specific main legend (equip ventari’s healing skill as aspect and stop worrying about your Jalis heal activating the rune of herald only once every 30s)

3. about tablet moving when using ventari’s aspect skill.
One skill that worries me is the condi cleanse one – it’s instant and does not persist. Meaning you’d be casting it first, then watch as your already “used” tablet travels to where it’s needed.

I think it would be wise to have this skill activate once the tablet has arrived at it’s destination.

Rest of Ventari kit should work same as in his stance – skill starts charging/activates the second you give out the command , while tablet starts it’s travel to destination spot.

About traits, you’re right totally forgot part that you don’t equip them all. It should be available to all legends by default, just though of traits as the “not too early” mechanic, but it would indeed hinder build diversity.

As for rest of balancing, rev already has build-in tools for it – cooldowns and energy costs. What sounds op on paper quicky falls flat on it’s face once the energy bar sends a reminder about not stretching forever.

If all of this is too complex, one can always put initial cooldown on aspect itself – for example – make it available 2-3s after legend swap, or have it carry 50% extra costs if used within this time. I’ll let a-net get creative here.