Guild Wars 2

The Revenant revolves around the Legend Game mechanic with swapping between 2 legends changing the utility skills instead of the weapon skills, and an energy upkeep/management system similar to that in GW1.Everybody knows this but I want to state it clearly to highlight how the present setup does not always seem to be cohesive to that mechanic design.

1. Weapons: to Swap or Not to Swap, that is the question.
There are lots of arguments on the forums for and against the Revenant having a weapon swap. The basic mechanic of swapping utility skills instead of weapon skills as a matter of simply bare numbers looks like it should be no different than weapon swap on any of the professions that permit such. Yet that neglects 3 subtle but significant issues.

1a. The first is the overall loss of utility flexibility. When it comes down to it, each legend is a prepackaged SET of utility skills. Where every other profession allows players to mix & match utility skills to meet their anticipated needs, the revenant only can choose between 5 sets (OoC), rather than the mathematically significant combination possibilities available in other classes to select each skill individually. This means that if someone does not agree with the options within a package set they are simply out of luck. This is a non-trivial impact since weapon skills are also a set of skills that cannot be chosen individually.

This loss of flexibility comes home to roost with the current lack of mobility & stability skills within the Legend skill sets.

1b. The second loss of flexibility is seen in the inability to adjust for opponent range. Every other class with the exception of Elementalist has at least the potential to change between close/mid and long range weapons or kits. The elementalist is like the revenant in that it does not have the ability to account for range differences (think d/d vs. staff), yet the number of skills available with the 4 attunements provides double the skill flexibility IN COMBAT to that of the revenant. This applies a significant penalty to the revenant in game play.

1c. Legends are closely associated with a particular weapon. However because there is no weapon swap, the play can really only utilize the full scope of play for a single legend, with the second legend being handicapped by being out of sync with the weapon equipped. I can think of three possible solutions to this. One – make the revenant swap ALSO swap weapons at the same time (so single click/key changes both); Two – step back from the close association of Legend to weapon, Three – have swapping legends change the weapon skill functions so that the weapon effects vary from legend to legend. Personally I think this last would be the best option, but probably the most difficult to achieve. This is the greatest failing of the revenant concept right here.

2. Energy Admixture
The energy mechanic is awkward. The idea is fine, but applying a skill cool down AND an energy cost to weapon skills at the same time seems to be buying the worst of both worlds from the thief vs. other professions. This really should be one or the other, but not both. Given the profession mechanic with its concept of swapping utility rather than weapon, I think the energy cost should be applied to legend skills only, with the common casting time/cool down method being used for weapon skills.

3. Let’s Play well together
Ideally I think there ought to be a measure of synergy between Legends. We should have good reasons to swap back and forth between legends. There should be a reason to pick Mallyx/Ventari together in one place and Mallyx/Jalis somewhere else. We should be encouraged to swap between legends frequently as part of skilled play. Right now this sort of interplay between legends seems to be lacking.

4. Visual Suggestions
On a completely different aspect of playing the revenant, I have a couple thoughts on the visual appearances.

4a. When playing the mace/axe weapon pairs, the red weapon effect looks . . . flat. It seems to have no color depth or something, so it felt unpolished. The issue really just seems to be that one tone of red. Color & design aren’t something I am good at so the best I can do is this rough impression.

4b. The skills that have an energy upkeep, I had a very, very difficult time visually identifying whether they were toggled on or not. I just could not tell by looking at the skill. I don’t have any suggestions on how to fix that, just that it needs to be adjusted some how.

Over all I loved playing the revenant. It will be a great addition to the game. However, I do hope that there will be some adjustments to accommodate for the loss of flexibility.