Guild Wars 2

The hierophant is a new elite specialization idea for the revenant. Hierophants embrace dark magic, using cursed relics recovered from the darkest corners of the Mists to channel it against their enemies.

They show worrying interest in Abaddon, the fallen god of secrets. Not satisfied with the Assassin and Demon legends, they have expanded their knowledge into a new legend, harnessing the ancient magic of the Flame Legion, with the ultimate goal of understanding the powers behind the Searing, the spell that razed Ascalon two centuries ago.

Additionally, hierophants summon different relics when channeling each legend. These relics enhance their powers and their connection to each legend, allowing them to take their spells further.

Hierophant:

• New weapon: Torch (off-hand)
• New legend: Flame Shaman
• New mechanic: Relics (pet)

I only want to focus on the overall theme, and not get into specific skill ideas for neither the torch nor the Flame Shaman legend, but I think the mechanic around the relics deserves a deeper explanation, so here we go:

New mechanic: The Relic

The new mechanic of the hierophant would be a series of passive pets called relics. Each legend would have its own unique relic, and they would activate on legend swap, spawning nearby. They would be invulnerable to damage, but still suffer from crowd control and other effects.

The idea for this elite specialization came from random discussions about giving each revenant legend its own resource and mechanic. In that moment, Ventari’s Tablet was pretty unpopular, and many revenants saw it as an annoying mechanic, so I wondered if it would work better if removed from utilities and placed inside a pet-like system. Later on I started thinking about new elite specializations, and a Flame Legion-based elite spec with its own Searing Cauldron pet came to mind, leading me here. This idea implies Ventari’s Tablet would be removed from Ventari’s utilities, which would be user-casted now.

Relics are pretty unconventional pets by the current game standards, but they would still share the same basic foundation. What makes them unique is that they rely on precise positioning for their skills, and being protected from crowd control. And they don’t move.

The mechanic bar would change into:

• F1: Legend swap (Same as of now)
• F2: Teleport to target (Ground-targeted, teleports the relic)
• F3, F4, and F5: Relic skills

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Continued from above

The relics would be as follow:

Assassin: Shiro’s Blades (Offense, two pets in one)

• Two floating swords, you would only teleport one when you use the F2 teleport skill, so you’d need to use it twice to teleport both. Skills would involve the positioning of both swords, to then make them whirl towards each other’s position, towards the player, or rotating in place destroying projectiles.

Demon: The Apocrypha (Offense, transforms into minions)

• It would spawn in tablet form, and each one of the skills would transform it into one of three different attack forms. Once transformed, it would become vulnerable to damage, requiring legend swap to respawn if destroyed. Skills F3 to F5 would change to basic pet control skills: Focus target, come back, and a special skill, which would change depending on the chosen transformation. If not destroyed, it eventually reverts to tablet form.

Dwarf: Tome of the Rubicon (Defense, support)

• This book has the power to link the souls of different heroes temporarily. If any of the linked players is attacked, the damage of the attack is divided between them. The F3-F5 skills can link one player each, and once linked, the same skills can be used to break the link as well.

Centaur: Ventari’s Tablet (Defense, healing)

• The skills would be similar to that of the original tablet in one form or another, depending on the changes made to the utilities after the tablet’s removal from the core profession. The option to explode the tablet to leave healing fragments would stay for sure.

Flame Legion: Searing Cauldron (Offense, area of effect)

• Being the pet of the elite specialization’s new legend, its usage would be heavily tied to the use of Flame Legion utilities. The strongest skills of the legend would be “inside” the cauldron, and would have a considerable cast time. The revenant and the cauldron would have to coordinate to cast these spells. The cauldron itself wouldn’t have any active skills, and instead each of its skills would activate or deactivate a property (Fire, Smoke, or Lava) of the cauldron, making it spin at different speeds with different animations depending on the amount of activated properties. The utility skills of the legend would change and “level up” depending on the activated properties, requiring longer cast times the higher the level, but being more powerful as well. The elite utility skill of the legend, summoning a few Searing crystals, would turn into a full Searing of Ascalon if you activate the three properties of the cauldron, as long as neither the player nor the cauldron are interrupted by enemy crowd control.

That’s all, thanks for reading, and looking forward your opinions!

Very cool, I like the concept. Personally I’d like to see a legend that has a more neutral stance towards world events, like Tom Bombadil in LotR, but this is the right way to go if we’re aiming for more evil/power-focused legends.

Whatever it is I hope its more fun to play than the current revenant… There needs to be an active energy management system instead of just dumping energy and then auto attacking 90% of the time.

Huskyboy.1053:

Very cool, I like the concept. Personally I’d like to see a legend that has a more neutral stance towards world events, like Tom Bombadil in LotR, but this is the right way to go if we’re aiming for more evil/power-focused legends.

Check these other ideas.

Xenon.4537:

Whatever it is I hope its more fun to play than the current revenant… There needs to be an active energy management system instead of just dumping energy and then auto attacking 90% of the time.

I think that’s a really worrisome problem that needs to be fixed at the core profession.

More information on hierophants, and a few changes as well:

• The hierophant has a new mechanic, relics, and a new legendary stance, the Legendary Imperator Stance.
• The new legendary character is Bonfaaz Burntfur, a Flame Legion shaman known for leading the charr armies against Ascalon during GW1, and summoning the Searing.
• Complete name is Legendary Flame Legion Imperator Bonfaaz Burntfur.
• The imperator legend is heavy on conditions, specially burning and blind.
• Each legend has its own relic, and imperator isn’t really mandatory to be an efficient hierophant. Different relics have different roles, and you won’t be locked to a single build. Relics for core legends are described in the second post of the thread, and aren’t changing too much.
• The imperator relic, the Searing Cauldron, is now simplified from the previous version. The skills now summon constantly either a fire field, a lightning field, or a dark field. The idea is for the cauldron to be combo support.
• Imperator slot skills have all different synergies with the cauldron relic, like a fire shield spawned at the relic instead of the caster.
• Imperator slot elite skill is a miniature Searing, where both the hierophant and the relic channel the skill. If one suffers crowd control or dies, the skill is cancelled.
• Torch skills are designed to provide support mechanics for the active relic.