There has been a lot of talk about how expensive some Revenant skills are, especially on Renegade. I don’t think expensive skills are the problem, I think they just highlight the real problem, no energy management.
All the other professions (War, Necro, Thief) with resource pools have management skills and traits but none of the others have to use this pool for every skill. Not giving energy management to Revenant was a mistake.
Currently you have to switch legend on cool down, not because it’s beneficial to be in that legend over the other for the situation, this makes energy seem like a last minute addition to revenant that wasn’t properly thought through and makes legends more of an annoyance than a tactical choice, as you can lose skills you need for a while.
So my solution? Energy management! I’m not going to give specific numbers as that comes down to balance, just the concept.
1. Energy on hit:
Have auto attacks generate energy, Revenant all too often is stuck AAing for a while as it is, make it more useful. This has been suggested a lot but I think it would help, also as a Derv main in gw1 I always loved zealous weapons.
2. Energy Skills: There is a weird idea floating around that because Rev has two sets of utilities, the lack of swappable utilities to tweak builds is okay. It’s really limiting and when you look at Ele (attunements and conjures), Engi (F Skills & Kits) and even War (Banners) who can bring far more skills with more choice, also all other skill types, for example stances on war, have four 7-9 skills, Rev only has 3 per type/legend.
My suggestion, a second set of skills (1 heal, 3 utilities, 1 elite) for the invocation trait line that can be slotted into any legend, if already slotted, slotting into the second legend should remove from the first, so can only have once. I had a look at the other resource building skills and here are my suggestions (only suggestions, feel free to improve)
Heal: Heal and energy base on current level (War: old healing surge). This could work either based on current energy level or current health level i.e. if at high health gain less healing and more energy, if at low health gain more healing and less energy. Giving the skill a double functionality.
Utility 1: Stun break, on a successful stun break gain energy for each enemy near you (See warrior’s outrage)
Utility 2: Remove x amount of conditions, gain energy per condition removed (Necro: feast of corruption).
In the current meta, every professions needs the option to slot a stun break and condi cleanse, CC’s and Conditions are handed out like Sweets these days.
Utility 3: Not too sure of the third, but two possible ideas;
1. Dodge and gain energy (Thief: Roll for Initiative)
2. Dmg and/or condition dmg reduction + gain energy on being hit. (Necro: Spectral Armor)
Elite: Don’t really have an idea for elite, perhaps a passive energy gain with an activated buff like Signet of rage.
So what would this do?
- Help reduce the impact of high energy skills, allowing them to stay impactful and so expensive.
- Give Revenants more choice and diversity, which as a Rev main I can say is sorely needed to keep the class viable and fun long term.
- One step closer to moving away from the feeling of beta.
There is also the discussion of energy traits giving perks such as reducing costs, gaining on circumstance. And speaking of beta, an extra core weapon, maybe energy based focus? … And of course under water skills!
Thoughts?