Guild Wars 2

The objective of this thread is to propose a long-term redesign of Revenant weapon utilization – specifically, the application of versatile, dual-auto-attack weapons (like spear) coupled with the removal of weapon swap. In this proposal, I include a dual-auto-attack on each main-hand or two-hand weapon. I have also included a trait option for each weapon that allows the player to specialize in one auto-attack or the other. These traits are always in the same trait line and in the same tier so they compete with each other. This solution is intended to address many concerns:

1) An innovative framework already exists for weapon versatility, but this method is not utilized. Revenant spear uses two auto-attacks – one at range with condition damage, and one in melee with direct damage. This system can be used to address limitations in current weapon sets. It is possible that ANet had been designing this system to be used with all of the Revenant’s weapons in place of a weapon swap, but ran out time to implement it before HoT was released.

2) Long cooldowns on weapon skills, which are likely a result of the potential to chain powerful skills from separate weapon sets together (e.g. sword #5 into staff #5, or sword #4 then staff #3). If I recall correctly, Revenant was initially intended to have shorter cooldowns since they also require energy for weapon skills. However, cooldowns have increased over time due to balancing concerns. Removal of weapon swap permits shorter cooldowns on weapon skills.

3) Lack of weapon selection. Revenants have fewer weapon options than any other profession. For example, they have no good weapon to accompany mace in a condition damage build. Removing weapon swap and adding dual auto-attacks is intended to lead to increased build variety as well.

These changes are meant to be relatively simple. I try not to make drastic changes to existing play styles that people are already familiar with. To attempt to circumvent some reader angst about a topic as controversial as weapon swapping on Revenant, let me give a DISCLAIMER first outlining some things that this recommendation is supposed to do and not supposed to do:

1) These recommendations are a long-term goal and should not take priority over bug fixes or tweaks to ineffective skills or traits. A good time, perhaps, to implement changes like these would be during the release of an expansion.
2) These recommendations are not meant to be taken as an indicator of the author’s perception of the relative competitive capabilities of Revenant. These recommendations are made by myself, a Revenant player, and not by someone who lost to a Rev and is asking for nerfs…
3) These changes are meant to preserve the Revenant playstyle as much as possible while returning the class to the original concept (swaps utilities and not weapons), making use of the interesting dual-auto-attack feature seen on the Revenant’s underwater weapon, spear.
4) These recommendations are not meant to address weak legends / skills (other than weapon skills), weak trait, or bugs.

Now with that out of the way, the proposed changes:

Sword
The second auto-attack on sword now deals ranged damage. This gives the sword user some ranged pressure, though it will generally not provide as much damage as the melee capabilities. However, when traited it does allow for greater multi-target damage than currently possible with sword.

1.
-unchanged

2. (chain)
1 Precise Slash
Slash of wave of energy from the mists toward your foe. Inflicts vulnerability (4s)
cast time – 1/2s
range – 900
energy cost – 0
power coefficient 0.70
projectile finisher 20%
2 Precise Slice
Slice a wave of energy from the mists toward your foe. Inflicts vulnerability (4s)
cast time – 1/2s
range – 900
energy cost – 0
power coefficient – 0.70
3 Frigid Slice
Slice of wave of chilling energy from the mists toward your foe. Inflicts chill (1s)
cast time – 1/2s
range – 900
energy cost – 2
power coefficient – 0.8
*the energy cost is added here since the energy cost the current sword #2 (Precise Strike) is removed. I am still debating whether or not the second auto-attack should have energy cost or not.

3.
-unchanged

4.
-cooldown reduced to 10s

5.
-unchanged

Traits (Devastation)

Jade Echo – moved to Adept

Nefarious Momentum – moved to Adept

Ferocious Strikes – trait moved to Master
Sword skill #2 (Precise Slash, Precise Slice, Frigid Slice) pierces. Still adds 150 ferocity when dual-wielding.

Vicious Lacerations – trait moved to Master
When hitting with sword #1, damage increased by 2%, stacks up to 5x (now only applies to sword#1). Increase the duration of each stack to 8 seconds since it only triggers from sword #1 now.

Hammer
A melee auto-attack was added to hammer to be used as a bruiser / brawler weapon. Ranged attacks still focus on burst damage. Phase Smash and Drop the Hammer were merged to allow gap closing or gap creation as needed by melee or ranged attackers.

1. Hammer Bolt
-unchanged

2. – (chain)
1 Hammer bash #1
cast time – 1/2s
range – 130
energy cost – 0
power coefficient – 0.80
2 Hammer bash #2
cast time – 1/2s
range – 130
energy cost – 0
power coefficient – 0.9
3 Hammer AoE bash
cast time – 3/4s
area – 180
energy cost – 0
power coefficient – 1.4
Deals AoE damage. Blast finisher.

3. Coalescence of Ruin
energy cost increased to 10

4.
-reduced duration to 4 seconds and cooldown to 8 seconds. Energy cost is still 10.

5. Drop the Hammer
cast time reduced to 1/2 second, but hammer has an additional 1s delay before it hits. Knockdown duration reduced to 1 second. Cooldown reduced to 10s
(flip-over / chain) Phase Smash
-available after casting Drop the Hammer until the hammer hit occurs (so it’s available for 1 second after the cast time of Drop the Hammer). Will cancel Drop the Hammer when used. Same as normal Phase Smash, but doesn’t teleport you back to the casting location after hit. Will fail on terrain that can’t be teleported to.
energy – 5

Traits (Retribution)

Retaliatory Evasion (rename this trait as appropriate)
Gain retaliation after you dodge (2s). Hammer #2 (3rd attack in the sequence) gives self retaliation (1s).

Dwarven Battle Training
Hammer Bolt has a 33% chance to inflict weakness on hit (1s). When you apply weakness to a foe, you also apply Chill (3s) interna cd 10s.

Staff
Staff has been modified to add healing / support at mid range and increase crowd control in melee range. Staff melee auto-attack damage increased a bit due to reduction in damage from staff #2.

1. (sequence)
1
increased damage coefficient to 0.75
2
unchanged
3
increased damage coefficient to 1.2
no longer drops healing orbs. Instead, it applies weakness on each hit (2s).

2. Boomerang
Throw your staff in a line, damaging foes and healing allies on the way out and as it returns to you (also heals the player when it returns).
channeled
cast time – 1.5s
range – 600
energy cost – 2
damage coefficient – 0.6
healing – 150 (0.05)
Pierces
*energy cost was added here to replace the existing energy cost on Staff #2. I am still debating whether or not the second auto-attack should have energy cost or not.

3.
cd reduced to 10s

4.
cd reduced to 12s
cast time reduced to 3/4 s

5.
cd reduced to 15s

Traits (Salvation)

Tranquil Benediction
Staff#2 (Boomerang) creates healing orbs at the first ally it hits (will drop at the player if no ally is hit).
orbs created – 3
healing per orb – 250 (0.2)

Barrier Wave (replaces Invoking Harmony)
Staff #4 (Renewing Wave) now also knocks back and blinds foes.
Radius – 240
Knockback – 300
Blind (5s)

Mace
Ranged condition damage has been added to mace for the second auto-attack.

1.
unchanged

2. Meteor
Fling a ball of molten mist energy from your mace toward your foe. Explodes when it hits a foe or reaches maximum range, damaging and inflicting burning (1 stack, 2s).
Cast time – 1/2s
Range – 900
energy cost – 0
radius – 180
damage – 184 (0.5)
Does not pierce

3.
range increased to 600

Traits (Corruption)

Searing Crater (replaces Frigid Precision)
Mace #2 (Meteor) causes a Searing Crater where it explodes. Internal cd = 3s
combo field – fire
radius – 300
burning – 1 stack, 4s
pulses – 4
duration – 3s
damage – 92 (0.25)

Venom Enhancement – moved to Master tier, swapped with Spontaneous Destruction
internal cd reduced to 10s

Axe (off-hand)

4.
cd reduced to 10s

5.
cd reduced to 12s

Shield (off-hand)

4.
cd reduced to 12s

5.
cd reduced to 20s

I would not give up weapon swap for this. Even if weapon swap stayed I probably wouldn’t want the changes you are suggesting for hammer specifically.

I love the idea, really. New talents focusing on weapons buff. Add mace or sword ranged options or hammer close option to compensate their weakness.
But their is a big problem. If you delete the weapon swap you will nerf a lot some builds.
1) the actual power build, if you cant swap to staff, you loose a nice block+blind, a nice cc+evade, and nice heal+dispel….
2) with a support staff build, you will loose the sword block and shield block support!
3 the worst is for the condi build, if you run mace/shield you loose a potential nive defensive switch with staff or sword axe. A big nerf. Dont forget that usually condi plays with malyx, a legend with no evade, dodge, immune. So your proposition could be great if you add some defensive tool to mace and malyx (block, evade, like sword 3, or shiro evade)

epouvante.7392:

I love the idea, really. New talents focusing on weapons buff. Add mace or sword ranged options or hammer close option to compensate their weakness.
But their is a big problem. If you delete the weapon swap you will nerf a lot some builds.
1) the actual power build, if you cant swap to staff, you loose a nice block+blind, a nice cc+evade, and nice heal+dispel….
2) with a support staff build, you will loose the sword block and shield block support!
3 the worst is for the condi build, if you run mace/shield you loose a potential nive defensive switch with staff or sword axe. A big nerf. Dont forget that usually condi plays with malyx, a legend with no evade, dodge, immune. So your proposition could be great if you add some defensive tool to mace and malyx (block, evade, like sword 3, or shiro evade)

Thanks for the feedback. You make a good point. I can see, for example, that Mace + Axe with Mallyx would leave zero defensive utilities. Regarding the other examples, it sounds like you are saying that what we would give up (e.g. in the power build, a cc+evade, heal+dispel, and block+blind) would not be worth what we would gain (a ranged attack + chill on sword #2, and shorter cooldowns on shield or sword off-hand).

So my question is, can we reduce the cooldowns, or otherwise buff weapon skills, to make up for that loss? For example, can we reduce the cooldown on sword #4 to 8 seconds? Is that OP or not good enough? Can we reduce the cooldown on shield #4 to 10 seconds and/or add condition removal to shield #5? I certainly think that each legend should have a stun break, and that would help but it is outside of the scope of this proposal.

These are just some examples. I will plan out some revisions to the weapon skills proposal but I would be happy to hear suggestions from others as well.

Justine.6351:

I would not give up weapon swap for this. Even if weapon swap stayed I probably wouldn’t want the changes you are suggesting for hammer specifically.

Thank you for your reply as well. If you don’t mind, would you be able to elaborate on why you prefer weapon swap to a two auto-attack method? For example, are the redesigned skills not versatile enough to replace two weapons? Are the new skills too weak to make up for losing weapon swap? Or if you’re happy with the current system and don’t see a need to change it, of course that is fair too.

fluidmonolith.3584:

epouvante.7392:

I love the idea, really. New talents focusing on weapons buff. Add mace or sword ranged options or hammer close option to compensate their weakness.
But their is a big problem. If you delete the weapon swap you will nerf a lot some builds.
1) the actual power build, if you cant swap to staff, you loose a nice block+blind, a nice cc+evade, and nice heal+dispel….
2) with a support staff build, you will loose the sword block and shield block support!
3 the worst is for the condi build, if you run mace/shield you loose a potential nive defensive switch with staff or sword axe. A big nerf. Dont forget that usually condi plays with malyx, a legend with no evade, dodge, immune. So your proposition could be great if you add some defensive tool to mace and malyx (block, evade, like sword 3, or shiro evade)

Thanks for the feedback. You make a good point. I can see, for example, that Mace + Axe with Mallyx would leave zero defensive utilities. Regarding the other examples, it sounds like you are saying that what we would give up (e.g. in the power build, a cc+evade, heal+dispel, and block+blind) would not be worth what we would gain (a ranged attack + chill on sword #2, and shorter cooldowns on shield or sword off-hand).

So my question is, can we reduce the cooldowns, or otherwise buff weapon skills, to make up for that loss? For example, can we reduce the cooldown on sword #4 to 8 seconds? Is that OP or not good enough? Can we reduce the cooldown on shield #4 to 10 seconds and/or add condition removal to shield #5? I certainly think that each legend should have a stun break, and that would help but it is outside of the scope of this proposal.

These are just some examples. I will plan out some revisions to the weapon skills proposal but I would be happy to hear suggestions from others as well.

Justine.6351:

I would not give up weapon swap for this. Even if weapon swap stayed I probably wouldn’t want the changes you are suggesting for hammer specifically.

Thank you for your reply as well. If you don’t mind, would you be able to elaborate on why you prefer weapon swap to a two auto-attack method? For example, are the redesigned skills not versatile enough to replace two weapons? Are the new skills too weak to make up for losing weapon swap? Or if you’re happy with the current system and don’t see a need to change it, of course that is fair too.

Its not just utility in various sepperated skills, its also about having options available off cd. If you remove weapon swap and add 2 aa, you have a whole 3 skills to play with on the weapon bar. That’s horrible for pvp settings and any body with a brain.

I have to be agree with justine.6351 but the proposal ideas here are really nice. The proposed weapon related talent are also nice.
It’s good to spezialise more weapons but we will loose in versatility without weapon swap even with adding defensive tool in sets.
Another example, if we add a defensive tool to mace, and we run a condi mace shield, we have a nice condi/defensive set the problem is if we need more defensive tools or cc or whatever on cds we cant switch to staff, we just have to wait cds

epouvante.7392:

I have to be agree with justine.6351 but the proposal ideas here are really nice. The proposed weapon related talent are also nice.
It’s good to spezialise more weapons but we will loose in versatility without weapon swap even with adding defensive tool in sets.
Another example, if we add a defensive tool to mace, and we run a condi mace shield, we have a nice condi/defensive set the problem is if we need more defensive tools or cc or whatever on cds we cant switch to staff, we just have to wait cds

Fair enough. But I don’t think the problem is impossible or even improbable to solve, atleast conceptually. It sounds like you are saying in your example that we can currently couple mace/shield with staff so that we can have a lot of defenses. In the absence of weapon swap, it just means that staff or X/shield alone has to have comparable defensive capability to what X/shield + staff currently have together.

I can think of a couple of ways we can do this, though each one has some concerns.

One example we have now is I can rune sword/sword and staff, and block with sword #4, weapon swap, and then block with staff #3. This can be repeated every 12 seconds, so I can get two 2sec blocks every 12 seconds.

To perform similarly without weapon swap, I would need to reduce the cooldown of staff #3 or sword #4 to 6 seconds (so I could use either one twice in 12 seconds). On the down-side, I can’t use it twice in a row; but on the up-side I don’t need to lose access to sword #3 for 10 seconds every time I swap weapons just to block. But anyways, at face value a 2 second block on a 6 second cd seems really OP, even though we have the same result numerically with X/sword + staff combo. What do you think?

We can go even further and reduce the skill cooldowns drastically or even eliminate them (probably at a result of an increased energy cost). This would minimize or eliminate the concern you mentioned in example for the mace/shield build that needs a defense or cc when something is on cooldown. For example, what if staff #3 had no cooldown or maybe a 2-4 second cooldown but cost 20 or 30 energy? This eliminates the need to weapon swap when stuff is on cooldown, because cooldowns are very short or non-existant. It also shifts Revenant’s focus from managing cooldowns to managing energy but allows you to really mess yourself up if you burn all of your energy unwisely. This would also be a drastic play style change and it would really raise the skill floor.

Even with all of these changes, we can’t necessarily replicate mace/shield + staff in a single weapon set (nor should we, in my opinion). Reducing cooldowns on mace/shield might be able to give comparable defenses, but it won’t give the cc of staff #5 to the mace/shield set. It does, however, solve other problems, like being unable to do damage for 10 seconds when swapping to staff from mace/X in a condition damage build.

Anyways, thank you for your input Justine, Epouvante. I will take these points into consideration and see if I can make some meaningful revisions, but please let me know if you have any specific suggestions.

Fluidmonolith, i have though about a thing. The weapon swap also create a certain unstability in our gameplay, that’s can be a surprising thing for ennemies.

With your proposed things and the proposed cd decrease we can imagine that for each weapon all skill #3 change for each legend, like thief with x/x.
So we could improve the synergie between weapon and legend.
Example: sword #3 with shiro = unchanged
Sword #3 with malyx = teleportation to ennemy and inflict weakness, cripple and blind for example
Etc etc