Guild Wars 2

ive played revenant for ever since HoT launch and i have always loved how revenant feels as a class , the elite spec if fun , the cc is good and overall the skills and weapons match up perfectly.
one of the suggestions i had for the next revenant elite spec is mist corruption , channeling the legends from the mists is one thing but corrupting it and turning it into something dark and evil sounds way more epic .
that’s about everything i have to say so pls tell me what u think about this idea etc .

Elite Spec Name: Soul Reaver
Weapon: Great Axe
New Skill Type: Olias legend, the hand of judgment

Mechanics:
F2: Soul Harvest – turn your weapon into an Soul Harvester, changing your weapon skills into a new set of skills while the skill is upkeep. Soul Harvest skills dont use Energy. Skill 5 can generate energy when used properly.
F3: Spirit Bound – commune with death summoning a chained spirit at targeted location. Spirit’s health and duration is based on your amount of energy at the casting of this effect. The Spirit’s effect and skills are determined based on what legend you are using when casted.
Legend Skills:
Olias-
Heal Skill- Soul Drain: channel the soul from the target, damaging them while healing you and nearby minions of yours. Traited can heal nearby allies for a percentage.
Utilities- Minions
Each Legend Utility summons forth a minion to fight alongside you. These function as chain skills that can be consumed. These cost upkeep.
Elite- Realm of Grenth- Channel a gate from the realm of Grenth, unleashing a horde of death to ravage your enemies.

My idea would be based on the hybrid class design – which I do think could be realized with minimal dev time needed by adding very strong modifiers to just being in a specific presence, so that a substantial amount of a Revenant’s power actually comes from the presence they currently have enabled.

Extending from that, we already have power damage (Shiro), condition damage (Mallyx), healing (Ventari), sustain/tanking (Jallis) and buffer (Glint). Now the next elite spec is mutually exclusive with Glint, this means we can do something which would clash if I could combine it with Glint, but needs to work as a hybrid setup together with the others.

The logical conclusion would be a debuffer. Other than Jallis, the other 3 presences are “output” rules, they want to produce the most of a given number, be it damage or healing. Having another non-output spec would work fine.

<insert_some_gw1_name_here> (doesn’t really matter, this is gameplay centric)

Passive bonuses:

• Non-damaging conditions last 75% longer if applied by you. This bonus does not stack with other sources of condition duration.
• Non-damaging conditions last 25% longer if applied by you.
• All your weapon abilities apply <insert_lore_fitting_debuff_name_here>, an effect which makes it very difficult for them to clear non-damaging conditions.
• Vulnerability applied by you can stack higher than the normal limit, your help can put an enemy to 30 stacks of vulnerability, but only you can apply the final 5 stacks or help keep them up.

<debuff_effect>
Whenever a condition removal effect would remove a non-damaging condition from you, it will instead remove this effect.
Duration: 2 seconds.
Cannot stack.
Reapplication resets duration instead of stacking.

Skills:

• Heal skill which consumes magic from the targeted enemy, healing for more for each boon or condition on them, then consumes all non-damaging conditions on them to again heal for more. This intentionally makes you rather frail in much of PvE, yes.
• An AE which applied 5 stacks of vulnerability but at a moderate~high energy cost (see the special stacking ability).
• A chain-sequence skill which is used like Mesmer Portal with the same range. Only in this case the “entrance” sucks in non-damaging conditions from allies while the exit applies them to enemies around it. It affects up to 5 allies and enemies each tick, but less if you place them very close together (down to 1).
• A skill which turns damaging conditions you applied into non-damaging ones.
• The elite is a very wide-area (I’d say 1000) radius upkeep aura which causes up to 10 enemies to not tick down their remaining duration on non-damaging conditions. Cost should probably be 3 or 4.

Hierophant

• Imperator Legend, based on Bonfaaz Burntfur, the charr leader who summoned the Searing, and is still respected by all charr legions.
• Flame Legion magic, focused on conditions, specifically burning and blind.
• The new mechanic is the relic, a pet-like object that enhances the active legend, providing new skills. Every legend has one.

Relic ideas:

• Shiro’s Blades (Assassin)
• Ventari’s Tablet (Centaur) (Redesigned from the original)
• Aprocrypha (Demon)
• Tome of Rubicon (Dwarf)
• Searing Cauldron (Imperator)

For more information, read this thread.

As for weapon I think what we need most is second ranged weapon – and unlike slow hard hitting hammer – it should be fast and incorporating some mobility (maybe in exchange of far rage for mid rage). Best scenario is combination of power/condi, which would be a synergy that mace so much lacks currently. Thus shortbow would be great… As for legend/elite spec theme – it should be something what fits overall profession feel, i guess “dark ranger”/“rift/mist hunter” theme would blend perfectly. I don’t really buy ideas for “pet” elite spec as revenant is in general dark warrior or mystic warrior archetype… It’s made around theme of otherwordly magics, creating rifts, shadow stepping and been a solider/heavy armor class at the same time. Basically want i want is Dragonhunter’s dark counterpart – with more mobility/evades in exchange of blocks, condi or combination of power/condi instead of DH’s power character… I want to feel like an dark prowler with my revenant…. ^^

Bart.5296:

As for weapon I think what we need most is second ranged weapon – and unlike slow hard hitting hammer – it should be fast and incorporating some mobility (maybe in exchange of far rage for mid rage). Best scenario is combination of power/condi, which would be a synergy that mace so much lacks currently. Thus shortbow would be great… As for legend/elite spec theme – it should be something what fits overall profession feel, i guess “dark ranger”/“rift/mist hunter” theme would blend perfectly. I don’t really buy ideas for “pet” elite spec as revenant is in general dark warrior or mystic warrior archetype… It’s made around theme of otherwordly magics, creating rifts, shadow stepping and been a solider/heavy armor class at the same time. Basically want i want is Dragonhunter’s dark counterpart – with more mobility/evades in exchange of blocks, condi or combination of power/condi instead of DH’s power character… I want to feel like an dark prowler with my revenant…. ^^

I agree that a ranged hybrid or condi weapon is most needed for Rev, and I like your shortbow suggestion. For a new elite, I think we need something that is different than Glint. Glint is a heavy team-support boon-spamming legend, so we could potentially use a more ‘selfish’ legend. I also really like mobility so your ‘dark prowler’ theme sounds interesting. I think it would need to be differentiated from Shiro though, which already provides lots of mobility and single-target dueling capacity. There’s a few areas I think ANet could go with this to provide Rev with a new playstyle:

-Offensive mid range – fast ranged attacks with defensive mobility (e.g. move away from target rather than towards target)
-Supportive role by controlling enemies, using CC, soft-CC conditions, or boon removal
-Offensive AoE long range -ranged area damage (e.g. staff ele), focusing on either conditions or hybrid damage
-Defensive melee-range (bunker / tank) role with high mobility. E.g. off-tank for gathering up smaller enemies. Could be paired with Jalis for extra defenses or Shiro for extra mobility, for example.

On a side note, if anyone has played Rift, my favorite class in any MMO by far was found in this game – the Rift Stalker, a defensive mobility-based tank with a lot of teleports and shields. This playstyle would be awesome and could fit the Revenant very well.

Medium :

This e-spec is slightly different than a traditional revenant due to the fact that you are forced into the new legend, which would be : Razah.

Razah skills work like glyphs and are just tainted by the power of the core legend. To “taint” these skills you have access to the different legend via F1, F2, F3 and F4 which share the same cool down.

This concept lead to an homogenous skillset with mechanisms that are less cluncky (goodbye ventari stone). Obviously, this skillset have the drawback to change the overall role of the legends and each skill will end up sharing the same cool down.

Heal : Consume soul : heal yourself for X. Add area of effect dependant of your legend. Shiro drain life from nearby foes, mallyx cripple and torment nearby foes, ventari heal nearby allies, Jalis apply protect or aegis to nearby allies.

Utilities :
Wielder zeal : act like a venom (thief utility), granting nearby allies 3 stacks of an effect related to the legend currently channeled. Shiro life steal, mallyx X stacks of torment, ventari heal on hit, Jalis condition cleanse on hit.

Clamor of soul : Break stun, dealing damage to nearby foe and generating an additionnal effect dependant of the legend currently channeled. Shiro grant you quickness and swiftness, jalis grant you protection, mallyx send 2 conditions on you to your foe, ventari cleanse up to 5 condition on you.

Spirit rift : ground targeted aoe with an effect that depend of the legend channeled and last 5 seconds (similar to a well on other professions). Shiro’s drain life (again ), Jalis’s reduce damage taken by allies by a certain amount, Mallys visciously corrupt boons and apply torment, Ventari obviously heal allies.

Elite : summon spirit : summon the spirit of the legend you currently channel. Upkeep skill. These are “passive” spirits that grant boons that depend of the legend channeled to nearby allies. Switching legend do not stop the skill but change the boon that is provided. Shiro give fury, Jalis give protection, ventari give regen and mallyx draw allies condition on you (1 every 3 seconds).
-> reclaim essence : Shatter your summoned spirit giving you an effect based on the legend you currently channel. Shiro grant you 2 seconds of blur, Jalis strike with ligthning foes around the spirit, ventari heal nearby allies and cure condition, Mallyx consume all conditions on you giving you might for each condition. (while the spirit do not have a cool down, there is a cool down on reclaim essence)

Pretty nice ideas so far. My suggestions for next revenant elite spec would be:

Kanaxai (Guild Wars Elite Mission “The Deep”). With this elite spec one would have access to dual axes (mainhand axe) and to versions of his skills. For those who didn´t play gw1 here is a short explantion:
-Demonic Agility (chance to double strike when attacking in melee).
-Nightmare Refuge (block and spells targeting rev have chance to fail. If Nightmare Refuge lasts its full duration, it heals for value(x))
-Natural Resistance (This skill halves the duration of conditions and hexes applied to the creature which uses it.)

Urgoz (Guild Wars Elite Mission “Urgoz’s Warren”). With this elite spec one would have access to long bow, which would fill the lack of range the rev has at the moment.
-Forest’s Binding (For x seconds, target foe and all nearby foes move x % slower and take damage each second while moving)
-Some kind of summoning minions which would explode at enemys position.

Duncan the Black who was a powerful ritualist in Guild Wars (elite dungeon, Slavers’ Exile). So with this spec the revenant would be more like a “real ritualist” we saw in Guild Wars Factions. Some new mechanics like binding rituals (Creating spirits which attacks deal damage.) and channeling magic (specific weapon spells, hexes, lightning damage spells)
-Elite spell could be a version of “Duncan’s Defense” (Whenever revenant takes damage, Duncan’s Defense deals x % of the damage back to the source.)

Some of the skills would be clearly to powerfull the way they worked in gw1 and need adjustments to fit for gw2. However i think the mechanics are pretty interesting for the revenant.

fluidmonolith.3584:

Bart.5296:

As for weapon I think what we need most is second ranged weapon – and unlike slow hard hitting hammer – it should be fast and incorporating some mobility (maybe in exchange of far rage for mid rage). Best scenario is combination of power/condi, which would be a synergy that mace so much lacks currently. Thus shortbow would be great… As for legend/elite spec theme – it should be something what fits overall profession feel, i guess “dark ranger”/“rift/mist hunter” theme would blend perfectly. I don’t really buy ideas for “pet” elite spec as revenant is in general dark warrior or mystic warrior archetype… It’s made around theme of otherwordly magics, creating rifts, shadow stepping and been a solider/heavy armor class at the same time. Basically want i want is Dragonhunter’s dark counterpart – with more mobility/evades in exchange of blocks, condi or combination of power/condi instead of DH’s power character… I want to feel like an dark prowler with my revenant…. ^^

I agree that a ranged hybrid or condi weapon is most needed for Rev, and I like your shortbow suggestion. For a new elite, I think we need something that is different than Glint. Glint is a heavy team-support boon-spamming legend, so we could potentially use a more ‘selfish’ legend. I also really like mobility so your ‘dark prowler’ theme sounds interesting. I think it would need to be differentiated from Shiro though, which already provides lots of mobility and single-target dueling capacity. There’s a few areas I think ANet could go with this to provide Rev with a new playstyle:

-Offensive mid range – fast ranged attacks with defensive mobility (e.g. move away from target rather than towards target)
-Supportive role by controlling enemies, using CC, soft-CC conditions, or boon removal
-Offensive AoE long range -ranged area damage (e.g. staff ele), focusing on either conditions or hybrid damage
-Defensive melee-range (bunker / tank) role with high mobility. E.g. off-tank for gathering up smaller enemies. Could be paired with Jalis for extra defenses or Shiro for extra mobility, for example.

On a side note, if anyone has played Rift, my favorite class in any MMO by far was found in this game – the Rift Stalker, a defensive mobility-based tank with a lot of teleports and shields. This playstyle would be awesome and could fit the Revenant very well.

I 100% agree with the statement that we need more ‘selfish’ legend. As for the part when you agreed that new legend should have good mobility while being different from the Shiro – i think it would make a good idea to create new legend/new weapon around design similar to old good medi guardian. What does it mean is that your skills provide a lot of mobility/survivability and burst/offensive ability at the same time. Example: Judge’s intervention – you can either save it as stun breaker or use it offensively to increase crit chance and close the gaps between enemy. If you decide to use it offensively at the same time you lost ability to use the same skill defensively. This way we could keep reasonable and healthy risk/reward ratio and make it different from shiro, which have primarily two roles; chase and avoid; and each of these aspacts is attached to each specific skill.

Skill example: dark bolt – you shot an arrow which tear the reality by creating a rift to the mists for a split second, damaging everything on it’s way. Having direction key (w,s,a,d) press on during casting makes you shadow step in that direction for a small distance.

Agreed so far. Was to post it myself – Reve is in dire need of hard hitting ranged dps weapon (since hammer dps isn’t high, and it’s generally a defense/control weapon).

Also condi play is in dire straights on reve, and unlike gurdian that’s not a matter of profession’s designed weakness, but poor execution of what should be a strong condi/boon strip gameplay.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Agreed so far. Was to post it myself – Reve is in dire need of hard hitting ranged dps weapon (since hammer dps isn’t high, and it’s generally a defense/control weapon).

Why would I use a melee weapon if I can hit hard from range? I know the historical answer of single-target-vs-multi-hit, but that no longer applies to most ranged attacks, they all multi-hit.

And GW2 lacks a proper balance to it’s underlying combat system, so there’s no inherent upside to being in melee range (compare early WoW: ranged had to stand still to DPS, melees could move out of AE effects but had to stack to the target and hence be in cleave range).

You’d use melee weapon because it allows you for better sustain (vengeful hammers hitting their mark), more hits/s and doesn’t get shafted by projectile blocks/reflects.
Warrior rifle is a good example of ranged weapon that’s meant for dps and doesn’t suck.

Also there are situations you just can’t get close an enemy, and it’s ranged dps or zilch. For revenant that’s lower on the dps spectrum then most, this would be an excellent choice to fill the gap. Rather then hard increases to his current dps, a weapon that lets him gain dps over others in the “cooldown” stages of the fight, where all have to pull away and rely on their condies or 2ndary weapon sets to do damage before next burn phase.

That being said no one says it has to hit harder then sword. There’s a lot of room between hammer and sword for a ranged dps weapon to find it’s sweet spot.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

You’d use melee weapon because it allows you for better sustain (vengeful hammers hitting their mark), more hits/s and doesn’t get shafted by projectile blocks/reflects.
Warrior rifle is a good example of ranged weapon that’s meant for dps and doesn’t suck.

Also there are situations you just can’t get close an enemy, and it’s ranged dps or zilch. For revenant that’s lower on the dps spectrum then most, this would be an excellent choice to fill the gap. Rather then hard increases to his current dps, a weapon that lets him gain dps over others in the “cooldown” stages of the fight, where all have to pull away and rely on their condies or 2ndary weapon sets to do damage before next burn phase.

That being said no one says it has to hit harder then sword. There’s a lot of room between hammer and sword for a ranged dps weapon to find it’s sweet spot.

Plus it allows you for a fluid gameplay, assuming there’s smart transition between rage and malee weapons skill set… and for ofc more adaptability, which this class suppose to be all about ! Would love to have this kind of gameplay, to constantly switch between creating gaps, harrasing opponent and then closing the distance to use malee… I think that’s exactly what our “heavy metal” flavored class needs

ANet doesn’t design specs based on ideas from the forums, albeit sometimes echoes some lacks largely demanded.

The next Rev specs will replace the Herald, which means losing the best traitline the class has and also losing permafury, permaswiftness, etc.

Since the staff is mandatory in every department of the game, that leaves very little room for variety.

My bet is that the spec will probably be a clustercrap, but will be masked under big numbers. Then, progressive nerfs will push the class again in the pit of mud which currently fills, exactly as happened before.

Buran.3796:

ANet doesn’t design specs based on ideas from the forums, albeit sometimes echoes some lacks largely demanded.

The next Rev specs will replace the Herald, which means losing the best traitline the class has and also losing permafury, permaswiftness, etc.

Since the staff is mandatory in every department of the game, that leaves very little room for variety.

My bet is that the spec will probably be a clustercrap, but will be masked under big numbers. Then, progressive nerfs will push the class again in the pit of mud which currently fills, exactly as happened before.

Well, you are losing best traitline but instead you gain another. I think you are making a wrong assumption here, that new trait line is going to be somehow equivalent power/utility wise to core lines, while it seems more likely that what anet is trying to do here is to make all elite lines faaaaar more poweful than the base ones. They probably expect that with time – and more elite specs been released – it’s going to help them balance all of them allowing to have more control over builds. And on paper it seems pretty convincing. The problem here is – anet have implemented this system while having just one elite spec per profession released and thus making a cardinal sin of limiting number of possible builds. The system seems ok i guess, but if you have 2 or more especs released already. Nonetheless if i’m correct, that will mean that we change one OP trait/legend line for another.

Yes, ofc they could screw our new elite spec, but i wouldn’t be so pessimistic. I think that majority of elite specs are good or at least ok, mechic/gameplay wise. They may be unbalanced – yes, and there is currently problem of lacking build diversity I already explained above, but the majority of them is pretty ok. I think they screwed up big time with Tempest here. This elite spec should be rebuild from the draft. But that’s another story.

Bart.5296:

fluidmonolith.3584:

Bart.5296:

As for weapon I think what we need most is second ranged weapon – and unlike slow hard hitting hammer – it should be fast and incorporating some mobility (maybe in exchange of far rage for mid rage). Best scenario is combination of power/condi, which would be a synergy that mace so much lacks currently. Thus shortbow would be great… As for legend/elite spec theme – it should be something what fits overall profession feel, i guess “dark ranger”/“rift/mist hunter” theme would blend perfectly. I don’t really buy ideas for “pet” elite spec as revenant is in general dark warrior or mystic warrior archetype… It’s made around theme of otherwordly magics, creating rifts, shadow stepping and been a solider/heavy armor class at the same time. Basically want i want is Dragonhunter’s dark counterpart – with more mobility/evades in exchange of blocks, condi or combination of power/condi instead of DH’s power character… I want to feel like an dark prowler with my revenant…. ^^

I agree that a ranged hybrid or condi weapon is most needed for Rev, and I like your shortbow suggestion. For a new elite, I think we need something that is different than Glint. Glint is a heavy team-support boon-spamming legend, so we could potentially use a more ‘selfish’ legend. I also really like mobility so your ‘dark prowler’ theme sounds interesting. I think it would need to be differentiated from Shiro though, which already provides lots of mobility and single-target dueling capacity. There’s a few areas I think ANet could go with this to provide Rev with a new playstyle:

-Offensive mid range – fast ranged attacks with defensive mobility (e.g. move away from target rather than towards target)
-Supportive role by controlling enemies, using CC, soft-CC conditions, or boon removal
-Offensive AoE long range -ranged area damage (e.g. staff ele), focusing on either conditions or hybrid damage
-Defensive melee-range (bunker / tank) role with high mobility. E.g. off-tank for gathering up smaller enemies. Could be paired with Jalis for extra defenses or Shiro for extra mobility, for example.

On a side note, if anyone has played Rift, my favorite class in any MMO by far was found in this game – the Rift Stalker, a defensive mobility-based tank with a lot of teleports and shields. This playstyle would be awesome and could fit the Revenant very well.

I 100% agree with the statement that we need more ‘selfish’ legend. As for the part when you agreed that new legend should have good mobility while being different from the Shiro – i think it would make a good idea to create new legend/new weapon around design similar to old good medi guardian. What does it mean is that your skills provide a lot of mobility/survivability and burst/offensive ability at the same time. Example: Judge’s intervention – you can either save it as stun breaker or use it offensively to increase crit chance and close the gaps between enemy. If you decide to use it offensively at the same time you lost ability to use the same skill defensively. This way we could keep reasonable and healthy risk/reward ratio and make it different from shiro, which have primarily two roles; chase and avoid; and each of these aspacts is attached to each specific skill.

Skill example: dark bolt – you shot an arrow which tear the reality by creating a rift to the mists for a split second, damaging everything on it’s way. Having direction key (w,s,a,d) press on during casting makes you shadow step in that direction for a small distance.

In general I was thinking about the idea of blinking/mist stepping in a direction you you are moving to… That would fit revenant so nice mechanicly and thematically. That could be new elite spec class mechanic aka F2 button. If you use it – for next 5 seconds instead of making a dodge you blink for a short distance in that direction.

Bart.5296:

Yes, ofc they could screw our new elite spec, but i wouldn’t be so pessimistic. I think that majority of elite specs are good or at least ok, mechic/gameplay wise.

Other classes find shelter in the fact that they already had viable builds before HoT, and some of them had even more than one build or role to fill.

Is not the case with the Revenant: condition builds are useless; you can’t use those to duel/pvp/roam because can’t pressure at range, neither can deal with condi spam itself. And power builds loses almost every matchup. If you discard Glint from the equation then you lose every matchup. The next spec can’t change that.

Mind you also that when HoT arrived they made tweaks in the gear, providing the new “4 stats” items with slighly better values to “force” people to farm the new and better gear, runes and sigils. They probably will try to do the same again, linking the proficiency of some of the new elites to the slow grind of convoluted content for newly tunned stats. Is not going to work (at least in my case; I already have 4 heavy ascended armor sets and have 0 interest into crafting any new gear).

I’m not pessimistic about the expansion, but entirely apathic; I just no longer care.

Cantor :

The cantor is an e-spec based on the vibe of mursaats, mostly a matter of duality and aura.

Special mechanism : F2 upkeep skill giving an aura that depend on the legend that you are not currently channeling (your secondary legend). Jalis as a legendary dwarf grant a frost aura, Mallyx as a legendary demon grant chaos aura, ventari as a legendary centaur grant light aura, shiro as a legendary assassin gain dark aura (new aura based on dark field that leech life when hit) and the legendary cantor gain a fire aura.

Legend with fire focused skills and torch maybe.