Guild Wars 2

ZombiiDuud.1428:

Yeah for real, why do we lose our weapons swap and over half of our legends when we go underwater? I’ve not checked on Kalla but, I would have put money on being able to use Kalla underwater. :-/

It’s kind of the other way around.

Revenant was originally designed like engineer to only equip a single weapon. That persists in their only having a single underwater weapon (spear) which can be used both at range or melee.

During the beta they decided to let them equip two weapons and swap on cooldown, like other professions. Because of problems revenants faced in PvP when they were wielding a melee weapon against a ranged attacker. But ANet didn’t add a whole extra underwater weapon for revs.

Vennyhedgie.5369:

Imagine a new player starting with rev. If I was starting the game and suddenly I couldn’t fight underwater I’d be extremely confused.

I don’t have to imagine. I made a new one a little while back. It was even worse than you imagine.

Only two legends work underwater. You don’t start with either of them. Nor can you pick a new one until about level 11 and you can hit underwater content before that.

You also don’t regenerate energy underwater unless you have one of those legends equipped. So you can only use so many weapon attacks (except the freebies) before you run out.

I bug reported that so I hope they’ve fixed it. But seeing that problem more than a year after HoT’s release was really alarming.

Kodiak.3281:

Every class in the game dreads getting pets or pet like mechanics because even if they don’t actually attack they can still be CC’d and cleaved down.

No they don’t. Have you played a minion necro recently? Or a ranger? Or a mesmer?

I know there are weaknesses with each of their pets but there are also considerable strengths.

I solo’ed a level 40 something champion with my necro who was seven levels under it, with a blue weapon 6 levels old and even worse armor. Easily. Not skilfully. Easily. Just spam 2 and 3 on staff and re-summon minions.

Kodiak.3281:

The second biggest issue is they have cast times, energy costs and cool downs. Revenant was designed to not have that many cast times and cool downs due to energy cost. If they wanna mix things up and have cast times and cool downs the energy costs need to come way down to compensate.

I agree with that being a problem but don’t agree that “mixing it up” is an option.

People play the profs they play for a reason. Mechanics is one of them.

lmaogg.7325:

This. Pretty much sums it up. When is the last time you actually see rangers run spirits. Even if you do happen to see 1 they are seriously minorities.

I use them only for long encounters which don’t move. Their 20 second cooldown makes them too annoying to use for anything else.

Though personally I love both their function and appearance.

Dinsy.2491:

I think the best approach would be a combination of the two. A set of core skills tied to invocation that can slot into any legend. Fill the weak spots with a stun break/condi clear or something of that sort. But like I said I wouldn’t hold your breath.

IMO there’s sufficient variety among the existing legends. The problem is legend swapping cooldown.

Give us a single energy pool – which doesn’t change on legend swap – and let us legend swap at will (i.e. without a cooldown). That would let us play the legend we actually want to use and switch to a second with stun breaks, cleanses etc. as needed.

Dinsy.2491:

They’ve not even finished underwater Rev yet.

At this point I think they have. It’s been two years and not only has their been no change but they delivered another “elite” spec which doesn’t work underwater.

Meanwhile other professions again get an elite spec which does.

ardal.5403:

Is it seriously that bad?

It depends on what you want out of them.

For my tastes the base profession – not the disappointing “elite” specs – is the best in the game. Because it’s less cooldown driven rotation garbage. And except for maybe one insane piece of single-player pve content, revenants are perfectly functional.

I think they’re also presently decent in PvP. Though flavour of the month changes with every patch so that’s never a constant.

Judging by forum comments they’re unpopular in raids. But raids are a problem for multiple classes. Not every ranger wants to play a healer but their elite spec (druid) was designed as THE healing profession for spike damage. Not every mesmer wants to be a tank and alacrity bot, but that’s what raids demand from them.

And of course we’re functional in underwater combat but have no choice of legends there. Still.

Law.1704:

If you look at all the class forums besides engi right now since their op you will notice people only whining and crying.

For the OP, one thing you’ll be able to see clearly from the forums is that there’s much less activity in the revenant ones. Even now. Because it’s not a popular prof.

Most of GW2’s existing players like their cooldown driven stuff and revenant’s energy is just an annoyance on top of that. People who don’t like that style of combat might have loved revenant, except it still has a lot of cooldowns. Not only on weapons but also utilities and especially in the “elite” specs.

Professor Sprout.1560:

Kidel, it’s the weekend right now. One can hardly expect divine intervention over a weekend.

It hasn’t been the weekend for the past two years.

During that time there has been near universal agreement that revs need more options underwater. Other professions have choices. We don’t. And several of our legends really should be able to work underwater. Herald has no ground-targetted abilities. It should just work as is underwater. Ventari could work either by making the tablet follow us or have it travel back and forth between us and a targetted mob instead of being ground targetted.

Yet they delivered another revenant “elite” spec which doesn’t work underwater. Take a look at other profession’s elites.

This is really disappointing not just personally because I loved the idea of revenant and still like some of the base legends. But this is ArenaNet’s baby. An original and unique profession. Neglecting it just makes no sense.

Vennyhedgie.5369:

Not exactly a renegade specific suggestion but alacrity should increase the recharge rate of profession mechanics such as initiative and energy. It’s just counter productive.

I agree and have made this point myself. It’s a huge balance issue.

Thieves and Revenants with fewer and shorter cooldowns don’t benefit as much from alacrity. So they either end up underpowered in group content or overpowered one-on-one.

Vennyhedgie.5369:

Also, the cast times on the summons need to be shorter, I often find myself interrupting a summon by trying to use another because I use it mid cast

Or lose the cooldowns entirely. Revenant is supposed to give us the freedom to decide how to spend our energy. Not have us repeating a specific rotation dictated by cooldowns.

I almost posted a suggestion for a summoner legend at one point – though a Norn one using their spirits. Three utilities – one tank, one dps, one cc – all costing energy to maintain. No cooldowns (unless you let them die). The elite would have cost more to maintain but summon a pack of wolves. An F skill to heal and another to dismiss all summons (as well as being able to dismiss individually by using the individual ability again).

Prior to this weekend what annoyed me most was that the renegade utilities all had cooldowns, except the elite. That’s not what this profession is supposed to be.

And of course, it’s yet another legend which can’t be used underwater. Meanwhile other profession’s elite specs again can be.

After getting my hands on it I’m even more disappointed.

Ok, Breakrazor, Razorclaw, Soulcleaver are for groups. Fine. Though they don’t seem to apply their buffs to either Darkrazor or Icerazor, unlike necromancers and their minions with vampiric presence.

Darkrazor. That’s a lot of disrupt so useful for champion breakbars. Possibly useful in PvE to drop into the middle of a bunch of mobs to start fights if you’re playing at range? Though you’ve only got so much energy and most of the time I’m guessing we’d be better off just unloading damage with that instead.

Icerazor’s damage is very underwhelming. I suppose its main thing is cripple?

The bow’s abilities all have shorter cooldowns and its damage output seemed far more impressive. I preferred bow + Malyx to mace + Malyx. But the renegade utilities completely failed to impress.

Summoning could have been really interesting too.

Animosity.5968:

idk if you can use glint with renegade (I don’t think)

Confirmed. You can only equip one elite specialization at a time.

If you’re not level 80 yet I don’t know why you’re worrying about gearing towards anything. You deconstruct or sell all your levelling gear along the way. And you end up learning all traits eventually.

And open world PvE isn’t terribly challenging. Not even for a revenant. You can equip substandard gear / sigils / runes etc. and get through.

If you’re playing Malyx for condi, equip condi stuff. Worry about optimising when you’re level 80.

Griffith.7238:

So unless Renegade has some good Swiftness options we are pretty much boned on the matter and will have to accept being turtles yes? Or is there something I am missing?

That thing you are missing.

It might be mounts.

Swiftness might still be useful in dungeons but out in the open world I reckon everyone’s going to be riding instead of running.

Set.7461:

You get on demand projectile block…

On demand?

It triggers off healing skills. Those have cooldowns.

This effect also has its own cooldown.

It’s hardly on demand.

It’s much simpler than that.

Once upon a time only power builds were seriously viable, because of the way conditions stacked (or rather didn’t). After many years they fixed that, but by then everyone was geared for power.

To encourage players to do the gear grind again for other builds (eg. condi), they make them OP.

Like other game developers they also cycle through all the professions hitting them with the nerf or buff stick to encourage players to do the gear grind for other armor classes / profs.

This is “balance”.

I may be the odd duck in this flock, but I like the look of scourge.

I typically play healers and necro didn’t have much in that department pre Scourge. AOE swiftness is one of the most useful buffs to help others and necro didn’t have that either. PoF gives necros healing and with mounts, swiftness is much less important.

So necro is back on the table. And both elite specs actually look like something I might use. I can’t say that for other profs. Took one for a spin in the free trial this weekend. They’re better than I thought.

I saw the traits in the wiki just now.

And so died the hope that shapeshifting might be one of the unrevealed ones.

That’s two for two in disappointing elite specs for ranger.

Conncept.7638:

did absolutely nothing.

I disagree. These changes almost make me dust off my ele and for the first time in years (other than the occasional request for the fiery sword in dungeons), put them on my skillbar. Seriously years.

Last time I used them was to show a friend new to the game how cool they looked. But we both quickly tired of them because of how tedious they were to use.

With them still having a 60s base cooldown and the trait only reducing it 20%, you can’t perma use any of them. You either have to alternate between 2 or back and forth between one and your regular weapon. That’s a huge shame.

A curse on whichever designer has a mad fetish for swapping. But a blessing on whoever was behind these changes. They’re a big step in the right direction.

Generally good stuff I think. Increasing the duration of Ventari fragments might make them useful.

And for my tastes it’s nice to see some procs on cooldowns being converted into constant effects. I had previously completely ignored those traits.

Vennyhedgie.5369:

Yes, Revenant is supposed to be about energy management, but some skills NEED a cooldown. It’s a thing called balance.

No, skills don’t inherently require cooldowns. As everyone is perfectly aware, many revenant skills don’t.

Possibly this one is so OP that it “needs” a cooldown, but it’s only OP because ANet made it so. They didn’t have to. But they did.

And I’m as uninterested in it as I was and still am in all of the Herald abilities with cooldowns. I know what I like and what I don’t. That’s not going to change.

hypehype.9047:

im not talking about pve were there are 100 people spamming 1 on a mob,

im talking about pvp 5v5. go apply 20 stacks in a pvp fight and come back and post here then you will understand what i am talking about

Like Venny, I don’t PvP.

I thought revenant might be a reason for me to try out WvW but competitive content would seem to require playing revenant in the mad legend swapping fashion to maximise energy regen and or cooldowns. Especially heralds and boon juggling. That’s the very opposite of my idea of fun, running completely contrary to the reason I play the prof, and I’m not going to do it.

Playing sub-optimally is fine in PvE where it’s mainly just me or in zergs where success is generally guaranteed. But I can’t knowingly be sub-optimal in social, competitive content or things like fractals or raids. That would be rude.

So I just pass on that content.

Justine.6351:

Warrior axe 3

Well there we go then. Not surprised I missed it. I barely pay any attention to that prof.

So that means other prof weapon abilities could get charges? Mmmm.

Kusumura.8642:

A witch of which ye shall abide the existence of!

I’m abiding. I’m abiding.

No, wait. I didn’t want to abide.

You’re controlling my mind. We’re all doomed!

FairyNuff.3452:

Looks cool & good

Its looks are what I like least about it.

They’re very Super Adventure Box. It’s nice to offer an alternative to all the steampunk but I reckon something Asura-like would have been more popular.

nosleepdemon.1368:

I feel like the OP would rather enjoy playing a Thief, also, I think they may have forgotten that there’s a “2” in the game’s name.

Caeledh.5437:

Thief is a single profession in one armour class with a specific theme. It’s not to everyone’s tastes, eg. mine.

hypehype.9047:

so you dont use glint’s Burst of Strength to apply 20 stacks of vulnerability before you cc burst the enemy down?

Nope.

hypehype.9047:

yeah, no wonder you can’t comprehend the usefulness of of Herald

Aw. I suppose you think that was a clever personal attack? Good for you!

I’m just not even remotely interested in the game playing me – which is what cooldowns reduce combat to.

InsaneQR.7412:

So we have seen that Weaponskills get ammunition mechanic.

I haven’t seen that.

I’ve seen some utility and F skills get charges. Haven’t seen that on any weapon skills yet.

EDIT : They’ve apparently shown a weapon ability with charges.

fluffdragon.1523:

So it has more stealth, but … to really synergize with the skills, we have to immobilize ourselves, thus crippling our potential and our mobility, on a class that already has way too few means to avoid harm via damage or conditions (or cleanse them) without moving.

Few other professions and mobs have the Deadeye’s range. You’ve got a good 300 yards extra on them.

Kneel in that zone.

We can tell when enemy snipers in the game have us targetted.

Why would Deadeye’s Mark be any different?

Personally I dislike most of the game’s light armour on any race except Asura.

Several outfits work particularly well. Scholar (which I hate on other races – with its weird sticking out at the front like I have a monumental kitten) and the Halloween one.

Love the waving tentacle backpiece for necro.

Khenzy.9348:

Caeledh.5437:

Khenzy.9348:

What happens if the pet is dead, can you still meld with it?

Necrobeast!

I’m… ok with that.

I was only joking, of course, but now I want it.

RabbitUp.8294:

There won’t be such a trait.

You realize all your skills are available to you when you go into beastmode, right? That means all utilities and weapon skills.

So, the spider you transform to would have to swing a greatsword and shoot a bow, and do the animations associated with our utility skills.

That’s painfully unimaginative.

Two obvious, simple and cheap solutions are immediately apparent.

Don’t allow (shapeshift) merging a melee weapon with a ranged pet, and vice versa.

Don’t use the weapon animations when in beastmode. Obviously! Use the pet’s ones. Modify slightly as necessary. Eg. for Rapid Fire or Poison Volley, replace arrows with the pet’s default ranged attack projectile.

I like what I’ve seen of Scourge so far. I wish Druid worked this way instead of having the celestial avatar. If I do buy PoF I might actually finish levelling one of my necros so I can use it.

Panda.1967:

From what I understand from the limited information we got on SoulBeast, it’s in no way comparable to Shroud. The lack of a duration is perfectly fine on it given that it’s simply transferring the power of your Pet to the ranger. They lose their pet while it’s active to gain a personal power boost that is supposed to be equivalent to the power their pet provides.

Yes. I’d say it’s more like Scourge than Shroud. Only difference is that beastmode has no energy mechanic and it can be turned on / off.

In addition to what you said, the ranger gets their pet’s abilities as F-skills. Like Scourge.

NotASmurf.1725:

If we’re going to Elona then Margrid would’ve made more sense.

Margrid is a ranger.

Revenants already have a nature themed legend in Ventari.

A second nature themed legend, after a whole season focused on Sylvari would have had made some people’s heads explode.

I’d have liked it though. But I also don’t mind Kalla (thematically).

Vennyhedgie.5369:

Have you seen the F3? That’s 10 hits, all cause burning to up to 3 targets.

Have you seen the CD?

I’m not interested.

This is the profession I bought the expansion for and hoped would allow me to enjoy GW2’s combat. Almost no cooldowns on utilities and the few that there are are fairly short.

Cooldown free F-skills which summon – that I’d have appreciated.

I only use Herald for swiftness, between fights. That’s its only value to me.

If I do buy PoF, mounts might mean I’d almost never use Herald again.

Warcry.1596:

Assuming each skill behaves like shroud skills, shroud 1 will also apply Dhuumfire.

Scourge not-shroud skill 1 is Manifest Sand Shade. Unlike shroud skill 1s, it doesn’t seem to be a cooldown-free basic attack which you can spam.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Manifest_Sand_Shade

Max count 3. Count recharge 15s.

Maybe Dhuumfire will apply when sand shades attack on casting another shade ability?

EdwinLi.1284:

Steampunk maybe for when Engineer get a Human race themed Elite Spec.

IMO the base profession is fairly steampunk. As is scrapper.

Holosmith’s departure from that offers at least a little bit of variety. Though I’m not a huge fan of its visuals either. I’d have preferred something more Asura like, rather than super adventure box.

Weylin.6478:

From the beginning I’ve always hoped that the Engineer would get a distinct role in providing weapons, vehicles, and manned turrets to their allies.

That could be an interesting support niche for engineers.

Kusumura.8642:

Running pistol/Shield as a Scrapper in Settler’s gear. Just to try and do something different and break away from the meta.

Break away from the meta?

Witch!

Mantras look interesting.

Tomes – no thanks. Long cooldowns and limited charges. Sounds a lot like elementalist conjured weapons, right? They’re one of the least used abilities in the game. For good reasons.

Gotta give them credit in the humour department though. A religiously themed profession with a trait called “Unrelenting Criticism”. Well done.

Zoe.4830:

Are Fire Wyverns any good?

Their special attack is one of the coolest looking abilities in the game but making good use of it is tricky.

It takes a long time (5 seconds) to complete. During that time your pet is in the air, and not tanking. So you need to be standing in the area of effect or the mob(s) will most likely move out of it to get to you.

phoenixwil.6071:

Poor energy management and forced to invoke legends which makes no sense; should stay in a legend because the situation calls for it, not because I need energy.

This is one of my pet peeves about the game in general. It promotes manically switching weapons / legends / attunements not because it makes any sense to, except to maximise efficiency according to that manic design.

It’s the game playing you, rather than you playing the game.

A revenant trait increasing energy regen and making your energy pool shared across legends would fix this and still allow the manic swappers to have their fun.

Khenzy.9348:

What happens if the pet is dead, can you still meld with it?

Necrobeast!

I’d definitely prefer to have shapeshifting but having just watched AuroraPeachy’s soulbeast footage, I have to admit that I love the soulbeast aura, the two new plant pets, and the abilities you get when you merge with those plant pets.

It looks like it might give me the option to play ranger as a nature-themed caster.

Wouldn’t say I’m excited by that yet but I’m possibly warming up to the soulbeast spec.

starlinvf.1358:

Ranger Longbow has a range of 1500…. the longest range on any other class before Deadeye was 1200.

Not true.

Engineer’s mortar kit also a 1500 range on all of its skills.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Elite_Mortar_Kit

I’ve just been watching soulbeast vids and I really love that aura.

I’m admittedly disappointed not to have shapeshifting but I would play soulbeast over base ranger just to have that aura.

It’s just a shame that I couldn’t use it druid’s staff.

Adenin.5973:

You could just make the “beastform” a single trait. If you don’t want that you can still have your green aura.

I’m crossing my fingers that there’s something like this. That this is the reason we haven’t seen all of the soulbeast traits yet.

A trait which lets us actually assume the form of our pet could be a great solution. Let players choose which way they want to go with this.

Personally it would be extremely appealing to me. The ability to run around the game as a spider, or fern hound or wyvern would be extremely value adding to the expansion.

In addition to the Sylvari racial skills, there are some you can buy as consumables from vendors.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mortar_Seed_Turret

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Healing_Seed_Pod

I’m a little intrigued.

Wasn’t impressed initially. But looking at the details in the wiki I’m at least curious about how photon forge will play.

Vagrant.7206:

Technically you can use it in PvE to get an ally up.

But it’s pretty rare that it will ever be particularly useful.

That ability to rez allies at range piqued my interest, since I typically play healers in other games.

But in actual play I almost never got to use it.

The game’s group content is still very melee-oriented so when one player dies the odds are that every other team member (including yourself) is standing right next to their corpse.

Kusumura.8642:

Yeah, but see. I usually play healer in most games. I love healing. I love doing it.

Same.

And medkit sounds good in theory but sadly doesn’t deliver. If it did, it would make the prof much more appealing to me.

Wishmaster.7693:

Uhhh no that’s the Thief.

Uhhh no that’s Thief plus Revenant.

Thief is a single profession in one armour class with a specific theme. It’s not to everyone’s tastes, eg. mine.

Revenant’s theme on the other hand, is more to my tastes. Though in other games I’m much more incline to play ranged casters so it’s better but not a perfect match.

Malthurius.6870:

I hate when people direct people away from a class because they dislike a way it’s being balanced…

Balance has absolutely to do with this. I don’t like any of GW2s profs enough to PvP so balance is the least of my worries.

The issue is core design.

Both of revenant’s elite specs fundamentally undermine one of the main reasons to play the prof.