Biggest flaws in the Revenant profession, how you would fix them

In your opinion what do you think are the biggest flaws in the Revenant profession? And how would you fix those flaws or attempt to fix them at least?

For me the thing I immediately notice about the Revenant in comparison to the other professions is the lack of variation or customisation. You get pre-set utilities with no options to change these utilities for different circumstances. Now you could argue that the stances are the customisation but in my view its a poor excuse as Elementalists have no such limitations despite having multiple elements to cycle through and a wide choice in utilities.

I also think that the way Elite Specialisations work is a bit lacklustre in comparison to other professions. Elite specs are supposed to fundamentally change the way a profession works in exciting and creative ways, but the Revenant Elite Specs seem more tacked on to me and dont add that much additional variety. I mean look at the few utilities created for the Renegade, and the poorly thought out F skills, and compare that to the time and effort put into the Weaver and Soulbeast skills, it just seems like theres a lot less to the Revenant in my opinion.

I also think there are flaws with the energy system that need to be ironed out, I think having a single resource system which so many skills are dependent on is going to cause problems. Im not really concerned with numbers because Ive heard that Renegade is doing well number wise, but I think the energy system could be much smoother and less clunky,

Im not entirely sure how to fix those problems, but I think that each stance could do with an additional 2-3 utilities to provide more functionality, and perhaps a few generic Invocation utilities too. I also think that each spec could include more F skills too, skills that might add some more functionality to the playstyle of each Stance, I kind of get a bit jealous when I see things like the Druid, Reaper or Holosmith Elite specs which have such interesting skills and to me I feel like the Revenant could be a lot more like that too. And the lack of skills is only a part of the problem in my view, I think that the traits could be a lot more interesting and give players the power to change their playstyle a little more. With the energy problem, I feel that the solution might be with reducing or removing the energy costs of a few skills, or perhaps have stances start out with 100 energy to make stance swapping more effective.

I havent got a huge amount of experience with the other professions, but regardless of flaws in balancing and stuff it seems to me that at the very least all the other professions are far better designed than the revenant. I mean, when playing the Rev do you honestly feel that its a well designed profession with a lot of thought and creativity to it? To me it seems like a good idea that was rushed. Id just like to see a lot of improvements because I like the fantasy of the profession and I want to feel better when I choose my Revenant to play.

The biggest flaw is having energy cost and cooldowns on both Weapon skills and utilities, they need to remove the the cost on weapons or significantly lower the cost of the energy, the utilities need to have their Energy cost re-evaluated by effect most seem blatantly overcosted.

Bug fixes need to happen, too many bugs on Weapon skills that haven’t been addressed since BWE1

The SIngle Weapon concept only works if we have more weapon options to pick from and have access to all legend skills while in combat.

But Legends themselves still need some customization, or Traits themselves from the smaller traits to the major need to very impactful on our play style and less situational only type of thing, if thats our main method of customization. Revenant should have some non legend skills that can be swapped out. Or better yet, Legends have 2 additional skills to pick from to be slotted.

If we going to keep Energy and cooldowns, We need to start at 100% Energy, and Swap generates 30 Energy with a bonus +5 Energy regen for a few seconds after swap, stacking effect.

Centaur being so unique, need to further its uniqueness by not only improving the Centaur skills, but I say when Tablet is used, your Weapon Skills change effects to be support based and different from when that same weapon is used without tablet. So like Elementalist, when they swap attunement, the Weapon you using turns into its own set of support skills. This can be a trait as well for balance. this allow people that want to and are serious about playing Support, feel welcomed to the group like other established healers in the game, while keeping the gameplay balanced since nobody can argue that the Revenant healers can heal and still have full access to their damage skills. Its a fair trade off and gives us more support skills, for the team as well as self in SPvP and PvE.

As for Dwarf, Forced Engagement need to change to be more useful and better fitting for a tank role and not just break bar use. Inspiring Reinforcement, need a new effect. What if it actually summoned reinforcement Stone Dwarfs to aid you in battle like Thief's trap summons?

Demon Legend need all around redesign. I feel that with Short Bow baseline, along with another baseline ranged 1 hander and off hand, Demon can be more of our ranged condition spec, with some anti boon role as well. More like Spellbreaker, but more darker themed.

Shiro need to have a bit more offensive nature to it. Phase Traversal and Riposting Shadows can be merged to change effect based on distance from the target. both effects have an evasion. But Dodge back when used in close range to target. When far away from target teleport to them for a CC. Could also use the Ammo system here, to chain both skills in whatever order of that evasion. This free up a skill slot for something else that could be a bit more needed.

Add something to base Rev to make it more desirable. Herald doesn't feel like an elite spec (probably because I played it during the beta and when HoT released Rev felt unfinished without it) and more like you need to play it or Renegade (Renegade feels unique but needs a lot of bug fixes). Make Herald more unique (give it more unique boons or a unique buff). Base Rev is weak power wise, so ramp up some power there. Remove or lower energy on weapons. Fix stances to work underwater. Add more condition removal to non support Revs (condition heavy meta is killing us), and frankly, you can't have a condition meta and play a class that's weakness is condis. Add another trait line to the class to create more synergy.

Obviously having CDs and energy on everything is an issue. It works for some legends, but unnecessary hamper in others. It also push some skills into the never use category.

Adding f2-f4 skills was icing on the cake.

Ability to counter conditions is not good.

The class is too centered around herald.

Renegede as a whole.

@BlaqueFyre.5678 said:The biggest flaw is having energy cost and cooldowns on both Weapon skills and utilities, they need to remove the the cost on weapons or significantly lower the cost of the energy, the utilities need to have their Energy cost re-evaluated by effect most seem blatantly overcosted.

Bug fixes need to happen, too many bugs on Weapon skills that haven’t been addressed since BWE1

Before making this post Ive seen this complaint and the solutions Ive seen proposed are to reduce energy costs across the board, remove them on weapon skills or to have revenants start with 100 energy.

@Knighthonor.4061 said:The SIngle Weapon concept only works if we have more weapon options to pick from and have access to all legend skills while in combat.

But Legends themselves still need some customization, or Traits themselves from the smaller traits to the major need to very impactful on our play style and less situational only type of thing, if thats our main method of customization. Revenant should have some non legend skills that can be swapped out. Or better yet, Legends have 2 additional skills to pick from to be slotted.

If we going to keep Energy and cooldowns, We need to start at 100% Energy, and Swap generates 30 Energy with a bonus +5 Energy regen for a few seconds after swap, stacking effect.

Centaur being so unique, need to further its uniqueness by not only improving the Centaur skills, but I say when Tablet is used, your Weapon Skills change effects to be support based and different from when that same weapon is used without tablet. So like Elementalist, when they swap attunement, the Weapon you using turns into its own set of support skills. This can be a trait as well for balance. this allow people that want to and are serious about playing Support, feel welcomed to the group like other established healers in the game, while keeping the gameplay balanced since nobody can argue that the Revenant healers can heal and still have full access to their damage skills. Its a fair trade off and gives us more support skills, for the team as well as self in SPvP and PvE.

As for Dwarf, Forced Engagement need to change to be more useful and better fitting for a tank role and not just break bar use. Inspiring Reinforcement, need a new effect. What if it actually summoned reinforcement Stone Dwarfs to aid you in battle like Thief's trap summons?

Demon Legend need all around redesign. I feel that with Short Bow baseline, along with another baseline ranged 1 hander and off hand, Demon can be more of our ranged condition spec, with some anti boon role as well. More like Spellbreaker, but more darker themed.

Shiro need to have a bit more offensive nature to it. Phase Traversal and Riposting Shadows can be merged to change effect based on distance from the target. both effects have an evasion. But Dodge back when used in close range to target. When far away from target teleport to them for a CC. Could also use the Ammo system here, to chain both skills in whatever order of that evasion. This free up a skill slot for something else that could be a bit more needed.

I think we are pretty much in agreement then. I like your idea of Stance swapping generating energy, that could have some interesting synergy with some traits if designed well, and its nice to know where you stand with energy. And each stance could do with a lot of changes.

@Aninika.6819 said:Add something to base Rev to make it more desirable. Herald doesn't feel like an elite spec (probably because I played it during the beta and when HoT released Rev felt unfinished without it) and more like you need to play it or Renegade (Renegade feels unique but needs a lot of bug fixes). Make Herald more unique (give it more unique boons or a unique buff). Base Rev is weak power wise, so ramp up some power there. Remove or lower energy on weapons. Fix stances to work underwater. Add more condition removal to non support Revs (condition heavy meta is killing us), and frankly, you can't have a condition meta and play a class that's weakness is condis. Add another trait line to the class to create more synergy.

I think a lot of people share that feeling. Base rev is pretty bad and to me it seems like Anet were trying to paper over the cracks with the Herald elite spec. And I think this is the reason why more utilities for each stance and some general invocation utilities would be a really useful improvement for the revenant.

A lot of good suggestions here. Some I love, others I disagree with, but that's to be expected.

I think the number one flaw of the Revenant is that energy is tied to legend swapping.

Revenant seems meant to be able to swap roles to a greater or lesser degree by swapping legends. This design is interesting and makes for great gameplay. However, in the current iteration it is basically required to swap legends every ten seconds exactly to avoid losing out on a significant amount of power/healing/effectiveness. Even if I need the defensiveness of Jalis to get me through the current engagement, once that ten-second clock runs out, I need to swap away to get my energy back to do anything at all. This is clunky, causes predictability, and takes away a great deal of choice in the moment-to-moment gameplay.

My suggestion would be to remove the energy reset from legend swap and add some other functions (through traits) to return my energy. An example return mechanic might be "gain 5 energy each time strike a foe affected by Torment (icd 3 seconds)" or "Gain 2 energy per second while affected by Alacrity." After doing this, I would reduce the cooldown on legend swap to the 3-5 second range to allow me to react to the situation as I need to in the moment. This would allow much more interactive play and diverse builds.

The second greatest issue is the lack of variety in skills 5-10. It limits our ability to vary our rotations, so it makes us predictable.

My suggestion would be to add a number of basic skills that can be put on the bar regardless of the legends being channeled. An alternative method to this would be to make them glyphs so that the mechanics vary slightly from legend to legend. Another alternative would be to add 1-3 skills to each legend that can be swapped in, but it would be important to also have alternative healing skills.

Make those two (massive) changes, and this profession would be amazingly fun and unique without overdoing the power scale. My 2 cents, fwiw.

I think additional utilities for each legend AND some general Invocation utilities would be more than fair tbh.

Have Anet said anything about the state of Revenant? Are they happy with it?

@Mako.4137 said:

Have Anet said anything about the state of Revenant? Are they happy with it?

In some of the balance patches along the last few quarters ANet made some statements about how they felt about certain aspects of some classes or the goals they want to achieve with some of the changes (the already meme "purity of purpose" phrase coined with the Engie.) But in the last balance patch (August 8) the Revenant statement was very aseptic:

"RevenantInspiring Reinforcement felt lacking in its stability generation because you still had to wait for the skill to complete before gaining stability. We’ve changed it to immediately grant stability to the caster so you have the opportunity to prevent crowd control before it lands. The Retribution trait line’s identity was centered around Sustain and was somewhat lacking in synergy; a couple trait reworks here are intended to create some interplay with retaliation and stability. The Devastation line and the Legendary Assassin stance have been about Power damage and seizing initiative, and we’ve pushed a few modifications here to help Power builds and offer revenants more control on when their traits come into play.Weapon Skills:"

That has zero almost input about what they feel about the place the Rev currently has or the direction they want to move. But this lack of comunication isn't exclusive from the Rev: in PoF they pushed the "PvE meta" (for most of classes) towards the use of condition damage or hybrid builds without saying it. I think that is hard to predic where they are going with some classes because:

A ) They don't talk too much, the current teams are more cryptic than before.B ) They barely play some aspects of the game. There's some games in which the producers are very involved in the competitive scene of their own creations (like Harada, in Tekken) and there's others in which they don't even play games, at all. I don't remember any member from the ANet staff playing the Rev in PvP or WvW so maybe the only feedback they have from those modes are the post in this forum or reddit.

I admire your hopes guys. 2 years after the release of the class she still feel like a beta class and wasn't really reworked. I love the revenant theme and the energy mechanic from gw1 but, right now, i don't see the point to play revenant anymore. Every other class do things better and are more fleshed out than revenant.

Since 2 years guys are saying on the forum that they need to:-Remove the energy cost on weapons skills-Give base revenant more identity and utility (reworking and buffing legends and traits).For exemple Jailis, who is designed to be a tank isn't a tank at all and Brill (the support spec) just tank a lot better than this old dwarf.Malyx legend need to have an identity. Because of the fact that they guted the "condition eater" design at the end of HOT beta we still with utilities that are both designed for a condition eater and condition dealer.-Renegade feel clunky and his utilities are far behind the Herald spec (which will still the best of the elite specs if they don't do anything to polish the class and balance other legends/traits) because of the fact that spirits can be killed pretty fast and the fact that they are pretty energy expensive (moreover the utilities are not as versatile as Brill's facets which can support, protect you, inflict power dammage and condi dammage)

Thoses problems clearly come with the fact that revenant was designed toward Herald, and we clearly see it. Without herald, brill legend (who is kind of versatile for a support themed legend) and his easy energy management and utilies revenant has a bad time.

But Anet doesn't seem to give a shit about revenant class in a whole and let the class like she was during HOT release: clunky, unfinished and behind other classes. The overhaul theme was good and original but well, it's a pity that they don't want to finish the profession and let her sink.

Start at 100 energy.

Remove energy gain on legend swap.

Weapon auto attacks cause energy gain.

I also believe some cast times on certain Rev skills could get lowered, a lot of the time they feel extremely clunky, such as Frigid Blitz, I believe it could use a casttime of 1/4 sec so smooth it out, there are others as well that could use a look.

@gannondorf.7628 said:I admire your hopes guys. 2 years after the release of the class she still feel like a beta class and wasn't really reworked. I love the revenant theme and the energy mechanic from gw1 but, right now, i don't see the point to play revenant anymore. Every other class do things better and are more fleshed out than revenant.

Since 2 years guys are saying on the forum that they need to:-Remove the energy cost on weapons skills-Give base revenant more identity and utility (reworking and buffing legends and traits).For exemple Jailis, who is designed to be a tank isn't a tank at all and Brill (the support spec) just tank a lot better than this old dwarf.Malyx legend need to have an identity. Because of the fact that they guted the "condition eater" design at the end of HOT beta we still with utilities that are both designed for a condition eater and condition dealer.-Renegade feel clunky and his utilities are far behind the Herald spec (which will still the best of the elite specs if they don't do anything to polish the class and balance other legends/traits) because of the fact that spirits can be killed pretty fast and the fact that they are pretty energy expensive (moreover the utilities are not as versatile as Brill's facets which can support, protect you, inflict power dammage and condi dammage)

Thoses problems clearly come with the fact that revenant was designed toward Herald, and we clearly see it. Without herald, brill legend (who is kind of versatile for a support themed legend) and his easy energy management and utilies revenant has a bad time.

But Anet doesn't seem to give a kitten about revenant class in a whole and let the class like she was during HOT release: clunky, unfinished and behind other classes. The overhaul theme was good and original but well, it's a pity that they don't want to finish the profession and let her sink.

I agree. Its pretty sad seeing the state of revenant in comparison to the effort Anet have put into other professions and their elite specs.

Base energy @ 100% w/o Legend swap restorationAdd some means of energy regeneration (Auto attacks or special conditions like applying Vulnerability, Regen, ect on enemies/allies)If not add a method of regen, remove energy cost on weapon skillsSword 2 and 3 only target the enemy you focus on, and bounce randomly if no target is selectedStaff 4 clears 3 conditions (or the legend swap condi clear cleanses 2 instead of one)Rework Kalla entirely: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CnWurKBi3HUhxaq_q4_dSJGOSyzXMrAh8HmgF2THetA/edit?usp=sharing

Pvp wise, power revenant is in a pretty rough spot. Insane energy costs, no condi cleanse, no meaningful healing, and little cc. All this for what? You still do less damage than just going condi. The only way to make power rev work is to just sit back and hurl hammers, which is pretty lame when you're in a stance called "assassin stance".

Sword skills need some buffs. Energy cost removed on sword 4 second cast, speed of sword 3's initial jump/twirl increased, and sword 5 energy cost reduced from 15 to 10. Sword 5 is pretty funny, it costs 15 energy for a skill that requires you to be touching your opponent and hits once, and if they have stability or block it, you actually disengage yourself...

I agree that Sword needs buffs, but I don't really have a problem with the energy mechanic. What I do have a problem with is having half the number of skills that other classes have and no ability to customize my build whatsoever.

Revs need a number of new skills so you can customize your build to some extent and create better gameplay fluidity inside the legend swapping mechanic instead of being hogtied to so many rails - it doesn't matter if it's in the form of 4-6 legend agnostic invocation themed skills that can be slotted into the existing legends or if it's 1-2 new utility skills specific per legend. One of the two needs to happen, and should have happened two years ago.

Anet needs to devote more resources to this type of thing. Just like not getting land spears for PoF and only getting balance patches every few months. Like, wth?

I understand the reason new skills can't be added, but I don't see why the ones we do have trained have to be locked into sets like concrete. Perhaps, for example, using a dwarf utility skill while in dragon won't be as effective as when in dwarf stance, but at least we should have the option? I feel like I am a cookie cutter character, and that kinda sucks :(

Frankly I’m still upset Pain absorption is so fucking high in energy cost; id love to use it, but frankly I never have the energy to after like the first 10 secs of a fight. So either I can’t use it, or I sit on my energy pretty much auto attacking so I CAN use the energy WHEN I possibly need resistance/stunbreak.

......and it doesn’t even clear conditions, it takes them from allies and gives resistance....which then typically is boon ripped and so then I just have a ton more condis.....

Just my 2 cents.

I'm not against weapons costing energy or the energy mechanic, not really, but compare sword skill costs to mace/axe/hammer.

Mace/axe 1-5 skills costs: 0 / 5 / 5 / 10 / 10Hammer 1-5 skill costs: 0 / 5 / 5 / 10 / 15Sword/Sword 1-5 skill costs: 0 / 5 / 15 / 20 / 15

Someone on > @Einlanzer.1627 said:

I agree that Sword needs buffs, but I don't really have a problem with the energy mechanic. What I do have a problem with is having half the number of skills that other classes have and no ability to customize my build whatsoever.

Revs need a number of new skills so you can customize your build to some extent and create better gameplay fluidity inside the legend swapping mechanic instead of being hogtied to so many rails - it doesn't matter if it's in the form of 4-6 legend agnostic invocation themed skills that can be slotted into the existing legends or if it's 1-2 new utility skills specific per legend. One of the two needs to happen, and should have happened two years ago.

Anet needs to devote more resources to this type of thing. Just like not getting land spears for PoF and only getting balance patches every few months. Like, wth?

Yeah, as I said I get really jealous and kinda resentful when I see how diverse some of the other professions can be.

Someone in some other thread compared the Revenant to a beta profession, and tbh I really feel like its kind of apt.

Herald legend still doesn't work underwater :expressionless: .

@Zionka.6897 said:I understand the reason new skills can't be added, but I don't see why the ones we do have trained have to be locked into sets like concrete. Perhaps, for example, using a dwarf utility skill while in dragon won't be as effective as when in dwarf stance, but at least we should have the option? I feel like I am a cookie cutter character, and that kinda sucks :(

I don't see why they can't add new skills. They made the poor decision to ship the class with half the number of skills other classes have when Revs are already railroaded by the legend mechanic. It's absurd and it needs to be addressed.

A big patch with major updates to the profession is possible. Whether Anet even care enough to do it is another. thing entirely.

By reworking the class, remove the bandaid fix called wep swap, ele and engi gets away without it, rev can too if a proper work will be put into him. starts by adding F2-5 keys for general utility such as stunbreak, condi clear etc to base rev. 2 extra utility skills per legend are needed as well. Main problem is energy system atm and the fact we have to swap instead of being able to actually adapt to a situation and stick to a legend which we need at x moment.

I'd drop the stupid utility swapping mechanic. In its place, legends will provide you with a set of 3 F# skills (F2-F4) that relate to the legend. Additionally, I'd drop the energy cost from weapon skills, not much point in them since unlike thiefs, revenants still have CDs.

The only glaring issue that cant be resolved is the lack of uniqueness to elite specs... unless the entire class is redesigned, this simply cant be resolved.