Legendary Renegade stance would need major reworks to be useful in sPvP

TL;DR version: Legendary Renegade stance is a poor, hogtied, raped and beaten mans scourge. The spirits effects are weaker than Shades. They can be killed unlike shades. They provide no benefit unless the player is inside them - again, unlike shades. They do less damage and less utility. They are significantly less dangerous and easier to outplay - even a bronze rated player can easily avoid dying to Kalla spirits. Until these issues are addressed, LRS will never be anywhere near viable.

So since Anet "buffed" Kalla by lowering the costs in PvP, I decided to give it another try. It was...uh...very bad. But I decided to play it enough to at least nail down the reasons they were bad so that some decent feedback that may actually be useful to both Anet and any player thinking of setting Kalla to one of their legends. The issues with LRS come down to three major problems.

1. Any semi competent player can easily outplay the spirits with any build. Meta builds, off meta builds, doesn't matter.

The counter strategies to a spirit are to simply walk away and then kill it - often along with the Rev. Just about every single build in the game can do this. And that's assuming the spirit summoned was either Ofela or Darkrazor as the other 3 are so weak they can be just flat out ignored. Considering the energy costs, this is a battle of attrition that the Revenant will always lose. Players are not Monsters. Players do not mob in one spot and stay there regardless of what is happening.

Ideas for fixing: Spirits should, similar to how scourge works, grant the Revenant some form of bonus regardless of where the Revenant is. The placement of the spirit should mainly matter for buffing allies and additional damage. For instance, Ofela should grant bloodthirst only to allies within her range, but the Revenant could have bloodthirst for as long as you maintain the upkeep. This would allow the Revenant to actually gain some utility that isn't automatically countered basic common sense.

2. Spirits die way too fast.

GW2 is not GW1. If the cleave and massive access to instant AoE damage that exists in GW2 was also in GW1 then the Ritualist would have never been viable back in the days of GW1 either. Spirits in GW2 will die almost automatically and often without any effort. The AoE spam in sPvP is so high that often players can just ignore spirits and assume they will die just by that natural flow of the game.

Ideas for fixing: Spirit health should be high enough that players have to actually focus to take them down. A vast improvement to both toughness and vitality should be enough.

3. The effects of spirits are pitiful and not worth the energy costs.

There is currently only one build that uses the Renegade spec which is considered anywhere close to playable. It does not use LRS, it uses Shiro/Jalis. Why is that? Well simple really, because LRS is by far the worst legend in almost every aspect. Worst Utility. Worst Mobility. Worst Damage. Compare Darkrazor to Jalis: AoE 1 second of stability vs AoE pulsing stability as long as it lasts? Guess which one is going to be more useful. At least with Jalis you can lay down your road and use it to secure a stomp. LRS has nothing that can do this. Oh, and the road can't be killed. Or compare Ofela to Jalis hammers: Ofela requires you and for most weapons your target to both be sitting inside Ofela. Jalis Hammers follow you around, do their own damage, and are instant cast. And the worst part about this is again- Jalis isn't even considered a viable meta build either...yet Kalla is worse than Jalis. That really shows how useless it is.

Ideas for fixing: look at other legends and see what they provide. Legends need a good mixture of utility/defense/offense or else they just can't be workable in sPvP. This is why Herald Power Shiro has been the dominant Revenant go-to build for viable ranked play for so long. Both dragon stance and shiro provide a great working kit that can both support allies and provide answers to almost any situation. LRS lacks. Consider combining Razorclaw and Icerazor into one spirit, then giving another spirit that provides a source of mobility. Buff Darkrazor to give stability throughout his existence. Ofela can probably be fixed just by not requiring the Revenant who casted her to stay inside her range.

The simple fact is Legendary Renegade Stance even with the recent energy cost buff in PvP isn't even trash tier. It's in a special tier of an absolute abyss of utter uselessness all on its own. If Anet wants to make this thing ever viable, a massive rework would be required otherwise it will never ever see the light of day in any AT team that wants to actually win.