Trident: the perfect Revenant Weapon mechanic?

So finally we can use trident with Revenant, and it's probably the best designed weapon for Revenant, ever!

Unlike all other weapons where one weapon pretty much fits one legend, the Trident changes it's effect with the legend (well changes the conditions and Combo field type).Is this how all Revenant weapons should work?[Edited:] A lot of people have misinterpreted my intention. This isn't really about if Trident is a good weapon or not, but if the mechanics they used for trident are the perfect fit to Revenant.

Good for Power, Hybrid or Condi builds...Maybe. Not good for support. Not good for healers or anything else. I havent played with it too much but so far, while its fun and nice that it changes aspects its still not a perfect weapon. This sort of mechanic wouldn't work for weapons like Staff which is meant to be a more support/heal kinda weapon. What conditions would it grant a weapon that doesnt suit having conditions? Cant say "oh this weapon is now perfvect - it procs conditions" because not all weapons should proc them.

Maybe they could give different weapons different mechanics. Like Mace and Axe - apply different conditions. Maybe Sword could grant different types of health leeching, like Shiro it would be based on number of Vul stacks on the enemy with Mal it would be based on the number of conditions you have on yourself. This sort of thing. now this would be cool. Hard to implement, hard to balance. Impossible to have due to it being Anet but somehting like that could work and would be fun. Maybe even taking AWAY the weapon swap would be a good idea and adding this sort of feature in, it would change how the weapons play based on the legend in use?

Another five skills spent without giving any sort of defense/sustain or mobility, now twenty in a row since the HoT release, with a weapon which also does less damage than the one which replaces (the spear). Is a spear with less burst, slower casting times and lower damage over time. Is the "perfect" weapon for the Renegade , to remain kings of the sub-par.

@"ArmageddonAsh.6430" said:Good for Power, Hybrid or Condi builds...Maybe. Not good for support. Not good for healers or anything else. I havent played with it too much but so far, while its fun and nice that it changes aspects its still not a perfect weapon. This sort of mechanic wouldn't work for weapons like Staff which is meant to be a more support/heal kinda weapon. What conditions would it grant a weapon that doesnt suit having conditions? Cant say "oh this weapon is now perfvect - it procs conditions" because not all weapons should proc them.

Maybe they could give different weapons different mechanics. Like Mace and Axe - apply different conditions. Maybe Sword could grant different types of health leeching, like Shiro it would be based on number of Vul stacks on the enemy with Mal it would be based on the number of conditions you have on yourself. This sort of thing. now this would be cool. Hard to implement, hard to balance. Impossible to have due to it being Anet but somehting like that could work and would be fun. Maybe even taking AWAY the weapon swap would be a good idea and adding this sort of feature in, it would change how the weapons play based on the legend in use?

It's not "good for healers" because ventari isn't one of the 3 possible underwater legends... On land you'd have one effect per legend.

@"Buran.3796" said:Another five skills spent without giving any sort of defense/sustain or mobility, now twenty in a row since the HoT release, with a weapon which also does less damage than the one which replaces (the spear). Is a spear with less burst, slower casting times and lower damage over time. Is the "perfect" weapon for the Renegade , to remain kings of the sub-par.

Ok, you're wrong... Trident 4 heals and knocksback, which is both defensive and supportive...Depending on your legend, the field from #3 can give you light steal, Apply vuln to targets, or cleanse conditions (using your auto).It's also 1200 range, unlike the spear... And what do you mean less burst? Have you seen #5 and #2?

Also you're completely missing the point!!! The numbers don't matter as much as how the weapon functions mechanically...If Sword worked like this, it could sacrifice some of the on-hit damage for bleeds, and be useful for Malix, or it could give boons, or heals.Staff could be better as a dps weapon if it would do condis, or apply vuln instead of healing...That's what's the matter here.

This is such a cool concept and feels like it should be like that for all their weapons (similar to how Ele). Only exceptions of course are the Elite Spec specific weapons.

the other weapons badly needs similar legend specific changes.

I like the effort, but it even finds a way to underperform spear as a condi weapon, and the power damage is just terrible (although I think trident 5 may be massively bugged since it does NOT do the type of damage that the scaling says it should.)

Also, I say effort, but I mean attention... Because it's a cool concept to incorporate the legends, but not a ton of deep thought really went into it--all of the skills functionally do the exact same thing in a different way, which is just boring. It's like, push a button, get your torment/weakness/vulnerability, do some damage, spend some energy, now it's up to you to figure out which (if any) of those buttons were actually worth the energy cost vs just aa'ing and spinning your new underwater hammers/impossible oddsifying stuff up/embracing all of that darkness since none of them really accomplished anything that your basic aa didn't already do. Well, OK, one of them has a knock back, but knocking an enemy AWAY from you is so counter productive to everything you try to accomplish as a revenant that it makes that ability uncastable in 99.9999% of situations that you find yourself in.

@"ReaverKane.7598" said:Also you're completely missing the point!!! The numbers don't matter as much as how the weapon functions mechanically...If Sword worked like this, it could sacrifice some of the on-hit damage for bleeds, and be useful for Malix, or it could give boons, or heals.Staff could be better as a dps weapon if it would do condis, or apply vuln instead of healing...That's what's the matter here.

No, the numbers are INCREDIBLY important. If I'm not doing enough damage or utility with a weapon, it's largely useless. Period. It can feel amazing, but if it hits like a wet noodle or is really hard to use (i.e. Shortbow) it doesn't matter.Let's take your example of sword and analyze:So it would reduce sword damage to make way for new condis based on legend, Mallyx would get bleed or something. Theoretically it would be the same damage overall just adjusted based on legend based on the condi. Sounds good in theory, but in actuality....what condi would you give Shiro? Jalis? according to Trident they get Vulnerability and Weakness. Neither of these condis add damage and so now you have a nerfed sword that no longer does good power damage!

You can say that you can just add the damage back in for Shiro (which could be relatively complicated and would likely end up as a net nerf i.e. Impossible Odds), but what if I want that damage in Glint? "Oh sorry, Glint is a defensive boon legend so we can't actually have it do damage, but here's some protection! Or maybe here have this burn even though burn is completely useless for that Marauder gear you have on!" So now you're stuck as a power rev doing full power damage ONLY in Shiro. That's ridiculous. Legends should be able to accommodate a variety of playstyles while still maintaining their theme. Changes like this could potentially make weapons and legends LESS flexible, not more. Generally speaking Legends are able to work in various builds and playstyles (except Ventari who only works well in a heal build). This is evidenced by the fact that Power Rev can be run with Shiro/Glint/Jalis and to some extent Mallyx and can even be run with Renegade as a traitline. Some of those variations are obviously superior to each other, but overall they're not completely limited to one thing. Likewise Condi Rev can be run with Mallyx/Shiro/Glint or Jalis. Kalla additionally works with both power or condi in PvE, but generally sucks in WvW/PvP so that's a whole other discussion.

I really like Trident from my very limited use of it so far, but I don't love that I feel like I have to be in Mallyx to do my max damage with it. It's an interesting concept, but flat damage increases just from being in a legend (i.e. camping trident in mallyx because it does more damage even with berserker gear) should be avoided so that we don't pigeonhole legends into being even more necessary than they already are for certain things.

i usually log on and do pvp dailys and play a little more pvp then i figure i will test it when i am done with that. but never get a chance cause i get pissed in pvp and up closing the game and playing for honor

@"ReaverKane.7598" said:

Ok, you're wrong... Trident 4 heals and knocksback, which is both defensive and supportive...Depending on your legend, the field from #3 can give you light steal, Apply vuln to targets, or cleanse conditions (using your auto).It's also 1200 range, unlike the spear... And what do you mean less burst? Have you seen #5 and #2?

Also you're completely missing the point!!! The numbers don't matter as much as how the weapon functions mechanically...If Sword worked like this, it could sacrifice some of the on-hit damage for bleeds, and be useful for Malix, or it could give boons, or heals.Staff could be better as a dps weapon if it would do condis, or apply vuln instead of healing...That's what's the matter here.

A knockback isn't a defensive/sustain/mobility tool, is an attack and therefore is entirely subject to an external factor (our chances to hit, the distance from the target, etc.).Can't be compared with truly defensive skills that through blocks, evasions, i-frames or displacement provide real sutain to us. Is also a very bad knockback because has a cast time of 1 second, so pretty much you couldn't use it to interrupt in reaction almost any attack but the most telegraphed ones in the game (which are mostly land attacks, by the way, so has no much use). I also didn't mention any about "supportive", and now I remember, they didn't limit themselves to not provide a single defensive toll is the last 20 skills created but also they chumped out the block from the offhand sword, lol.

The range is stealed from the spear; should have been 900 or less as the short bow and the damage is crap (specially in power stats) which are the ones which most of Revs will use in WvW (nigh the only place you'll see a player under the water). Is not like the trident is good, is that they made the spear so bad that the alternative almost seems decent.

If ANet does the same with the other weapons our viability as a fighters would be utterly garbage, with the same bland, wet towel performance the Renegade offers. MIND THIS: the only reason Revenants are currently admitted in PvP matches IS BEACUSE THE OTHERS PLAYERS CAN'T KICK YOU OUT FROM THE ROSTER as in PvE raids and fractals. Looking at how is the average life of LFG pug goers that "the numbers don't matter as much as how the weapon functions mechanically" sounds comically naive.

Can I used it outside water? No. Does it really matter? Does it at least out dps old spear? No. Why the fuck does it even exist?!

@otto.5684 said:Why the kitten does it even exist?!

As a long range condi option.

Voting 'no' because it's not on land. That's it.

@narcx.3570 said:I like the effort, but it even finds a way to underperform spear as a condi weapon, and the power damage is just terrible (although I think trident 5 may be massively bugged since it does NOT do the type of damage that the scaling says it should.)

Also, I say effort, but I mean attention... Because it's a cool concept to incorporate the legends, but not a ton of deep thought really went into it--all of the skills functionally do the exact same thing in a different way, which is just boring. It's like, push a button, get your torment/weakness/vulnerability, do some damage, spend some energy, now it's up to you to figure out which (if any) of those buttons were actually worth the energy cost vs just aa'ing and spinning your new underwater hammers/impossible oddsifying stuff up/embracing all of that darkness since none of them really accomplished anything that your basic aa didn't already do. Well, OK, one of them has a knock back, but knocking an enemy AWAY from you is so counter productive to everything you try to accomplish as a revenant that it makes that ability uncastable in 99.9999% of situations that you find yourself in.

I wish you would stop spreading this lie.

Tested on Vet Shark on Borderlands with 100% crit chance,t5 is doing ~16k damages2 is doing ~10k damage

t5 is listing for me at 5192 damage in tooltips2 is listing for me at 3224 damage in the tooltip

I love the Trident. The skills, the visuals, the mechanics. Everything.

@Justine.6351 said:

@"narcx.3570" said:I like the effort, but it even finds a way to underperform spear as a condi weapon,

and the power damage is just terrible (although I think trident 5 may be massively bugged since it does NOT do the type of damage that the scaling says it should.)

Also, I say effort, but I mean attention... Because it's a cool concept to incorporate the legends, but not a ton of deep thought really went into it--all of the skills functionally do the exact same thing in a different way, which is just boring. It's like, push a button, get your torment/weakness/vulnerability, do some damage, spend some energy, now it's up to you to figure out which (if any) of those buttons were actually worth the energy cost vs just aa'ing and spinning your new underwater hammers/impossible oddsifying stuff up/embracing all of that darkness since none of them really accomplished anything that your basic aa didn't already do. Well, OK, one of them has a knock back, but knocking an enemy AWAY from you is so counter productive to everything you try to accomplish as a revenant that it makes that ability uncastable in 99.9999% of situations that you find yourself in.

How is 16k good for an ability that costs 20 energy and has a 20 second cooldown when you're then stuck on Trident for 10 seconds and out of energy? Spear 2 does over twice as much damage (using your numbers) per energy/cooldown and leaves you with a stronger AA and more energy for upkeep skills... It would never be a dps increase to swap away from spear to incorporate trident 5, since in the 10 seconds you're now on trident for that 16k, you could have cast spear 2 twice.

Also, the ability claims to do: "Damage (22x): 1,782 (4.84)."

4.84 scaling should be freaking HUGE in full zerker. It does not feel huge and does not feel like it justifies the energy cost/loss of potential dps by swapping out of spear in actual practice?If it is working as intended, then it probably has some meteor-shower-like mechanic working where not all bolts can strike the same target or they start suffering from diminished returns or something...

@narcx.3570 said:

@Justine.6351 said:

@narcx.3570 said:I like the effort, but it even finds a way to underperform spear as a condi weapon,

and the power damage is just terrible (although I think trident 5 may be massively bugged since it does NOT do the type of damage that the scaling says it should.)

Also, I say effort, but I mean attention... Because it's a cool concept to incorporate the legends, but not a ton of deep thought really went into it--all of the skills functionally do the exact same thing in a different way, which is just boring. It's like, push a button, get your torment/weakness/vulnerability, do some damage, spend some energy, now it's up to you to figure out which (if any) of those buttons were actually worth the energy cost vs just aa'ing and spinning your new underwater hammers/impossible oddsifying stuff up/embracing all of that darkness since none of them really accomplished anything that your basic aa didn't already do. Well, OK, one of them has a knock back, but knocking an enemy AWAY from you is so counter productive to everything you try to accomplish as a revenant that it makes that ability uncastable in 99.9999% of situations that you find yourself in.

How is 20e "out of energy"?How are you "stuck" in trident for 10 seconds when spear doesn't have any defensive skills either? I think you are going to find many players camping trident rather than spear because range is defensive vs melee underwater. Riposting Shadows + Trident is going to be a thing and it will cause tears.

For real? 16k is just zerk with 4 stacks of might. No bloodlust, no power food, no 25 might, no +20% trait (full hp vet shark). If it's so bad then please just use double spear. And don't complain when you get oneshot by trident 5 in WvW. Yes it can happen....

You can complain about the 20e/ 20 sec recharge but a skill capable of one-shotting people kind of needs a price on it. On average trident energy cost and cool down falls in line with sets like s/s, staff and even spear.

@"ReaverKane.7598" said:It's not "good for healers" because ventari isn't one of the 3 possible underwater legends... On land you'd have one effect per legend.

Its not good for healers because condition application isn't what healers need. If maybe it was made to be a different effect per a legend. Something like:

Mal = ConditionsShiro = Life LeechVentari = HealingDwarf = ????Glint = Boon(s) ???

If it was something like this, then maybe. But having them ALL be conditions would be SO boring...

@ArmageddonAsh.6430 said:

@"ReaverKane.7598" said:It's not "good for healers" because ventari isn't one of the 3 possible underwater legends... On land you'd have one effect per legend.

That should be the idea...Don't forget that it doesn't mean it does the same effect on all weapons. So on more defensive weapons (like staff or shield) it would have defensive effects, on more agressive weapons, like sword main had and axe it would focus on more agressive and debilitating effects.

@ethanzephyr.7298 said:Voting 'no' because it's not on land. That's it.Then you should have voted yes, because that's the whole point of the thread. To have this kind of mechanic on all Renegade weapons.

Like I said before, they need to make all revenant weapons work like that.

If not all skills, at least have 1 skill per main hand weapon and 2h weapon that has a component that changes based on legend. Make it the revenant's "weapon mechanic" like how thieves have dual wield, guardians symbols, and mesmers illusions.

@ArmageddonAsh.6430 said:

@"ReaverKane.7598" said:It's not "good for healers" because ventari isn't one of the 3 possible underwater legends... On land you'd have one effect per legend.

(Missing the point and not realizing Firebrands would still be Light years ahead, making the whole argument moot)(Bonus irony: Even if Ventari could be used underwater, its self heal potential is low to begin with)

@starlinvf.1358 said:

@ArmageddonAsh.6430 said:

@"ReaverKane.7598" said:It's not "good for healers" because ventari isn't one of the 3 possible underwater legends... On land you'd have one effect per legend.

So your option is what? Because Firebrand is lightyears ahead, lets not move forward at all because we wouldn't catch up. That's a good philosophy for life, you'll be a winner.

@ReaverKane.7598 said:That should be the idea...Don't forget that it doesn't mean it does the same effect on all weapons. So on more defensive weapons (like staff or shield) it would have defensive effects, on more agressive weapons, like sword main had and axe it would focus on more agressive and debilitating effects.

Yeah that would be good BUT this is Anet, when ever do they take the hard, long route? They would just slap the same mechanic, same conditions on every weapon and say: Done. Something that could be done is remove ALL special effects, healing, boons, conditions from weapons and then make it that Legends define how the weapon plays. For example. You use Mace. If you run with Mal then it becomes a Condition weapon (like now) but run it with Shiro and it becomes a life stealing weapon and so on, the question would be about skill mechanics. Something like this would be cool, making it so that weapons changed based on the legend. Remove the weapon swap. Take it back towards more of the pre-release aspect.

@"starlinvf.1358" said:(Missing the point and not realizing Firebrands would still be Light years ahead, making the whole argument moot)(Bonus irony: Even if Ventari could be used underwater, its self heal potential is low to begin with)

we are talking about ALL weapons. That includes weapons on the land, the land where legends like Ventari CAN be used. Why would you assume this whole talk is only about under water combat? How exactly would improving Revenant have anything to do with another class? It doesnt matter how good or bad another class is when we are talking about Revenant. Just Revenant.

Again, talking about what could happen. If changes were made. That doesnt mean that changes to legends themselves wouldnt be made as well. The self healing of Ventari isnt bad at all. Could it be better? yes. Could they improve and redesign the rather annoying tablet mechanic? Yes. Rtaher than say "oh it will still be rubbish" isnt really helping anything. If it would be rubbish - explain why. Explain what YOU would change to improve things?

@ReaverKane.7598 said:

@starlinvf.1358 said:

@ArmageddonAsh.6430 said:

@ReaverKane.7598 said:It's not "good for healers" because ventari isn't one of the 3 possible underwater legends... On land you'd have one effect per legend.

Ad hominem much? If you really want me to tear into it, then lets. Its not secret to anyone that Rev has huge problems with how it tries to use its dynamics. The Trident exposes this problem well, and exemplifies an idea of designing the weapons to "Delivery mechanisms" that I've been pushing for since Revs dropped in the game.

But that alone isn't enough to Fix Rev. It just alleviates (but doesn't fix) the most prominent issues of weapon synergy for their builds. By design, Revs are much more dependent on their utilities....or should be. The utilities and traits needs to be addressed in a big way, so that what the weapons can do make more sense in combinations with the utilities, and thus giving Rev access to a compounding vector every other class makes ample use of. As is, most Revs only ever use 2 skills out of the 5 available to a Legend, and will have to swap legends just to they can get access to one skill there they need in a pinch (half the time its the heals). We have one weapon explicitly designed to do healing, and its not very good at it, as its expecting the Tablet mechanic to be there to play off of.

So in order Trident healing to work, it would either have to be just grossly powerful in raw healing (which doesn't make sense since that shouldn't come from the weapon alone), or it has to interact with related Legend's mechanics, to which the Tablet under water would be even more awkward then on land. Firebrand works, because the Tomes, awkward as they are, are coherent and cover everything it needs. Just tacking on healing to the Trident results in another staff situation, unless you just made the numbers insanely powerful to compensate for poor build synergy inherent to the class's current design. And thats not even taking into account the Dev's tendency to over tax the energy system for its own sake.

@Justine.6351 said:

@narcx.3570 said:

@Justine.6351 said:

@narcx.3570 said:I like the effort, but it even finds a way to underperform spear as a condi weapon,

and the power damage is just terrible (although I think trident 5 may be massively bugged since it does NOT do the type of damage that the scaling says it should.)

Also, I say effort, but I mean attention... Because it's a cool concept to incorporate the legends, but not a ton of deep thought really went into it--all of the skills functionally do the exact same thing in a different way, which is just boring. It's like, push a button, get your torment/weakness/vulnerability, do some damage, spend some energy, now it's up to you to figure out which (if any) of those buttons were actually worth the energy cost vs just aa'ing and spinning your new underwater hammers/impossible oddsifying stuff up/embracing all of that darkness since none of them really accomplished anything that your basic aa didn't already do. Well, OK, one of them has a knock back, but knocking an enemy AWAY from you is so counter productive to everything you try to accomplish as a revenant that it makes that ability uncastable in 99.9999% of situations that you find yourself in.

If you're talking WvW, trident 5 i even more useless... Who is going to sit there and eat 2 whole seconds of you immobility channeling a skill with that blatant of an animation when it's so easy to interrupt or just move out of it's tiny range? Not to mention the fact that 99% of people you encounter underwater just try to run away at first sight or range kite you anyways... The only people who are even going to try to fight you in melee range are other Revs and spellbreakers, and a breaker will get rock hard at the opportunity to full counter that channel and then destroy you with spear 5/2. Anyone who is getting "one shot" by Trident 5 is A) in a complete glass cannon build and B ) afk... Either that or they are SO BAD at the game that you'd have killed them no matter what you were doing.

You're right though, I'm sure people will be perfectly happy camping trident and poking people from 1200 all day long... Just like they do with their hammers from the safety of a zerg. But just because some people are content auto attacking from 1200, unable to use the rest of their skills, doesn't mean that the weapon is good or effective.