Core Revenant Issues

Revised for brevity and incorporating feedback:

I think it's a fairly uncontroversial statement to suggest that the Revenant is an awesome concept marred by a shoddy execution. Relative to other professions, they are severely lacking in total skill count, customization, and gameplay fluidity, having too many things pre-determined by role choice. It's been in the game for far too long at this point to persist in the totally unpolished state it's been in since the HoT launch.

Here's my proposal for the right way forward for the Revenant, filling in missing aspects of the base class and getting elite specs out of the game of trying to band-aid it:

1.) Add a 5th core "legend" (Mist Channeling Stance), softly tied to the Invocation line. Mist Channeling stance would represent a generalized kit whose focus would be on synergy with the other core legends rather than having a specific role.

2.) Add a new core weapon (MH Axe.) MH Axe would be designed for hybrid damage much like Thief's MH Dagger. Revs need a third MH option that can be used in multiple builds, rather than being pigeonholed into S/S or M/A for whichever damage role they are in.

3.) Potentially give Mace some midrange capability to make it a condition focused weapon that has melee/ranged fluidity rather than power/condi fluidity, thematically linking it to the hammer in the same way that scepters are linked with staffs for other professions and fixing the problem of Revs having no viable alternate condi weapons other than Renegade shortbow.

4.) Optional alternative to 3 & 4 - remove weapon swap and make weapon skills be modified by current legend in some way.

5.) Give every legend 4 utility skills so their kits can be customized to some extent. In conjunction with #1, this will help give Rev players much more of an ability to custom design their loadout to suit their preferred playstyle. Optionally, allow access to racial skills and let those be slotted into any legend as well.

6.) Give Revenants a profession attribute that can impact energy consumption and/or regeneration. The profession mechanics are underused, but that doesn't mean Revenant should be the only class in the game that doesn't have one.

currently rev is incomplete, yes. out of the many suggestions, i have like the missing fifth legend, probably tied to the invocation line. however, i don't agree that it should have some "generic" property that allows it to be slotted with other active legends. what they all need, including this hypothetical legend, is a fourth utility.

i'm not sure why you wanted racial skills to be added so much, when really, there are never used in any meaningful gameplay. they seemed to just be filler skills until a player got enough skill points for the proper abilities.

Anet might just as well remove racials, theyve been consistent about nerfing them if proving too strong. Not wanting to have people demand specific races for classes

also, i don't know about main hand axe either. have you ever tried building for rev on the build editor and just felt so bad looking at whopping TWO offhands? the only other classes with that much limitation are engi and ele, but engi has kits while ele has, you know, elements. the fifth legend should bring an offhand to the game, to bring the count to three

*oh and thief has two OH, but they have the dual attack mechanic

@Gihn.1043 said:also, i don't know about main hand axe either. have you ever tried building for rev on the build editor and just felt so bad looking at whopping TWO offhands? the only other classes with that much limitation are engi and ele, but engi has kits while ele has, you know, elements. the fifth legend should bring an offhand to the game, to bring the count to three

*oh and thief has two OH, but they have the dual attack mechanic

I think it's fine. I think the fact that they only have two MH weapons is a bigger problem. Three MH two OH makes sense, and Revenants using dual axes is thematically appropriate.

@"Gihn.1043" said:currently rev is incomplete, yes. out of the many suggestions, i have like the missing fifth legend, probably tied to the invocation line. however, i don't agree that it should have some "generic" property that allows it to be slotted with other active legends. what they all need, including this hypothetical legend, is a fourth utility.

i'm not sure why you wanted racial skills to be added so much, when really, there are never used in any meaningful gameplay. they seemed to just be filler skills until a player got enough skill points for the proper abilities.

Yeah, that's another option, but I still think the 5th legend needs to be designed in a way that allows it to operate in a generalized way that can synergize well with any other legend. Each existing legend is too fixated on a particular role, making the whole legend swapping feature kind of silly and pointless. Glint and Kalla both operate as band-aids to this problem, which is an inappropriate way to design elite specs. This sort of approach is perfect for the "Invocation" legend.

I don't agree with the need to remove racial skills just because people don't use them. In fact, in my opinion, they need to be buffed. In fact, I honestly think they should be buffed to where they're at least situationally useful.

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@LucianDK.8615 said:Anet might just as well remove racials, theyve been consistent about nerfing them if proving too strong. Not wanting to have people demand specific races for classes

do that and theres a risk of creating racial min/maxing at the endgame. eso already has a version of that with the gold standards of high elves for magicka damaga and redguard from stamina. i like that the races were all equal in gw2, in that sense oh, and yeah you're right we only have two mainhands too, huh. would it be too much to ask for two more weaps, you think?

@Gihn.1043 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@LucianDK.8615 said:Anet might just as well remove racials, theyve been consistent about nerfing them if proving too strong. Not wanting to have people demand specific races for classes

I don't really see the problem with it, honestly. I never did. Why shouldn't your race strategically matter a little bit in the game? I think a new MH and a new OH could both make sense, but I don't think there's as much a need for OH as for MH, especially since Glint gets Shield.

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Gihn.1043 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@LucianDK.8615 said:Anet might just as well remove racials, theyve been consistent about nerfing them if proving too strong. Not wanting to have people demand specific races for classes

Look at WoW and the endless bickering about racial imbalance and how you need to be certain races to be optimal. Do you really want -that- here?

@LucianDK.8615 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Gihn.1043 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@LucianDK.8615 said:Anet might just as well remove racials, theyve been consistent about nerfing them if proving too strong. Not wanting to have people demand specific races for classes

Uhm, you mean the way we have endless bickering about class imbalance?

this isnt so much about imbalance has optimization like he said. and you know them snowcrows and metabattle and the blind copiers they empower are AAAAAALL about optimization. we dont want to feed that EVEN MORE do we?do we?(point also stands for pvp and wvw btw, next you have the pug commanders kicking non-sylvari firebrands because they wiped at the keep)

@Gihn.1043 said:this isnt so much about imbalance has optimization like he said. and you know them snowcrows and metabattle and the blind copiers they empower are AAAAAALL about optimization. we dont want to feed that EVEN MORE do we?do we?(point also stands for pvp and wvw btw, next you have the pug commanders kicking non-sylvari firebrands because they wiped at the keep)

Well, by all means, let's let this devolve into a debate about racial skills instead of what it was intended to be.

Yeah I'm giving the rev a whirl atm. It's a great class with interesting mechanics, It needs something though. A bit more spice or consistency and it'll be golden.

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@LucianDK.8615 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Gihn.1043 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@LucianDK.8615 said:Anet might just as well remove racials, theyve been consistent about nerfing them if proving too strong. Not wanting to have people demand specific races for classes

I think you misunderstand. People constantly change races in WoW due to perceived notions of racials being subpar or OP. And I repeat, do you really want racials on top of having the best classes? So if you want to be an engineer, you have to be a sylvarri engineer or you are gimping yourself, could very well be one of them.

Some big issues with Revenant, UA and PS do not track like every other skill in game when cast before an enemy enters stealth, both UA and PS have their damage split between multiple targets, even targets that aren’t players/npcs.

Rev still plagued by terrain bugs when using COR, Searing Fissure, Temporal Rift, and Phase Traversal, uneven terrain can cause these skills to not work to their fullest(majority of the skill will happen underground) or not at all.

thats true, rev shouldnt get ahead of itself before fixing bugs like this first. but since its starting to do so well (damage/support wise) in pve, and terrain is more a pvp/wvw issue, it may not get the attention it needs

@Gihn.1043 said:thats true, rev shouldnt get ahead of itself before fixing bugs like this first. but since its starting to do so well (damage/support wise) in pve, and terrain is more a pvp/wvw issue, it may not get the attention it needs

I think it's worth pushing for a redesign before addressing issues like that, honestly, otherwise, the redesign will probably never happen.

As someone who's been playing since well before HoT launched, I totally agree with most things being said here. Revenant is so great conceptually but with the state of the class on it's release (and still now) I actually ended up deleting mine about a week after reaching 80. I would be playing one SO HARD right now instead of a Firebrand if the execution did the concept justice. While it's true that the other professions have had more time to develop and balance around each other, the Rev is almost just the shell of a class comparatively and i'm honestly just sad that it feels that way. IMHO there should definitely be some changes and additions a la the Mesmer rework, and as much as I love my Mesmer I don't think anyone needed it more than this profession.

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@"Gihn.1043" said:thats true, rev shouldnt get ahead of itself before fixing bugs like this first. but since its starting to do so well (damage/support wise) in pve, and terrain is more a pvp/wvw issue, it may not get the attention it needs

The argument is whether or not a Rework would be needed if those skills actually functioned correctly (aka reliably). If a skill is unreliable, but highly effective when it does work, then you one would assume the problem isn't with the skill's effects. Consider how they been balancing meteor show on Ele. The hit probability of individual meteors is fairly low, and window of opportunity small for mobile targets (pvp/wvw). So to make up for that each meteor does high damage to maintain it as a serious threat. But then you have immobile targets, and large hit boxes, which greatly increases the probability of multiple strikes.... and with it, the damage potential skyrockets. Its the only skill in the game that relies both damage AND probability to accomplish its goal of Area Denial (NOT dps); and exemplifies why trying to balance around probability in a game as fast, and on such a tight margin as this game, is riddled with problems.

If they were to change the reliability and role of meteor shower to make it a damage tool, suddenly a whole different set of logic starts to apply to it. If it isn't clear at this point, "why put the effort into a total rework, which may not even address the real problem (see Deadeye Marks), if you can't even gauge the effectiveness of the skill due to an inconsistency?".

We def need another mainhand or offhand. We also need the legends to not be so dissonant. I understand that they want you to switch roles during combat but thats a little hard when the stat system only allows for building for one role. Another core legend is definitely needed as there is a giant lack of build diversity and not every legend has a good complimentary legend.

@starlinvf.1358 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@"Gihn.1043" said:thats true, rev shouldnt get ahead of itself before fixing bugs like this first. but since its starting to do so well (damage/support wise) in pve, and terrain is more a pvp/wvw issue, it may not get the attention it needs

The answer is unequivocally yes, because it's not an issue of individual skills not working well, it's an issue of the class being hamstrung and pigeonholed by odd design choices that can't be fixed by reworking individual skills - for example, providing very limited build customization in a game designed around horizontal progression, and having legend swapping and then giving each legend a highly specific role with limited synergy with other legends.