[Elite spec suggestion] Vanguard – Legendary Prince Stance

Hello everyone, I have been thinking for a while about a revenant specialization that could be exciting and bring back one of my favourite characters from Guild Wars 1: Prince Rurik of Old Ascalon, son of King Adelbern.

For those who don’t know him, he was known as a kind and courageous prince who spent a lot of time with commoners. He was the one who escorted Ascalon’s refugees to Lion’s Arch, to save his people from the charr invasion. He died in the Shiverpeaks Mountains and died again as an undead, risen by the Lich. It is said that his spirit went to the Hall of Heroes, located in the Mists.

**The idea behind the name of the specialization:**

The Vanguard is a name I have chosen as it reminds me of a class from Chivalry: Medieval Warfare. A warrior on the frontlines of the battlefield, carrying greatswords with significant reach and could deal severe damage against multiple foes. The idea also came from Prince Rurik’s elite force named Ascalon Vanguard.

**Legendary Prince Stance****The point of this specialization:**

　

The goal of this Elite spec is to give revenants better ways to defend and sustain themselves in a fight while doing better and reliable AoE power damage. This comes in the form of passive abilities, working like signets or Guardian’s class abilities, along with the help of traits and utilities from the Legendary Stance.　Please note that the numbers I’m suggesting are based on current skills from other classes, especially the coefficient for damage as mathematics are not my forte.

**The weapon:**

　

Greatsword, as I believe it fits the theme of a Vanguard. The skills should not be too fast but not extremely slow either. The objective is to make greatsword focused on defense and AoE damage while sword retains its single-target DPS aspect through Precision Strike, Unrelenting Assault and Deathstrike.　

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　**Weapon Skills**　**Skill 1 • Autoattacks: Vanguard Slash → Vengeful Stab → Defender Strike**Simple auto-attacks with Weakness inflicted on foes for the final chain. This should allow some control over enemies’ damage and help the Vanguard to take more hits.　**Skill 2 • Mist Charge | 5 energy | 12s cooldown**Much like the charge from Chivalry, a leap forward that does good damage from a slash. The evasion could bring an alternative to Shiro’s Riposting Shadows and act as an escape tool and gap closer. The animation could work similar to revenant’s Hammer skill 3 or more particularly Guardian Leap of Faith but with rifts/mist smoke. 　**Skill 3 • Soul Cleave | 15 energy | 10s cooldown**The main AoE damage dealer skill.　**Skill 4 • Vanguard Grip | 10 energy | 20s cooldown**A short stun along with an AoE pull to control the position of foes on the battlefield.　**Skill 5 • Vengeful Parry | 20 energy | 30s cooldown**Defensive skill allowing the revenant to summon spirits to retaliate on attackers. Spirits cannot do critical damage.　

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　**Vanguard abilities:**　**F2 • Fury of the Vanguards | 10 energy | 25s cooldown**When used, Rurik would occasionally say “Don't hold back, Vanguard!”.　**F3 • Unleashed Power | 15 energy | 30s cooldown**When used, Rurik would occasionally say “Now’s our chance to hit hard!”.　**F4 • Rurik's Resolve | 10 energy | 35s cooldown**When used, Rurik would occasionally say “Fear is for the weak!”.　

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　**Legendary Prince Stance Utilities**　**Healing Skill • Seal of Ascalon | 5 energy | 30s cooldown**When used, Rurik would occasionally shout “Keep fighting! For Ascalon!”　**Utility Skill 1 • Stormcaller | 10 energy | 15s cooldown**When used, Rurik would occasionally say “The enemies of Ascalon must suffer!”　**Utility Skill 2 • Shield of Ascalon | 20 energy | 30s cooldown**When used, Rurik would occasionally say “One day, you may fall. But not today.”　**Utility Skill 3 • Vanguard Assault |10 energy | 25s cooldown**When used, Rurik would occasionally say “No mercy!”　**Elite skill • Sohothin’s Rage | 25 energy | 60s cooldown**When used, Rurik would occasionally say “You’ve messed with the wrong prince.”　

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　**Vanguard Traits**　**Minor Proficiency**• **Greatsword Proficiency:** You can wield greatswords.**Minor Adept**• **Vanguard Champion:** When you critically strike, you and nearby allies gain Vanguard Frenzy. Increasing damage done by 1% and reducing damage taken by 2%. Stacks up 5 times maximum.**Major Adept**• **Benevolent Prince:** Heals when blocking an attack (0.5s cooldown).• **Ascalonian Power:** When using Mist Charge, consume all Vanguard Frenzy to deal more damage (x3 damage with 5 stacks, x2 between 1 and 4)• **Althea’s Kiss:** Gain quickness (5s) when starting combat with Legendary Prince Stance (45s cooldown).**Minor Master**• **Fearless warrior:** Increase damage done by 5% while using melee weapons.**Major Master**• **Adelbern Foolishness:** Grants vigor (4s) and protection (2s) on a successful dodge.• **Rurik Eagerness:** When hitting a target below the health threshold (50%) you inflict immobilization (0,5s) and Vulnerability (x10 for 5s).• **Orrian Gift:** Reduce Sohothin’s Rage cooldown by 10s.**Minor Grandmaster**• **On the Frontlines:** Reduce weapon swap cooldown by 5s.**Major Grandmaster:**• **Prince of the people:** Passive effects from Fury of the Vanguard and Rurik's Resolve are shared with nearby allies.• **Protector of the Realm:** When struck below 30% health, resets the cooldown of the current Legend’s healing skill.• **Saviour of Ascalon:** Increase Rurik's Resolve health regeneration by 20%.　

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　**Idle conversations**　**Prince Rurik:** I can't believe after all our prayers, the Gods have forsaken us.**Character name:** Tyria has seen worse, we will get by and carve our own destiny.　**Prince Rurik:** I wonder what happened to my sword Sohothin since my death.**Character name:** It's in the hands of a friend. Just like you did in the past he uses it to protect his people.　**If Sylvari****Prince Rurik:** It's good to see that despite all these wars, life can flourish in Tyria.**Character name:** The grass wasn't always green, but we do our best to survive.　**If Asura****Prince Rurik:** What a curious creature, are you some sort of dwarf?**Character name:** Oh my... You and I need to have a conversation about History and races of Tyria.　**If Norn****Prince Rurik:** When I was a boy, I heard amazing stories about Norn heroes.**Character name:** Well then, let’s write the story of new one !　**If Human****Prince Rurik:** Are Ascalonian descendants treated well in Kryta?**Character name:** Yes, they're proud of their ancestors and they have not forgotten about your sacrifices.　**If Charr****Prince Rurik:** It's hard to believe I'm fighting alongside a charr.**Character name:** I understand your mistrust but with our powers combined we can help everyone in Tyria.　**When playing in Ascalon zones:****Prince Rurik:** Father... How could you do this to our people?

great there and ideas . amazing work. you hsould work with anet team design

few tweaks but seems great

Just imagined a Charr revenant with Rurik saying "Fight for Ascalon".

Ooh, I have not read it yet, but this post is so visually pleasing. 5/5 on the presentation.

this is incredible i cant wait for the next expansion. rev is gonna be awesome!!!!!

....oh crap i though this was official, looks like it.

this is fan made.... now compare this to renegade lol. give this man the job and anet and make the renegade dev his coffee boy

I love everything about this. I would love to play this in the near future.

The auto attack you i think you put the wrong word its not vulnerability. I think you want weakness

Thanks for the comments guys.

@Milan.9035 said:The auto attack you i think you put the wrong word its not vulnerability. I think you want weakness

Oh ! You’re right! Guess I was tired lol. Gonna fix it along with a few things later today. Thanks for pointing that out.

If CharrPrince Rurik: It's hard to believe I'm fighting alongside a charr.Character name: I understand your mistrust but with our powers combined we can help everyone in Tyria.

Captian Planet? Joking aside, I like this.

I really like this- the concept of the legend and the greatsword as the weapon, but I'm iffy on a few things only.

1. The theme of long cooldowns and low energy costs for legend utility skills. Rev has always, to me, been defined by lower cooldowns on weapon skills (which you've succeeded at) and little or no cooldown on utility skills at the cost of requiring larger amounts of energy to use those skills. The power of the utility skills and the long cooldowns currently might be too high for them to really belong to a Revenant. I suggest replacing one of the endure pain/resistance skills with an upkeep skill to fit rev's theme.

2. The traits and skills are inspired, in my opinion, a bit too heavily by current guardian and warrior skills. There's a carbon copy of Fast Hands, Empowering Might, and a better version of Endure Pain currently.

3. Lots of passives, including all 3 Grandmaster Majors. However, I like the trait line overall.

I'd definitely jump at the chance to play something like this if it ever made it into the game. It seems like a lot of us are clamoring for Greatsword as Rev's next weapon... so let's make it happen dev team. No matter who the legend is, it's impossible to say a GS sword/X revenant or a GS/staff revenant wouldn't be fun.

edit: one of the utility skills needs to be a stunbreak too

@"ventusthunder.5067" said:I really like this- the concept of the legend and the greatsword as the weapon, but I'm iffy on a few things only.

1. The theme of long cooldowns and low energy costs for legend utility skills. Rev has always, to me, been defined by lower cooldowns on weapon skills (which you've succeeded at) and little or no cooldown on utility skills at the cost of requiring larger amounts of energy to use those skills. The power of the utility skills and the long cooldowns currently might be too high for them to really belong to a Revenant. I suggest replacing one of the endure pain/resistance skills with an upkeep skill to fit rev's theme.

2. The traits and skills are inspired, in my opinion, a bit too heavily by current guardian and warrior skills. There's a carbon copy of Fast Hands, Empowering Might, and a better version of Endure Pain currently.

3. Lots of passives, including all 3 Grandmaster Majors. However, I like the trait line overall.

I'd definitely jump at the chance to play something like this if it ever made it into the game. It seems like a lot of us are clamoring for Greatsword as Rev's next weapon... so let's make it happen dev team. No matter who the legend is, it's impossible to say a GS sword/X revenant or a GS/staff revenant wouldn't be fun.

edit: one of the utility skills needs to be a stunbreak too

This comment perfectly sums up my thoughts on this elite spec concept.

I did enjoy the effort spent on creating dialogue for the skill effects and conversations between player and legend!

@"ventusthunder.5067" said:I really like this- the concept of the legend and the greatsword as the weapon, but I'm iffy on a few things only.

1. The theme of long cooldowns and low energy costs for legend utility skills. Rev has always, to me, been defined by lower cooldowns on weapon skills (which you've succeeded at) and little or no cooldown on utility skills at the cost of requiring larger amounts of energy to use those skills. The power of the utility skills and the long cooldowns currently might be too high for them to really belong to a Revenant. I suggest replacing one of the endure pain/resistance skills with an upkeep skill to fit rev's theme.

2. The traits and skills are inspired, in my opinion, a bit too heavily by current guardian and warrior skills. There's a carbon copy of Fast Hands, Empowering Might, and a better version of Endure Pain currently.

3. Lots of passives, including all 3 Grandmaster Majors. However, I like the trait line overall.

I'd definitely jump at the chance to play something like this if it ever made it into the game. It seems like a lot of us are clamoring for Greatsword as Rev's next weapon... so let's make it happen dev team. No matter who the legend is, it's impossible to say a GS sword/X revenant or a GS/staff revenant wouldn't be fun.

edit: one of the utility skills needs to be a stunbreak too

Thank you for your comment, it's true that for utilities, on my OP I wasn't as inspired as the weapon skills. For the utilities, it's in my opinion a bit more complicated as you need to make sure skills aren't completely useless but also fair in comparison to current existing skills from all classes.

To reply to your main concern (1st point), I wanted to make skills and more particularly utilities more related to impactful decision making. A lot of our current legends and even weapons feel like you just use all skills asap and then switch to another legend. Not that decision making is not important of course, but in my eyes it's a lot less compared to other classes who don't have access to another set of utility skills like us. I also wanted to avoid upkeep skills since we've seen that quite a lot now with every Legend that came up.

I have made some modifications (especially the utilities and Vanguard F abilities). I think it's better and more balanced, still not perfect but when you work on it you do realize it's not that easy as a lot of players make it out to be. :smile:

Prince Rurik! Prince Rurik! Prince Rurik!

Anet you need to see this!!! Give this man a job on revenant. I begging you.

@Scar.1793 said:

@"ventusthunder.5067" said:I really like this- the concept of the legend and the greatsword as the weapon, but I'm iffy on a few things only.

1. The theme of long cooldowns and low energy costs for legend utility skills. Rev has always, to me, been defined by lower cooldowns on weapon skills (which you've succeeded at) and little or no cooldown on utility skills at the cost of requiring larger amounts of energy to use those skills. The power of the utility skills and the long cooldowns currently might be too high for them to really belong to a Revenant. I suggest replacing one of the endure pain/resistance skills with an upkeep skill to fit rev's theme.

2. The traits and skills are inspired, in my opinion, a bit too heavily by current guardian and warrior skills. There's a carbon copy of Fast Hands, Empowering Might, and a better version of Endure Pain currently.

3. Lots of passives, including all 3 Grandmaster Majors. However, I like the trait line overall.

I'd definitely jump at the chance to play something like this if it ever made it into the game. It seems like a lot of us are clamoring for Greatsword as Rev's next weapon... so let's make it happen dev team. No matter who the legend is, it's impossible to say a GS sword/X revenant or a GS/staff revenant wouldn't be fun.

edit: one of the utility skills needs to be a stunbreak too

Your changes definitely move the spec in the right direction for a revenant. I do think however that the optimal playstyle for legends such as Shiro and Mallyx is to use as many skills as you can until you run out of energy, then swapping back to your other legend. It's kind of like thief that you rarely see stay at full initiative, but with the added bonus of being able to reset that energy to 50% every 10 seconds. What you've done with the last set of changes puts more of a balance between revenant style and traditional style design. Maybe it's just because I've seen how incredibly awful Kalla Scorchrazor is that I'd prefer new legends to be more like Shiro and Mallyx in terms of cooldowns.

I LOVE IT!

Very good work. Traits, nice skills...even conversations! with all the good references (though I think you should give a more significant place to Althea. She largely deserve her own skill). Even the words that go with skills

And Rurik... I want him back so much. Love this guy. The moment I killed him was one of the most emotional moment in GW1. This man deserve to be remembered!

Thanks you for bringing an old friend to life. Even if this spec never came in the game, I'm glad it exists somewhere.

May a suggest an alternate conversation with the charr?

Prince Rurik: Never thought I will fighting side by side with a CharrCharacter name: What about fighting side by side with a friend?Prince Rurik: I...I could do that

Tribute: The Lord of the Rings, The return of the King, Gimli and Legolas.

sounds good you should be the lead role at designing revenant other than aful design of renegade.

Coming from GW1, whatever involved buggy rurik is a big NO!Rurik didn't have enough impact on the world to become a legend. He was just a stupid brat that couldn't agree with his father, that fled it's duties and end up being killed stupidly.

I don't mind the spec, but rurik... Impossible! Never!

He wasn't saving his people, he was opposing it's father and by leading it's "people" out of tyria he just weakened ascalon's defense. Worse than anything he led his people directly into the hand of the white mantle in a land where undead were runing amock. He even died half way before even reaching krytia in a totally unnecessary self-sacrifice. The burden that didn't even do half the work of the player that was alongside him and died in vain half way after dragging us into leading his people into krytia despite the king adelbern warning him that the white mantle was worse than the charrs. A legend? Hell no!

I don’t play Rev but would be inspired to if this ever became reality. Well done OP, I love the creativity and effort

@"Dadnir.5038" said:Coming from GW1, whatever involved buggy rurik is a big NO!Rurik didn't have enough impact on the world to become a legend. He was just a stupid brat that couldn't agree with his father, that fled it's duties and end up being killed stupidly.

I don't mind the spec, but rurik... Impossible! Never!

He wasn't saving his people, he was opposing it's father and by leading it's "people" out of tyria he just weakened ascalon's defense. Worse than anything he led his people directly into the hand of the white mantle in a land where undead were runing amock. He even died half way before even reaching krytia in a totally unnecessary self-sacrifice. The burden that didn't even do half the work of the player that was alongside him and died in vain half way after dragging us into leading his people into krytia despite the king adelbern warning him that the white mantle was worse than the charrs. A legend? Hell no!

He didn’t have as much screentime as other characters but he is one of the first main characters you encounter that goes out with you and I believe he made quite a nice first impression on many of us.

You say he wasn’t saving his people, yet he did : he did not save everyone sure, but look at Divinity’s Reach districts : one is named as a tribute to Rurik, Rurikton. This is where Ascalonian descendents live. Now look at present Ascalon, full of ghosts who can never rest. Thanks to the stubborn King. Ascalon was lost since the Searing. He did right to oppose his father.

Also just want to point out on the matter of Ascalon’s defense he was always on the frontlines which is part of the reasons why his subjects liked him, he freed soldiers who were imprisoned from the charrs while he could just leave them to rot in cells. I’m not sure what you are referring to about the defense of Ascalon.

You may not like him and that’s totally okay, but you can’t deny the facts from GW1 and the results in GW2. Not everyone is allowed in the Hall of Heroes. Hell if Ventari or Mallyx were made Legends I don’t see why Rurik can’t.

By the way, I do not recall of King Adelbern ever mentionning the White Mantle, he said he didn’t want ascalonians to live under Kryta. I may be wrong though, it’s been ages since I’ve played GW1.

Just my 2 cents.

@"Scar.1793" said:By the way, I do not recall of King Adelbern ever mentionning the White Mantle, he said he didn’t want ascalonians to live under Kryta. I may be wrong though, it’s been ages since I’ve played GW1.

Just my 2 cents.

In the first zone of ascalon after everything was burnt (note that the charrs were responsible for this not adelbern unlike what history in gw2 say), you've got an emissary of the white mantle which is the one that convince rurik to move on. If you do the quests of the area properly, you'll have rurik and adelbern in an argument on this map where adelbern voice his distrust over this "envoy". (I've replayed the full core campaign last year... Fire Islands were hell... until I decided to use fire mantra)

Really, rurik didn't do anything worse becoming a legend. Ventarii birthed a new race he is more than worse legendary material, Mallyx was the leader of the demons and margonite that carried on the late will of abbadon and opposed the gods, gaining it's "unyielding" title. If someone that didn't bow to the god and even led it's kin against the god isn't worse being a legendary then who? Really rurik did almost nothing, even it's father have more value as a legendary since he stayed all the way to the last stand despite being pit against the whole charr army, even to the point of staying as a ghost even in these days to oppose the charrs.

Yep. This is solid.

I like a lot of this

@Dace.8173 said:

If CharrPrince Rurik: It's hard to believe I'm fighting alongside a charr.Character name: I understand your mistrust but with our powers combined we can help everyone in Tyria.

LOL, that was my first thought too.

It looks interesting, though the unique Vanguard mechanic is nothing else than the Guardian virtues brought on the Revenant, and it doesn't really change how Revenant interacts with the legends, or with energy, and similarly to Renegade and Herald it just add a few "f" skills.

Which is in my opinion one of the worst failure of the especs we have so far on Revenant, none of them change the way you play Revenant, unlike the especs on let's say Elementalist, which give us sightly different play style, for instance core Elementalist can quickly swap between attunements, Tempest is encouraged to stay in one attunement longer to overload, and then the attunement has a longer cooldown, and Weaver cannot quickly move between each attunements, but can merge them.