Idea for Improving Legend performance while keeping balance

What if each of the legend's respective trait specialization associated with it granted access to more abilities to choose from if your build has the Minor Grandmaster of that specialization.

So for example, if I have Minor Grandmaster Serene Rejuvenation, along side its current effects, I unlock access to new Ventari legend skills to swap in and out, that may be more effective, but another revenant that doesnt use Salvation cant gain access to. This way, somebody built for a more support role in Traits, gain skills that compliment that build, that others cant use. Same for Dwarf, Assassin, Demon, and Elite Spec legends. That was just one example.

This wouldn't keep balance, at all. They balanced the profession on the idea that you only have one set utilities. You add in an additional set of utility skills and you automatically unbalance the profession. Sure, it could be done but you would need to rebalance the entire profession to account for the new set of skills and the new possibilities of interactions and combinations between them and other skills on Legend swap.

Also, everyone who runs Salvation gets Serene Rejuvenation so you are basically suggesting that Revenant be allowed to pick its own utilities.

You would end up permanently locking legends with traitlines removing any variance. Well, more than they are already.

In my opinion, I don't really think that lack of skills is really an issue. If you are playing Revenant you are signing on to play the core concepts involved with it, that being that your skill base is tied to the Legend. I think what would improve it is a bit more synergy between Legends and performance buffs. But adding more skills really doesn't fix anything and starts moving the profession away from its themes. It's the same with other professions. You play Elementalist and you are signing onto the idea of no weapon swap but having to micromanage elements. You play Ranger and you're signing on to the idea that part of your abilities will be balanced against the fact that you always have a pet and thus the pets mechanics will come into play. Etc etc etc.

@Dace.8173 said:In my opinion, I don't really think that lack of skills is really an issue. If you are playing Revenant you are signing on to play the core concepts involved with it, that being that your skill base is tied to the Legend. I think what would improve it is a bit more synergy between Legends and performance buffs. But adding more skills really doesn't fix anything and starts moving the profession away from its themes. It's the same with other professions. You play Elementalist and you are signing onto the idea of no weapon swap but having to micromanage elements. You play Ranger and you're signing on to the idea that part of your abilities will be balanced against the fact that you always have a pet and thus the pets mechanics will come into play. Etc etc etc.

So what's your solution to giving the different legend synergy with each other when they have so radically different roles?

This solution keeps the legend swap and legend locking mechanic but allow players to switch out skills in the legend to skills that are more fitting to the role of choice.Doesn't change the mechanic. Tablet can only use tablet skills, this just unlock more tablet skills to switch out. May be more support tablet skills that somebody not built for support would not have.

I agree with what @"Justine.6351" said. Revenant already suffers pretty heavily from restrictive build diversity, and this would further restrict it.

"So what's your solution to giving the different legend synergy with each other when they have so radically different roles?"

I think the best answer would be for them to review some traits and skills so they are slightly more synergetic with builds beyond the primary purpose of the legend.

@Knighthonor.4061 said:

@Dace.8173 said:In my opinion, I don't really think that lack of skills is really an issue. If you are playing Revenant you are signing on to play the core concepts involved with it, that being that your skill base is tied to the Legend. I think what would improve it is a bit more synergy between Legends and performance buffs. But adding more skills really doesn't fix anything and starts moving the profession away from its themes. It's the same with other professions. You play Elementalist and you are signing onto the idea of no weapon swap but having to micromanage elements. You play Ranger and you're signing on to the idea that part of your abilities will be balanced against the fact that you always have a pet and thus the pets mechanics will come into play. Etc etc etc.

The thing is you're not offering more choices. Your method will force people to play very specific traits in order to get those extra skills. This means that if someone comes up with other possible combinations of traits plus Legends that could be good they won't be able to execute it because you're tying skills to trait lines. You actually are changing the mechanic, very much so. The mechanic is that the Legend determines your skills and you get one set of skills to work with. You are proposing that your Legend determines the type of skills and then the trait line associated to that Legend picks your skills. That's a change in the mechanic. Anything that adds more skills, no matter how you decide to do it, is a change in the mechanic. There is also the issue of when someone decides to run a Legend but opts not to run the associated traits. What then?

In no way have you actually given people more options. The opposite is true.

As for what I would do, I don't have a specific outline of what traits and things I would change. I do know what wouldn't work but I haven't put much thought into which traits I would change. However, I do feel @"Pterikdactyl.7630" is on the right track on this, that a review of traits and skills needs to happen in order to create better synergy. However, the issue really isn't a lack of skills. Folks say that because they haven't adapted to the playstyle that Revenant demands of you.

@"Pterikdactyl.7630" said:I agree with what @"Justine.6351" said. Revenant already suffers pretty heavily from restrictive build diversity, and this would further restrict it.

"So what's your solution to giving the different legend synergy with each other when they have so radically different roles?"

I think the best answer would be for them to review some traits and skills so they are slightly more synergetic with builds beyond the primary purpose of the legend.

That's the thing. Trait reform will effect builds and roles outside of what the legends are built around. How can you address the legend synergy if they all different roles?

@Knighthonor.4061 said:

@"Pterikdactyl.7630" said:I agree with what @"Justine.6351" said. Revenant already suffers pretty heavily from restrictive build diversity, and this would further restrict it.

"So what's your solution to giving the different legend synergy with each other when they have so radically different roles?"

I think the best answer would be for them to review some traits and skills so they are slightly more synergetic with builds beyond the primary purpose of the legend.

Because roles are not always determined by a single Legend. It is also the case that there is some overlap between roles. For instance, if I'm doing condi DPS I can run Mallyx and Kalla or I could run Mallyx, and Jalis. While doing DPS I could roll with Corruption, Invocation, Renegade, and Devastation. Notice however that I'm not making use of Retribution which is tied to Jalis or Shiro who is tied to Devastation. I can make use of Devastation in power DPS builds as well as condi DPS builds. Jalis can show up in power builds, condi builds, dps builds, tank builds. Mallyx shows up in condi builds and healing builds. Since there is overlap here in the types of builds Jalis can be used in then you can create additional synergy between Jalis's skills and the traits in the various builds without needing to tie his skill set to traits in Retribution. Devastation could be used to create synergy between condi builds and power builds. The framework is already present, it just needs fine tuning, not further restriction.

@Knighthonor.4061 said:

@"Pterikdactyl.7630" said:I agree with what @"Justine.6351" said. Revenant already suffers pretty heavily from restrictive build diversity, and this would further restrict it.

"So what's your solution to giving the different legend synergy with each other when they have so radically different roles?"

I think the best answer would be for them to review some traits and skills so they are slightly more synergetic with builds beyond the primary purpose of the legend.

You are right that it has the potential to affect these builds, but if they are designed well enough, it shouldn't be an issue because it will still fit for the legend's primary role as well. Traitlines should be flexible (to a point) while still maintaining their primary purpose or theme. I have made suggestions on this in the past for both skills and traitlines. I'll post the traitline suggestions I have made here. Just suggestions of course, and some of theme are probably overtuned, but they are to get ideas out there. (Salvation is extremely thorough because I mostly only play healing/support revenant. I didn't make any suggestions on Devastation because I very rarely play power rev. Aside from Expose Defenses and Ferocious Strikes, I think the traitline is fine). Press the Spoiler button if you want to see them.

What would these do?• Corruption would appeal more towards power/hybrid damage builds that perhaps want an emphasis on using mallyx or managing conditions/boons. It would also enhance the supportive capabilities of it. Maniacal Persistence being removed perhaps is not a good move, but Diabolic Inferno remains for a condition damage option for the line.• Retribution is mostly just a cleanup of two underperforming traits (IMO), allowing for more diversity in choice.• Invocation is a solid traitline, but some of the traits could use some attention. Equilibrium seems to be very missed by power revs, and including a more flexible utility while under the threshold would allow for it to appeal to more builds than just power (the heal was pretty negligible). Song of the Mists is clunky and the radius is too small. To me, the trait needs to be made more flexible to, once again, increase the appeal for alternative builds.• Salvation is way too niche for healing builds, and even then, some of the choices are very lackluster. Traitline needs a lot of attention.

@"Dace.8173" said:This wouldn't keep balance, at all.

Not only that, it'd also feel horrible. The whole appeal of the Revenant is that of a "soft role swapper", able to perform two roles "somewhat" in return for not being hyperspecialized into a single one.

We do our best to work against that underlying design of course, since neither GW2's overall game design nor it's class specialization system want such a class to exist (the Elementalist was originally supposed to be this, but didn't end up there either). It's a bit weird that they've now trashed 2,5 classes (Elementalist, Revenant, ~Engineer) instead of finally reworking their underlying system for traits / gear / character customization. You'd think in 6 years they could do it, seeing how WoW rips out more or less their whole system every single xpack. Or just throws away their talent trees as a whole. Or changes the underlying design of a class whole. Or even of the whole combat system.

I dunno. By now I'm really disenchanted with the work ANet does. The rote way each episode of LS plays out with its forgettable mini-zone, disconnected story and single mastery skill, the horrendous way we customize our characters which hasn't been reworked since beta other than the one change to how we spend trait points (which failed to fix the actual problem, the existance of the plethora of trait choices), the way the graphics engine doesn't like people playing together on things... meeeeeeh.

As far as the Revenant goes, there's some super cool potential in there. Someone swapping from condi DPS to healer mid-fight. And back. But the underlying game and its systems just don't support the idea the class devs seem to have had.