Revenants, The Six and Ritualists.

Hey there!I'd like to make some speculations - what if or if it's even possible. First, I know that Ritualists were capable of summoning powers of their ancestors, yet Revenants are (theoratically) more powerful in this aspect. They commune with demons (Mallyx), centaur spirits (Ventari), charr legends (Kalla), human legends (Shiro), dwarven legends (Jalis) and the dragon (Glint). This seems pretty strong from a lore point of view. As for Mallyx, he was a servant of Abaddon, one of his greatest. This might mean that we are kind of using god's power a bit.However, are we capable of summoning powers of Balthazar? Ritualists were tied to their ancestors and in this case it would make perfect sense as it's The Six who brought humanity to Tyria. Technically this makes them their ancestors. As we know, every human can summon lesser powers of The Six (the racial skills). With Revenants having far more vast control over connecting to spirits they might be able to somehow commune with so-called divinity of Balthazar as he is no more but his power still remains - Aurene / Kralkatorrik.I do know how PoF ended and I think that this is a very interesting concept. Balthazar is the past now - Revenants aren't able (or just simply don't do it) to summon powers of spirits that are still "alive" - not in The Mists.What do you think? Also, should Hounds of Balthazar racial skill change after PoF?

So while ritualists called upon souls, revenants did not. They called upon echoes of the Mists - upon imprints powerful and important individuals have left on the cosmos, effectively. Very different thing. Because of this, revenants should be capable of calling upon legendary figures regardless of their state of living. On top of that, because the Mists connect and contain all times past, present, and future, it would be theoretically possible for revenants to summon future legendary figures as well, individuals who are not yet born.

A ritualist would likely not be capable of summoning Balthazar because, by all appearances, the Six Gods do not leave souls when killed. Conversely, because what a revenant calls upon is an imprint on the Mists, they could theoretically call upon any of the gods, not just Balthazar. However, given that merely calling upon Mallyx is a risky thing, and original plan was to show this in mechanics through Mallyx skills inflicting harm upon the PC, calling upon a god is probably downright suicidal. Especially an evil god.

As for the Hounds of Balthazar - it's not like they were directly channeling Balthazar's power, but rather they were channeling latent power left by Balthazar. I see no reason for such to change.

@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:So while ritualists called upon souls, revenants did not. They called upon echoes of the Mists - upon imprints powerful and important individuals have left on the cosmos, effectively. Very different thing. Because of this, revenants should be capable of calling upon legendary figures regardless of their state of living. On top of that, because the Mists connect and contain all times past, present, and future, it would be theoretically possible for revenants to summon future legendary figures as well, individuals who are not yet born.

A ritualist would likely not be capable of summoning Balthazar because, by all appearances, the Six Gods do not leave souls when killed. Conversely, because what a revenant calls upon is an imprint on the Mists, they could theoretically call upon any of the gods, not just Balthazar. However, given that merely calling upon Mallyx is a risky thing, and original plan was to show this in mechanics through Mallyx skills inflicting harm upon the PC, calling upon a god is probably downright suicidal. Especially an evil god.

As for the Hounds of Balthazar - it's not like they were directly channeling Balthazar's power, but rather they were channeling latent power left by Balthazar. I see no reason for such to change.

Well, with Ritualists it all makes sense. There are some strict rules with which they could act and I'm not suggesting that they were capable of summoning gods, etc.

When it comes to Revenant I see that their power is nearly unlimited as summoning Glint's powers has sure to be heavy (no matter if she gave it to us or not). As we know, Glint was meant to replace Kralkatorrik which makes her, I'd say, 75% Elder Dragon. And while Elder Dragons (according to The Six) are capable of having much greater power than human gods it's impressing. I just wonder if Revenants will ever have a legend that feels as powerful to use as Glint.I'd love the initial theme of Revenant to be more explored. The presumption of this class was that Revenants are able to use powers of both evil and good legends having to maintain balance. I loved the idea behind Mallyx being a legend that just wants Revenants to get hurt while there are also legends that want to help us. I feel like this direction was given up. Shiro is a powerful ally and a very dangerous enemy, but beside his quotes there's nothing evil about him.

About the racial skills. When talking about The Six, we actually talk about their very beings, powers or who knows what they are. When the god is present it personifies some specific theme - fire, water, life, growth, sorrow, etc. We know that once the god is overthrown its powers still remains in the next vessel. It can be substituted. Kormir replaced the secret of Abaddon with the truth. So, it could be, that when the god dies / is stripped of its powers, this force is no longer the same. What I mean is - Balthazar is dead, he was war, he was fire and conflict. If he is no more, then his powers could change what might result in "Hounds of Balthazar" not working anymore the way they did when they were actually Balthazar's.We can talk here about echo and what is left in The Mists stays the same, but I think there isn't a 100% argument that supports this.

I know that these are my expectations and what I would actually want it to wark like, but going back to the subject. How could we justify Revenants using powers of The Six? They can use Glint. Perhaps there is a possibility of using echoes of Zhaitan or Mordremoth?

@DonArkanio.6419 said:I just wonder if Revenants will ever have a legend that feels as powerful to use as Glint.We already do. Glint and Mallyx are pretty much on par, being among the greatest minions of their respective leader (Kralkatorrik and Abaddon).

@DonArkanio.6419 said:I'd love the initial theme of Revenant to be more explored. The presumption of this class was that Revenants are able to use powers of both evil and good legends having to maintain balance. I loved the idea behind Mallyx being a legend that just wants Revenants to get hurt while there are also legends that want to help us. I feel like this direction was given up. Shiro is a powerful ally and a very dangerous enemy, but beside his quotes there's nothing evil about him.

Shiro didn't start out evil, though he was always brutal. He was initially tricked by Abaddon's minions into performing evil deeds and became evil postmortem where he became a follower of Abaddon. Based on the quotes, revenants channel Shiro during that moment of his confusion where he's not strictly evil being being seduced by it, when he was first killed.

And the revenant profession was never about maintaining balance between good and evil, but rather that they're willing to draw from evil sources to do good.

@DonArkanio.6419 said:About the racial skills. When talking about The Six, we actually talk about their very beings, powers or who knows what they are. When the god is present it personifies some specific theme - fire, water, life, growth, sorrow, etc. We know that once the god is overthrown its powers still remains in the next vessel. It can be substituted. Kormir replaced the secret of Abaddon with the truth. So, it could be, that when the god dies / is stripped of its powers, this force is no longer the same. What I mean is - Balthazar is dead, he was war, he was fire and conflict. If he is no more, then his powers could change what might result in "Hounds of Balthazar" not working anymore the way they did when they were actually Balthazar's.

Ehhh, Kormir is also called the goddess of secret from time to time, and Abaddon was also the god of wisdom. I wouldn't really say the power changes, so much as the different god takes a different perspective of that same power, domain, and concept. Dhuum and Grenth were both gods of death, Kormir and Abaddon were both gods of knowledge. They just take different viewpoints of death and knowledge.

But ignoring all that, what I was saying is that it seems that the racial skills - as well as the statues in Orr, etc. - utilize remnant divinity in the world and not actively channel from the current god.

Even if that's not so, Balthazar was stripped of his divinity between GW1 and GW2, probably around 150-200 years prior to the game. So if we were channeling the gods' power directly with the human racial skills, we were never channeling Balthazar, but his unknown replacement, to create the Hounds of Balthazar.

So in either situation, the skill has no reason to be changed. Humans are either using the latent power of Balthazar from centuries ago to cast the spell, or they're channeling Balthazar's replacement to cast the spell from the get go.

@DonArkanio.6419 said:How could we justify Revenants using powers of The Six? They can use Glint. Perhaps there is a possibility of using echoes of Zhaitan or Mordremoth?

In theory, they could channel echoes of Zhaitan and Mordremoth - and, as I was saying before, even the living Elder Dragons. As shown point blank in Daybreak, where revenants channel Palawa Joko to break out of prison, the subject need not be dead.

The question is solely whether a revenant can handle the power they're channeling. Just because they can handle Glint and Mallyx doesn't mean they'd be able to handle an elder dragon or god. And an evil god / dragon may seek to harm the user resulting in death.

It would be safer to simply continue channeling dragon champions and avatars of the gods like Glint and Mallyx, since it'd be the same power more or less anyways, while a smaller concentration thus easier to manage.

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:So while ritualists called upon souls, revenants did not. They called upon echoes of the Mists - upon imprints powerful and important individuals have left on the cosmos, effectively.

On topic of this. Has there ever been a direct clarification/statements that revenants summon echoes? Because some of those legends imply to be aware of their situation, unlike echoes we meet in fractals

On Hounds of Balthazar- the skill actually was changed following Path of Fire. They updated the voices lines so that, instead of calling on Balthazar, we now conjure them with "Be my will and fury" or "Show no mercy." That seems like a direct acknowledgement that the skill does still function the way it always had- the understanding surrounding it just changed.

On revenant legends- another important thing to recall is that a revenant can't call on the full power that the legend wielded in life. Not even close. Shiro's Jade Wind petrified half a continent for more than two centuries. Ours petrifies five people for three seconds. Being able to call on Glint, or indeed, even the gods, wouldn't mean that you had all their power at your fingertips.

@kasoki.5180 said:

@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:So while ritualists called upon souls, revenants did

not

. They called upon echoes of the Mists - upon imprints powerful and important individuals have left on the cosmos, effectively.

@kasoki.5180 said:

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:So while ritualists called upon souls, revenants did

not

. They called upon echoes of the Mists - upon imprints powerful and important individuals have left on the cosmos, effectively.

I'd hesitate to call what's seen in Fractals to be echoes, or at least the same kind, as they are physical things even if they're copies, but as Aaron linked, there have been.

So what would happen if a Revenant calls upon the Echo of another Revenant? Will he win the power to summon another set of Echoes?Or, since there aren't time limitations, what if the Revenant calls upone the Echo of his own future legendary self?Revenaception!

Well... first, I suppose, the revenant they're calling upon would have to be a big enough deal to leave an echo in the first place. We've never had a clear criteria, but only those who are exceptionally well-known for the impact they left on the world qualify.

If that is the case:A.) I don't think there are limitations to the legends you can invoke as-is, so no reason that calling on a revenant would expand your repertoire. We're stuck with the same six for gameplay reasons, but we've already pulled a new legend out of thin air at least once, so presumably that's not a lore issue.

B.) Hypothetically, I don't see any reason why that shouldn't be possible, but it depends on what the invocation process entails. For instance, if you require familiarity with the legend, then even if options from the future are out there, you won't be able to access them without a separate source of causality-breaking knowledge.

@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:On top of that, because the Mists connect and contain all times past, present, and future, it would be theoretically possible for revenants to summon future legendary figures as well, individuals who are not yet born.

If I remember correctly it was confirmed that in the mist are only echoes of the past and present, but not future (I think it was related to the Uncategorized Fractal discusion about the city there representing the future of Rata Sum). Are you sure about this you posted?

Edit: IIRC this was the discussion I mentioned https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lore/The-Uncategorized-Fractal-is-Rata-Sum/first#post2380457

Though that discussion is about fractals, revenant legends share the characteristic that both belong in the mists and are echoes of the past (or present in case of joko's legend, back in LW4 EP1).

What Scott said was at the time he posted that- back in 2013- all of the Fractals besides Uncategorized were representations of the past. Not that a Fractal can't represent a future- strictly speaking, he doesn't even rule out the Uncategorized Fractal being in the future. If I recall, that was a point of much discussion at the time.

Against that, we have the Prophecies manual (the source for much of what we know about the Mists) which states that the Rift, the center of the Mists, touches on all times, past, present, and future. If I recall, there was also a dev statement sometime in the latter half of 2013 that said the Infinity Ball asura storyline involves what's effectively a Fractal depiction of an alternate future.

EDIT: Hey, the wiki actually had it cited for once! Which is good, because it was early 2014 instead.

@"Aaron Ansari.1604" said:What Scott said was at the time he posted that- back in 2013- all of the Fractals besides Uncategorized were representations of the past. Not that a Fractal can't represent a future- strictly speaking, he doesn't even rule out the Uncategorized Fractal being in the future. If I recall, that was a point of much discussion at the time.

Against that, we have the Prophecies manual (the source for much of what we know about the Mists) which states that the Rift, the center of the Mists, touches on all times, past, present, and future. If I recall, there was also a dev statement sometime in the latter half of 2013 that said the Infinity Ball asura storyline involves what's effectively a Fractal depiction of an alternate future.

EDIT: Hey, the wiki actually had it cited for once! Which is good, because it was early 2014 instead.

Ty for the clarification, it is good to know this

@Ardid.7203 said:So what would happen if a Revenant calls upon the Echo of another Revenant? Will he win the power to summon another set of Echoes?Or, since there aren't time limitations, what if the Revenant calls upone the Echo of his own future legendary self?Revenaception!

Their souls would implode. Spiritual black hole event, divide by zero, etc.

There's a lot about their power and abilities even they don't fully understand. They're going into this blind more or less. The most accomplished Revenant in the game is Rytlock and maybe the PC.

Probably safer for them to channel lesser heroes and villains then to go for gods or test time and existence paradoxes.