Renegade slaves uprising

For the last couple of weeks I felt that the dicussion on such topic is needed. Sure, there are a lot of complains about revenant and I'm not sure if I can add something new to it, but it works like psychoanalysis - you feel better after the talk.

So, to start with I should apologise for my english. I'm playing revenant for 2 years and can't imagine playing any other profession. Of course I've got a lot of lvl 80 alts, but I never paid to them as much attention and time as I paid to my revenant. I love the concept, love the visual part, love skills animations and ideas. This prof is uniqe and beautiful, thanks to ArenaNet. Seriously.

But, for all those years I always felt like the class is not ok. Of course, meta is changing and some specs, traits and builds become more powerfull than other, but I'm speaking about something deeper. Let's give some examples:

Builds Hybernation:Herald/Shiro Power: During HoT our main PvE and PvP build was Power Shiro. Obviously, the Herald was on it, but the problem was that the same build was used both for pve and pvp. Two swords - fractals, two swords arena, even second swap don't need to be changed - we stucked with staff forever. The only thing you need is to change traits. Well, I like those build but such unvariaty was pretty dissapointing. It may dissapoint you even more if you will think that in 2019 it's still the only viable build for pvp. "War never changes" or what?

Renegade: then we got renegade with PoF. I don't want to complain to much about it but its seems for everyone that renegade is garbage first of all in terms of design. I have nothing against the idea of Kalla (even if there are plenty of characters more desired to be a new legend) , but those damagable "totems", which you can't move, those animation and finally - shortbow... Shortbow seems the most clunky weapon I've ever used in Gw. What was the problem with this elite? Standing in one line with such masterpieces as Weaver, Holosmith, Firebrand, Spellbreaker that elite looks like made for 12 hours before the release. Even if counted specs are not all perfect in all game modes (which is pretty much ok) they have wonderful design concepts and renegade doesen't have even it.Moreover, it was unplayable for a long time, when finally condi-build came online. Well, what can I say: clunky, still stucked with stuff etc.

Alacrity slaves: Well, now we have alacrity/power build for renegade. The problem with general design is still here, and we turned back in time to meet our old friend - Shiro with two swords. Pretty the same buld and Power Herald, the same weapons loadout, the only thing that changed is that you should now press F3 instead of F2... Very variable, so to say.

What are you talking about:To sum up, I'm talking that revenant need more love from developers not to make him Op, but to make him more adoptable and flexible. We stucked with weapon loadouts, builds and it lasts for years going a bit better or a bit worse from time to time. Now, when the new expansion is not planned in the near future, so we won't see the new elite any time soon, it became more and more important to fix the revenant. To add more flexibility and to rework the renegade. I'm sure he needs it.

I'm happy that those talanted people made such a great class, but it seems just not right since the PoF launched.

Thank you and sorry that I've took so much time.

Renegade traits are pretty solid for core legends, you're actually much more tanky and durable with Renegade than you are with Herald which you can't really justify not using if you have the elite spec selected because the traits are so heavily oriented towards the legend itself, unlike Renegade.

I'd recommend it over core and Herald if the user struggle against condition damage the most as a Revenant.

The problem with the player base is that they feel obligated to use Renegade skills while it's absolutely not necessary, considering how the majority of other elites don't even fully use their specific skills either in those "meta" builds. Irks me to say it.

Bro forget. I can write a lot of text why, how, here usually give such detailed answers, but it is senseless. It's just people showing their knowledge of mechanics.I can only say one thing - legends should be our strength. In practice, it turns out to be our weakness. Herald/shiro allows you to go out of the battle for a long distance and return while changing the legends + facet of light.Having created the only playable build for so many years, they confirmed it.

P.S. By itself, the revenant very glass, him saves only way out of battle.

@"Baudrillard.4612" said:

Builds Hybernation:Herald/Shiro Power: During HoT our main PvE and PvP build was Power Shiro. Obviously, the Herald was on it, but the problem was that the same build was used both for pve and pvp. Two swords - fractals, two swords arena, even second swap don't need to be changed - we stucked with staff forever. The only thing you need is to change traits. Well, I like those build but such unvariaty was pretty dissapointing. It may dissapoint you even more if you will think that in 2019 it's still the only viable build for pvp. "War never changes" or what?

A bit of a nitpick, but the pvp build for the first several years of Revenant's life primarily used Sword/Shield in organized play, and occassionally Sword/Axe in solo queue/roaming. And the Power PvE build used Sword/Axe. Sword/Sword is a relatively recent addition to Herald meta builds. It didn't have the extra damage it has now until late 2017, so was always an inferior pick when compared to the extra sustain of shield or the extra CC/Teleport of Axe (offhand sword didn't have the teleport either).

Renegade: then we got renegade with PoF. I don't want to complain to much about it but its seems for everyone that renegade is garbage first of all in terms of design. I have nothing against the idea of Kalla (even if there are plenty of characters more desired to be a new legend) , but those damagable "totems", which you can't move, those animation and finally - shortbow... Shortbow seems the most clunky weapon I've ever used in Gw. What was the problem with this elite? Standing in one line with such masterpieces as Weaver, Holosmith, Firebrand, Spellbreaker that elite looks like made for 12 hours before the release. Even if counted specs are not all perfect in all game modes (which is pretty much ok) they have wonderful design concepts and renegade doesen't have even it.Moreover, it was unplayable for a long time, when finally condi-build came online. Well, what can I say: clunky, still stucked with stuff etc.

Renegade's condi build has always been good even since its release; it's always been a direct upgrade over Core Condi, which was playable and starting to become relevant for 6+ months before Path of Fire came out. Additionally, as you mentioned, we have the Power Alacrity build as well and if you need/want a direct healer/support then Renegade is generally superior to Herald. That gives us 3 build archetypes to work with for Renegade; I don't think it's going to get much better than that in PvE. That's far better than most other classes in terms of build diversity (look at Deadeye for example). In PvP/WvW, certain aspects of Renegade certainly need buffs, though, I'll give you that.

If you dislike playing support you can perfectly play cDPS Renegade.

I'm perfectly fine with Power Alacrity or Healer Renegade, particularly since it means I can play something else than Chronomancer once in a while, there will always be some roles that you might consider ungrateful.

That being said, I'd agree that Power Revenant in general isn't that thrilling to play, but that's something that isn't going to be fixed without a new specialization, because Herald and Renegade aren't exactly designed to be pure power specializations.

@"Alchimist.4738" said:If you dislike playing support you can perfectly play cDPS Renegade.

I'm perfectly fine with Power Alacrity or Healer Renegade, particularly since it means I can play something else than Chronomancer once in a while, there will always be some roles that you might consider ungrateful.

That being said, I'd agree that Power Revenant in general isn't that thrilling to play, but that's something that isn't going to be fixed without a new specialization, because Herald and Renegade aren't exactly designed to be pure power specializations.

Revenant designs are always going to be in the "Jack of all Trades" mentality, it's how the profession was designed and will remain, the core specs are themselves already good enough for any sort of power/condition/support. Elites are additions as intended, with the recent new F2 on core, it has been better than ever.

Revenant is honestly the most balanced despite it's mechanics being so strong in the right hands.

@"Shao.7236" said:

Revenant is honestly the most balanced despite it's mechanics being so strong in the right hands.

I'm not arguing that now revenant is in the good state. We have quite a few different builds to play with and that' s great. My main problem is hiding in two points: 1) We have one viable build in pvp for a long time. And even if the shield changed to axe and then to SW we're still playing Herald/Shiro with sword m/h. Literary for years. There was a small gap when Ventari Bunker was viable but it was just like a few month or so. You can argue that a lot of prof. have such a problem, but revenant kit itself offers so much different playstyles which you should immidiately forget about when it goes to pvp. That's sad, nothing more.2) And the second thing is that the whole Renegade spec is poorly designed. It doesn't mean that it is not viable somewhere right now. I mean the whole concept, those totems, clunky SB etc. We should agree that "playable" doesen't mean "well designed concept". Those portals on SB - you can't even hit the moving target, clunky stun, damagable, unmovable "totems" with strange animations... I meant all that.

There was a wonderful thread about changing Renegade concept. I think it's author describing the idea of such poor design much better than I did.

@"Baudrillard.4612" said:

I'm happy that those talanted people made such a great class, but it seems just not right since the PoF launched.

Thank you and sorry that I've took so much time.

The main designer of the Revenant at HoT is not longer in ANet and to my knowledge was nor related with the Renegade; the team which crafted the PoF spec bring us two new weapons (short bow and trident) with 0 mobility and 0 defensive skills (every Revenant weapon at HoT except the shield had some kind of displacement or invulnerability frames).

Must be noted also that in this last patch the developers entirely dropped the ball about the reason they made the changes: no guideline, no explanations of any kind.

The "purity of purpose" with the Rev at the release was making something like a mix between Warrior and Thief, with heavy armor and shadow steps but without stealth. I have no clue about what is the nature of Ventari or Jalis, because other classes do support better than us and Shiro is better to survive than the dwarf. Mallyx is the only other legend which to me fits the class, but sadly has a glass jaw because the condi weapons has no blocks/evades, the defensive weapon (staff) doesn't provide damage (specially condition damage) and condi doesn't lets you to pressure at range, so is easy to kite a condi Rev to death at range. Condi Rev was, actually, very strong at HoT release, but was inmediatelly nuked and never rised again.

Am i the only one who thinks that the problem is not only in the elites?I mean if you see the other trait lines you can see some ..lets say strange things .For example the retribution espe.at leats i thought it was suposed to circle around retaliation gain dmg when you loose live etc but the only source of reta u have is the dwarft heal and the roll to gain reta trait wich makes you loose the u have reta u have more dmg trait.Where im triing to get through this is : look at the traits in al the esp and youll find traits that have sinergy in the same column while in other columns you have literaly nothing that contributes to your build .I might not be a programmer but i think its not to hard to solve this problems.

I think main problem is that the traits are not well balanced for different legends. They do their best when you equip a specific legend. The idea is ok-ish but still not all the legends are useful and powerful. I think traitlines should be free of specific legends. Then rev would be free to choose.

Renegade in my opinion is a completely faul on every surface. People just got used to it.

If Renegade came with Core Revenant - then summoning spirits could possibly feel great. As an E-Spec this just doesn't fill expectations.It lacks interactivity, it doesn't change the way you play Revenant, thematically is also a support - like Herald.

Why should we think this E-Spec is okay if we don't feel that way?Objectively Renegade is the most poorly gameplay-designed Elite Specialization.

I can only play renegade if I do a Mallyx condi hybrid build with torment sigil...anything else won’t do much sense Imo.

yeah its kind of bizarre renegade hasn't seen some kind of overhaul yet. i thought for sure they were gonna do it after overhauling herald, but its been almost a year now.

@Buran.3796 said:

@"Baudrillard.4612" said:

I'm happy that those talanted people made such a great class, but it seems just not right since the PoF launched.

Thank you and sorry that I've took so much time.

I think that's the nature of ranged weapons in general - they have less survivability skills to balance against the inherent survivability benefits of fighting at range. It's worth noting that hammer didn't come with an invulnerability frame initially, that got added to Phase Smash when it turned out that using Phase Smash without it was often a suicide pact. Renegede shortbow has similar characteristics to longbows from other professions, relying more on hindering the mobility of enemies than on granting mobility and invulnerability frames to the user. YMMV on how well that works in practice, but that seems to be the idea they were going for.

Regarding the "purity of purpose" of the rev:

I don't think it's intended to have one - instead, each legend is supposed to have its own "purity of purpose". If anything, taken holistically the rev is probably closest to the guardian (particularly before the spirit weapons rework) with four out of six legends being based around team support and/or personal durability. It's just that the community has found that Shiro is the best core legend for basically everything that isn't pure support.

I have been playing power renegade for the last week and I can state some basic problems that can easily be fixed.

• Shortbow dmg lacks really bad. Skill 2 and 3 are not really useful for wvw. Skill 2 needs either to be one shot skill ( as you just do 1 powerful attack) or way faster than it is. Auto attacks hybridity is also problematic but you can go around it easily.
• Shortbow range is too short. As it cannot bounce or has penetrate in its base, it needs to be addressed. But with shiro 1200 range might be also op.
• Summons have too long cast times. At least stu break should be faster.
• Summons take cleave damage. This is especially problematic for zergs. Making them invulnerable might also cause some problems but they should not get instakilled like this. There are many professions that can deal heavy damage.
• Renegade traitline seems to be a standalone one. For me all traitlines that rev has lacks proper synergy so it might be personal.
• Squishy. You need a support or jalis to stand vs dmg as heal is also slow to cast. One stun screws your entire rotation. Summoning stab kitty wrecks your energy management so you have to wait to summom heal kitty. As it has zero mobility you also need shiro. Basically shiro+jalis combo is better than kalla at this point.
• kitty that gives bleed to attacks is the worst one among them. Too high energy cost for what it gives back. It should at least give a proper boon or something with bleed.

These are the first impressions that I have. I have tried every PoF elite and renegade is far worst among all. It needs immediate adjustments in wvw. I have no opinion on spvp or pve for renegade.

And this is from a power renegade perspective. I did not play condi.

@Street Peddler.2638 said:yeah its kind of bizarre renegade hasn't seen some kind of overhaul yet. i thought for sure they were gonna do it after overhauling herald, but its been almost a year now.

I bet it's still coming. They couldn't do revenant twice in a row now, could they?

With the exception of the DE, all of the major re-hauls have been to HoT Elite Specs, and to Core stuff. In the case of DE, the update was rather mandatory because the spec was just broken bad. Or maybe they just had a good idea and ran with it. In any case despite its issues Renegade, with all associated components, is still a rather well working ESpec for its intended purpose, and is not high on the priority list because of that. Fact is that while Renegade may be clunky, and some parts of the profession don't quite work, it still has 2 builds in the raid meta.

Now, two of the HoT ESpecs still have major issues, namely DH and Tempest. Chronomancer and Scrapper are still missing their trade-offs. I'm pretty sure they will want to adjust Daredevil and Druid that got major changes in the last patch. I wouldn't expect any rehauls to Renegade before those are done but after they are done, in all likelihood Renegade is next.

Or atleast, that's my hope and reasoning.

@alain.1659 said:

• kitty that gives bleed to attacks is the worst one among them. Too high energy cost for what it gives back. It should at least give a proper boon or something with bleed.

Yeah, even with a condi build, it falls short of Soulcleave's Summit just on pure DPS. Theoretically one might do the calculations and find that in ideal circumstances it does more damage for the energy required, but generally you want DPS over damage per energy spent.

Small changes that I would make

trait to increase energy speed in 25% with alacrityalacrity work in legends cooldownDarkrazor Daring apply stability in every pulseRazorclaw rage - the worst sumon .if remove 1 sec bleed interval maybe become a viable option .a fast revive trait