Hypothetical Revenant rework and problem solving. Just for fun. (Brought over from Reddit)

NOTE: This is a direct copy/paste of something I posted a little while ago on Reddit because I wanted to leave feedback on the class, but at that time didn't have forum access. I welcome all feedback and discussion, but I'd be thankful if we could keep it civil. Finally this isn't the final version of my thoughts on the matter, only the most recent I've typed up, and will likely adjust the idea based on feedback here and on Reddit, and post an updated version later. Ultimately the point of this isn't to complain, I simply feel that the class has a few specific issues and could stand to have a bit of an adjustment made to it sometime in the future. Thank you for your time, and for reading through my ideas. Thanks more for any respectful feedback, be it positive or negative.

Overview: I'm a long time Guild Wars player who has been enjoying the series for near a decade now, and am currently a revenant main. As much as I like the class, and the concepts/theme behind it, there are issues. I've said before what these are in various forums, but I think now I'm going take the effort, as a thought experiment, to come up with some solutions. Below will be a few quick ideas for additions and changes to the core revenant profession. Feel free to discuss below if anything interests you, I welcome the exchange.

The Revenant; Arena Net's call-back to the first Guild Wars: This right here tells you how the class should be built moving forward. And I'll be following this concept a bit for my ideas. In short, as a call-back class, pretty much all the ground work for new specializations has been done already in the form of Guild Wars 1. To design something new just pull up that old wiki, pick a character who fits the theme you want to be the new legend, assign them a GW1 class, and then pick a skill type from that class. Now out of the hundreds upon hundreds of skills in that game you can easily pick out five and reimagine them in a way to work in GW2. Boom; you're done. Just send it on to the balance team. While I'm not choosing a new legend for my idea, I have chosen a GW1 class and skill type from that class. In this case the ritualist, and will be adapting ritualist signets for the new utility skills.

A new core weapon: Many players will agree that the revenant's current weapon selection is a bit light, and the existing weapons are all arguably too strongly focused on specific roles. As such I've chosen to give the revenant access to main-hand axe as a core weapon. This will be a melee range power weapon as its core, can via using off-hands grants a bit of versatility. Later I'll outline a new trait that grants this weapon even more versatility and opens up additional playstyles.

Auto Attack: Shrouded Edge > Ghastly Strike > Cyclone Arc. 130 range. Cleaves 3 targets. Final strike cleaves 5 targets.

Second Skill: Ward Breaker. 130 range. Strike your foe with a slow moving attack. Deals half damage to blocking foes. Damages break bars.

Third Skill: Maniac Assault. 300 range. Lash out at foes in front of you with several wild swings. The initial strike dazes foes. You cannot move while using this skill.

New core skills: The biggest issues with the revenant right now are the lack of versatility within each legend skill bar, and the inability to slot "generic" skills such as racial abilities while unlocking additional skills as you progress. Signets are my attempt to solve both problems. These skills are not tied to a legend, and once unlocked for hero points can be slotted regardless of the legend being used.

Healing Skill: Death Pact Signet. Passive; heal a small amount when you kill an enemy. Active; Heal yourself and mark a target, heal again if you are downed by the marked target.

Utility 1: Signet of Binding. Passive; Increase your movement speed by 25%. Active; Immobilize your target.

Utility 2: Signet of Spirits. Passive; Summons a Spirit Orb to orbit around you every few seconds. These orbs detonate when touched by allies or enemies. Detonation deals a small amount of damage to enemies and grants a small amount of healing to allies. No more than 3 orbs can be active at one time. Active; command all summoned Spirit Orbs to swarm a target area and detonate.

Utility 3: Signet of Ghostly Might. Passive; Increase Power and Condition Damage by a small amount. Active; Give yourself Might and Fury.

Elite Skill: Signet of Creation. Passive; Increase your Energy generation by 1. Active; Increase your Energy generation by 5 for a few seconds. Costs 50% energy. This bonus is lost if you change legends.

Trait rework. New skills and weapons require new traits, and I see this as the perfect time to tweak the Invocation line a bit. There are a few traits I consider clunky or even redundant, so I'll be replacing them with new stuff for these skills and the axe. This will further set Invocation as a "general" line useful regardless of, or in spite of, your current legend.

Major Adept trait: Cruel Repercussion becomes Cruel Edge. I feel that Cruel Repercussion is redundant, being too similar to a trait found in the Devastation line, so I'm dropping it. The new trait increases the range of main-hand axe attacks to 900, using a similar visual effect to the Firebrand's new axe skills. In additon this also causes axe skills to apply one stack of Confusion for one second, on a one second cooldown. This allows the axe to be used as either a melee power weapon, or (with proper investment into condition duration) a ranged condi weapon. This will make main-hand axe useful for a verity of builds.

Major Master trait: Equilibrium becomes Written in the Mists. I think these energy dependent traits are a bit clunky to use, and are pretty weak overall in addition to demanding a hybrid statistical build, so to me they are prime targets to replace. Written in the Mists is your typical Signet upgrade trait, in this case reducing signet recharge by 20% and making all signets grant a few seconds of Fury. This has some nice synergy with other Invocation traits, and makes a strong tie between this specialization and the skill type beyond a simple cooldown buff.

Major Grandmaster trait: Shrouding Mists becomes Spiritual Medium. As above, I just think these energy based traits are...bad. So this one goes as well. Spirit Medium plays to the revenant's theme of calling on spirits to aid them, and acts as a second instance of the Signet of Spirits skill. Specifically this skill grants additional Spirit Orbs, up to three extra, when you kill enemies or down players. This is handy on its own, but is very powerful if paired with Signet of Spirits. In addition, when downed all active Spirit Orbs detonate around you with a stronger healing effect, helping you get back on your feet more quickly.

While good thought has surely gone into this if I wanted to play signet class I would go back to Warrior and with Skill 3, a root whilst using...hmm, not a fan. But that's just me, others might love it! But for axe to be a condi weapon as well your attacks seem power only?

@Joxer.6024 said:While good thought has surely gone into this if I wanted to play signet class I would go back to Warrior and with Skill 3, a root whilst using...hmm, not a fan. But that's just me, others might love it! But for axe to be a condi weapon as well your attacks seem power only?

Well the core idea is that you ultimately won't be using signets all that much, or at all. They are really only there to provide you SOMETHING to put on your skill bar while leveling. Other classes have racial skills for that, but revs can't use them, and because they can't mix and match skills from multiple legends this basically means that you can't use elite spec legends at all until you've fully unlocked them, because you'll just end up with holes in your skill bar and nothing to fill them with. Signets are "place holder" skills to use while you level, not something to craft a build around at endgame, hence why their effects are kind of scattered and not that impressive; they are balanced against racial skills, not class skills. They are meant to be abandoned and replaced.