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How would you redesign the revenant?


Lonami.2987

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Do you feel like the revenant could be much more? That his mechanics don't do his theme justice? Maybe his elite specializations have a weak design? Or do you just want to post some crazy ideas? Well, then this thread is for you.

So, just for fun, how would you redesign the revenant?

Last update here: May 5, 2018

Few personal ideas to start the thread:


Revenant - Full redesign (first option)

Revenant is a mess, but that shouldn't be news for anyone. I don't know what happened during development, but it's clear that something didn't click. I will be going for a hard redesign, trying to get something unique out of what we have now.

The first problem is energy. They wanted to do something that required resource management, and I guess it works for the slot skills, but it's too much for the weapon skills. Either remove the cooldowns, or remove energy. The second problem is the legend-locked slot skill bar. While nice at the beginning, because you have double the skills, it turns boring quickly, because of the lack of customization.

Personally, I'd remove both of them. They have no useful purpose whatsoever, and they just don't work. The thief is the only profession with outside-mechanic resource management, and it works well, because his weapon skills are very reactive and situational. That's totally not the case with revenant.

So, energy is gone. Weapon skills now work just with cooldowns. The next step is to give revenants the same slot skill model every other profession has, where they choose the slot skills they want from a list. Most of the legend-locked slot skills would be easily adapted into a neutral version, and the rest would need to be made from scratch. The usual stuff would be fine, some signets, tricks, stances, etc. Look for inspiration in GW1's ritualist, monk, and dervish. It would be nice if core revenant is a viable healer as well, so we don't depend on druids that much.

With that clear, let's move onto the mechanic, which is what really defines the profession.

We want something unique, and we want the legends to be there somehow, too. Transformations, attunements, kits, etc, are already taken by other professions.

The revenant has something unique, though: Ventari's Tablet. Annoying at the first glance, most of its problems came from it being in slot skills instead of the mechanic bar. So, what if we adapt the tablet, and turn it into a mechanic? It would be similar to the ranger's pet, but an object instead of an animal, with some differences.

Before continuing, let me say that I don't feel like Mallyx is a good character to represent the Demon/Margonite legend, and that I would replace him with Varesh Ossa, who has far more story and personality. Also, I feel like the revenant needs a fifth legend, because four aren't enough for customization. My candidate would be Bonfaaz Burntfur as "Legendary Imperator". He's the charr shaman who summoned the Searing of Ascalon. Flame Legion magic is really cool and has no place among the other professions, so he's a perfect candidate, and his inclusion would also complete the triune of Abaddon servants, representing the titans. Also, I'd rename Shiro from "Assassin" to "Envoy", to avoid confusion with a potential future thief assassin elite specialization.

So, back to the tablet adaptation, each legend would have its own Relic, a non-autonomous artifact that you would control manually, with some special abilities. The removed legend skills would be integrated into the new F1-F2-F3 relic skills, some of which would include movement options. F4 would swap the relic. The gameplay would focus on positioning the relic correctly during the fights. The relics would also give a passive bonus to nearby allies, kinda like warrior banners.

Generally speaking, F1 would have a movement skill, F2 a support skill, and F3 the ultimate skill, which would destroy the relic upon usage, forcing a relic swap. Some relic examples:

Centaur: Ventari's Tablet

  • Ventari's Will: Move the tablet, healing allies it passes through.
  • Protective Solace: Summon a protective barrier to destroy enemy projectiles and heal allies.
  • Dream of Dreams: Heal allies around the relic, and leave fragments for allies to heal further.

Dwarf: Tome of the Rubicon

Envoy: Jade Wind Orb

  • Move the orb, and siphon life from enemies it passes through.
  • Pull nearby enemies, and steal their boons.
  • Jade Winds: Stun/freeze nearby enemies for a short duration.

Imperator: Cauldron of Cataclysm

  • Move the cauldron, leaving a fiery trail.
  • Fire field, give might and fury to nearby allies.
  • Searing of Ascalon: Large AoE damage around the relic.

Margonite: Apocrypha

  • Move the tablet, crippling enemies in its path.
  • Area of effect that convert boons of nearby enemies into conditions.
  • Nightfall: Blind, chill, and torment nearby enemies.

This gives the revenant an unique mechanic, unlike none seen by other core profession. Relics would replace legends, and you'd only be able to equip two at the same time.

Finally, give some new weapons to core revenant to solve the weapon skill variety problems, and we'd be ready to go. Main-hand axe, off-hand mace, torch, and focus should do it.

The relic system shouldn't be the norm for all elite specializations. Some could replace it with something else, or remove it altogether.


Revenant - Full redesign (second option)

An alternative to the above idea, born from the same principles. Instead of relics, it would use Spirit Weapons, a new type of minion, that wouldn't attack or move unless commanded. Similar in concept to guardian spirit weapons.

This redesign would also include a fifth legend, but with the new mechanic it makes no sense to keep the previous choice. I'll go with Master Togo instead, as "Legendary Ritualist", since the new mechanic is heavily inspired by GW1's weapon spells and item spells, and revenant could really use some binding rituals as slot skills anyway.

These spirit weapons would float behind the revenant, waiting to strike. Each legendary character would have his own set, formed by six weapons. Every set would have five hidden basic skills, each linked to a weapon skill slot, and they would play whenever you use its linked weapon skill slot. Also, there would be three mechanic skills at slots F1, F2, and F3, for special abilities. Some examples:

  • Centaur: Harathi Scepters. Healing role.
  • Dwarf: Deldrimor Maces. Defensive role.
  • Envoy: Shiro'ken Swords. Direct Damage role.
  • Margonite: Tormented Sickles. Condition Damage role.
  • Ritualist: Imperial Urns. Support role.

So, if your current legend is dwarf, using the second weapon skill (no matter which weapon you're wielding, be it sword, staff, etc) would trigger the second skill from the Deldrimor Maces. This could require an update for weapon skills, to make sure every slot has a common role so you don't get weird combinations.

Both this idea and the previous one could be used as elite specialization ideas instead, too.


Herald - Full redesign

The herald is really dull from a theme perspective. It feels like they built this elite specialization together with the core profession, and that decision affected both negatively. Elite specializations should be about new mechanics and new playstyles, not fixing holes from their core professions.

What's a herald, anyway? Sounds like someone who embodies something. A transformation mechanic could fit him really well, so why not?

The herald's new mechanic would be a transformation, turning you into a living avatar of your current legend, much like the necromancer's Death Shroud. It would use the F5 mechanic button, and there would be a total of six avatar options, five from the core legends, and one from the elite legend, Glint. The transformation would change your physical aspect, boost your attributes, and replace your weapon skills, until you decide to go back to normal. No time limit, like engineer kits and soulbeast beastmode. You can swap transformation while transformed, too.

Transforming would destroy your current relic, so you have to choose between the F3 ultimate skill or the F5 transformation. The relics and their skills would be unavailable while transformed. Each transformation would have an unique model, with no sexual or racial distinctions. Examples:

  • Centaur: You become Ventari, a male centaur, wielding a staff. Healer role.
  • Dwarf: You become Jalis Ironhammer, a stone dwarf, wielding the Hammer of the Great Dwarf. Tank role.
  • Envoy: You become Shiro Tagachi, a male human, wielding Shiro's Blades. Melee DPS role.
  • Margonite: You become Varesh Ossa, a female margonite, wielding a scythe. Melee condition damage role.
  • Dragon: You become a smaller version of Glint, a female crystal dragon, wielding no weapons. You can breathe fire, knock down enemies with your tail, and launch enemies by flapping your wings. You can user your gliding skills while in this form. Ranged DPS role.
  • Imperator: You become Bonfaaz Burntfur, a male Flame Legion charr. Ranged condition damage role. (First revenant redesign idea)
  • Ritualist: You become Togo, a male human, wielding a scepter and a focus. Support role. (Second revenant redesign idea)

While transformed, your voice commands would be replaced by those of your active legend, and the legend's whispers would be replaced by whispers from your own character, arguing with the legend about what to do next.

Going by the first redesign idea, Glint would have her own relic too, a scroll with the Flameseeker Prophecies, with various support options. Going by the second idea, her spirit weapons would be crystalline spears.

As for the original mechanic of the herald, facets, they would be turned into slot skills, with the same mantra-like functionality, sans the energy limitation.


Renegade - Full redesign

When I first heard about the renegade, I was somewhat excited. It sounded like you were going to fight beside your own warband. Imagine my disappointment when said warband members were nothing more than just some random immobile banners.

This redesign idea is simple: Make the warband fight besides you.

We would use a new system for this: The swarm. Similar to the ranger's pet system, but with multiple pets at once.

This wouldn't work well with the relic system from the previous redesign, so we would ditch it for this elite specialization. I'm a firm believer that elite specializations should bring new mechanics, and sometimes replace the old mechanics as well, and this would be one of those cases.

Each legend would have its own warband, with three heroes, each with unique skills. Each member would represent a character from the past, not necessarily contemporary or aligned with his parent legend, so you could say they are echoes rather than actual ghosts. The entire system itself would pay homage to the hero system of GW1.

Centaur: Followers of Ventari

Dwarf: The Royal Guard

Envoy: Doom of the Betrayer

Margonite: Generals of Kourna

Renegade: Razor Warband

Imperator: The Shaman Caste (If we implement the first revenant redesign idea above)

Ritualist: The Tengu Delegates (If we implement the second revenant redesign idea above)

All the swarms would work the same way. Mechanic skills F1, F2, and F3 would be tied to one hero each, F4 would be a group action for the three heroes, and F5 would swap legend, switching to another swarm. Each hero would have an individual health bar, and if dead, his skill would change to a respawn option.

The new slot skills would be shouts, themed around boosting the heroes and giving them orders.


Just some random ideas to begin the thread. Waiting for yours! =)

Profession Redesign series:Elementalist - Mesmer - Necromancer - Engineer - Ranger - Thief - Guardian - Revenant - Warrior

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while i think there needs to be a bunch of changes to the revenant. I am satisfied with the concept, but I do think a number of issues need to be addressed in some manner.However, not to be mean but the whole idea to make everything a ground targeted tablet really makes me cringe. The rev couldn't even enter the water, because we wouldn't have a single legend that would be useable.

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A rework like this would require the resources akin to those needed for an entire set of elite specs, or even an entire expansion, combined.

I'm not huge fan of the whole thing, to be honest. I like Rev as is. It needs some work, but it doesn't need to be broken down and rebuild as something else entirely.

The main problem, from my perspective and experience playing the class, is the limited choice in utility skills. Some skills simply have limited or next to no usefulness in certain modes. I've seen people suggest to allow us to mix and match utility skills regardless of equipped legend, but I feel that just makes the legend swapping system redundant, or at least strips it of its unique identity.

Two other ideas I've seen being suggested (repeatedly), which I do believe have some potential, is to either create a set of general revenant utility skills that can be used with any legend, or add an extra, fourth utility skill for every legend currently in the game and with future elite specs.

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The Revenant isn't so far gone that it needs to be remade from the ground up. I for one think it all "clicks" but that there's an issue of how everything runs on its own. If we're throwing out big change ideas I'll contribute my ideas. This here regards baseline Revenant without either Elite spec:

  • Remove energy cost from Weapon skills and increase the cooldowns of each weapon skill slightly to modestly depending on the skill and original cost.
  • Remove all cooldowns from 7-0 skills, increase their energy costs depending on how much cooldown it originally had.
  • Upkeep utilities are one of the best Revenant mechanics but increasing their energy cost would be extremely detrimental to their viability so leave them be.
  • Healing skills are one of the most controversial issues with Revenant. They get two but many players feel that even having two isn't enough because they're clearly balanced down because, well, you have two. This creates a playstyle problem where a Revenant playing a build that focuses on mostly one Legend and having another for hugely different scenarios will be stuck in one and not be able to change out without serious repercussions. Excluding Ventari, increase the base healing on all healing skills by a significant amount and add a 20 second global timer with a small energy cost depending on Legend to all heal skills. Exclude Ventari's Will from this timer as its healing skill functions on a different principle than the other Legends. This allows Revenant to play mono-Legends without sacrificing the principle of rotating legends to heal.
  • Implement one additional utility (7-9) skill for each Legend that you can choose over one of the three already in place just like any other profession does. Focus these new skills on something that Revenant lacks while on that Legend but keeps in tune with the Legend. This will allow far more build customization. Putting forth my personal ideas would be based on boon-stealing for Shiro (his greatest treachery was acting as a thief as well as an assassin), additional condition removal for Jalis (having three condition removed every 30 seconds on the "tank" legend shows how backwards ANet was thinking when designing it and their complete disregard for keeping it in line to tank against relevant damage-dealing), a group barrier skill for Ventari (barrier is supposed to relate to the Earth element and Ventari is all about the Earth), and a condition copy and paste on enemies skill for Mallyx (this is one of my biggest hangsup with how Revenant was designed, with Mallyx the idea is neutralizing your conditions through Resistance and punish your enemies with them in return but the only way to do that is Pulsating Pestilence, which only activates when you swap Legends, AKA move off of Mallyx and lose your capacity to generate Resistance!)
  • Make the damn buttons to change your selected Legends bigger already. I guarantee you that one out of every three times I go to change a legend I press the legend button and swapped my active and reserve Legend instead. Sometimes I just have to sit around for 10 seconds because you can't change Legends while that cooldown is active for some silly reason and sometimes it literally kills my Revenant because I had to swap suddenly before an engagement in WvW!

With Herald, the same ideas of no-utility cooldown are still in play but work a little differently. Because of how Facets work on the Glint Legend, you can't manually deactivate them without swapping Legends, depleting your energy, or consuming the Facet and forcing it onto cooldown. Simply put, I would maintain how they are now but remove the cooldown after activating the Consume Facet and instead make each Consume Facet require an energy cost. If you're above that energy cost, you will consume the Facet, use the skill, and it deactivates but if you're below the energy cost you simply deactivate the Facet. This will create a need for Energy above neutral energy generation while on Glint because of the weapon skills no longer costing energy. The global healing skill timer would only affect Consume Facet of Light allowing Glint's Legend to use the Regen Facet freely and if activated while the cooldown is still in place, it will simply deactivate the Facet much like if you had not enough Energy for the other Facets.

I have many ideas for Renegade but none that I could solidly put into words for this post. The most immediate change would be to disconnect the GM traits from "Improved Kalla's Fervor". I said this before the Lasting Legacy nerf and I will say it again, tying so much damage into that Trait is unhealthy for the trait line. Renegade is built as a damage spec and that additional damage from that trait suffocates the viability of the other two GM traits. While Righteous Rebel got a big buff, it's still caught in the limbo around Lasting Legacy. Make what "Improved Kalla's Fervor" is baseline to Renegade (so that each stack of Kalla's Fervor always grants 3% condi damage and 50 ferocity) and instead make Lasting Legacy more about offense boon support. Adding group Fury to Lasting Legacy would be great as it would provide a source of Fury to Renegade besides the lackluster "gain Fury when you hit a 50% health enemy". Renegade has two traits in Renegade's trait line that activate when gaining Fury yet only has that one source of Fury that only begins to activate after something you're fighting is half defeated. This would allow Renegade to look at their GM traits more actively depending on their party composition like many other specs do: they can take the Might and Fury from Lasting Legacy if the group needs it, they can take the Alacrity from Righteous Rebel if the group needs it, or they can take the additional damage from Vindication if the group doesn't need the Renegade to provide any more support. This change would be extremely healthy for Renegade.

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Please no, profession mechanic that makes you move around a tablet the whole time would make me drop this class for good. ventari tablet is the worst part of rev, I'd rework that legend completely, not make the whole profession revolve around it.

I think rev is good in concept, like a lot of people I think a full rework would be removing energy costs on weapons, and adding an extra utility skill to each legend so you have some choice. I don't think weapon skills need increased cd's, they're already in line with other proffesion cd's. Having extra utility skills to choose from would help the pvp/pve balance; like assassin stance are all pretty usefull in pvp, where mobility is huge and quickness is rare. But none of the skills increase your dps, which is all that matters in pve, so shiro stance is basically useless there. If you add an extra utility that increases dps so you could replace impossible odds with it for pve content, you could buff power rev back into viability.

Dwarf stance and ventari could use full reworks on abilities; dwarf abilites are all random and have no synergy, and the tablet is really unfun to lug around.

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Unlike quite a few in this thread I think many of the underlying concepts are quite valid for a class. I'd keep most of them. That being said, I'd make massive reworks to how traits/scaling works to enable actual non-hybrid-but-role-switchin play, something clearly indicated by the current setup of invoking these legends, but never implemented well.

Passive bonuses of invoked legendFirst of all, each legend needs to enable you to fulfill its primary role even if you lack the gear for it. To that end, they should all give massive buffs to you whenever they are enabled. These are very distinctly not obtained through some trait, but part of the base legend. Examples:

  • Ventari gives you 600 healing power and 300 Concentration and your your autoattacks produce the healing AE pulse of the Ventari tablet around you with a PPM (procs-per-minute) of 30 or so.
  • Shiro grants 300 Power, Precision and Ferocity and your non-autoattack weapon skills cause bonus power damage to targets affected by damaging conditions from you.
  • Mallyx grants 300 condition damage, Precision and Expertise and causes all your attacks to inflict Bleeding of varying duration based on their cooldown.
  • Kalla gives 300 condition damage, expertise and power and allies taking damage around you further give you +allstats, stacking, for a medium duration.

And so on. The idea being that even if I am a power DPS Revenant, should I switch to Ventari I'm an "okay" healer. Likewise if I go Mallyx I'm an "alright" condition damage dealer. To balance this, overall base scaling of Revenant has to be lower than other specs, though IMO I'd do this via traits: Revenant would not have minor traits, flat out. As so much power is passively baked into the legends, there's no need to bake passive power into the traitlines.

Energy income and expenseTo go with the above change, I'd use energy more as a "role commitment" mechanic, to curb the flexibility the inherently strong legends offer. So it'd work like this:

  • Weapon skills no longer cost Energy.
  • Utility skills have very low CDs, if any. It's all just energy cost, always.
  • Energy regen starts at +0 when you enter a legend, then every 3s, increases by 1. So you need to stay 15s in a legend to get full regen.
  • However in turn, you enter a legend at full power, able to go wild for the first few skills.
  • Obviously this change requires a do-over of all energy costs and CDs.
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How i'd do it ;) :

  • Keep energy

  • Remove energy cost from weapon skills

  • Make it so utility skills ain't attached to a legend.

  • Legend now just grant you a bonus/an aura of power when you have it.Shiro: increase power damage by 10% (grant 180 power from F2)Mallyx: Reduce condition damage taken -20% (15% from F2)Jalis: Reduce incoming damage -20% (15% from F2)Ventari: Outgoing healing +10% (+10% incoming heal with F2)Glint: Boon duration +20% (10% from F2)Kalla: Movement speed +33% (25% from F2)

  • Add a F2 that summon the spirit of your current legend spreading a lessen effect to nearby allies for a 5 upkeep cost. CD 30 seconds. (revenant also affected)

  • double taping F2 while being an herald grant boons to allies.

  • double taping F2 while being a renegade grant max 5 kalla's fervor stacks to allies.

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@otto.5684 said:Remove legend swap and energy. Select utilities like every other class.

Yeah, I think these two are the biggest problems with revenant. I understand that some people love them, but I'm confident they're hurting the profession design. It's the same with the elementalist and the engineer, they have more options than the rest, and that leads to those options being worse for balance's sake.

@GoZero.9708 said:

@otto.5684 said:Remove legend swap and energy. Select utilities like every other class.

What would you implement as a unique mechanic in its place?

And that's where I personally would like the discussion to go. A new unique mechanic, to replace energy and legend-locked slot skills. Not some dumb skills which are no different than weapon or slot skills, or a copy of a mechanic already used by another profession. Something really unique that stands out on its own.

I went the tablet 2.0 route, because the positioning gameplay could be really fun, but there could be other options, like removing the tablet altogether, and saving it for an elite specialization. Few ideas:

  • Transformation: The most obvious choice. Unfortunately, it's the core mechanic for another profession already, the necromancer and the Death Shroud.
  • Belt: Give each legend various unique mechanic skills. Same idea as relic (tablet 2.0), but without the relic and the placement gameplay. Might be too similar to the engineer belt.
  • Split: Two characters in one. The revenant is now two characters, and when you swap legend, you swap to the second split, with a separate health bar and separate cooldowns, leaving the first split frozen in time. Conditions and boons from the first split stop affecting you, but their timer keeps running. If you go back to the first split and they haven't ran out yet, they start affecting you again. Possibility to have different armor and weapon sets for each split.
  • Slot Skill Kits: Same as engineer kits, but they swap slot skills instead of weapon skills. It's the easiest and more comfortable solution, but balance problems would still stay, and maybe even get worse.
  • Legend-based weapon skills: Similar to elementalist attunements. Problem is that we keep getting new legends with every elite specialization, increasing the number of skills, which would lead to balance problems worse than the elementalist's, even if we removed weapon swap (which would suck, anyway).
  • Different mechanic for each Legend: Simplified versions of the mechanics from other professions. Dwarf could have adrenaline and bursts like the warrior, but you only get adrenaline when hit, Centaur a tablet pet, Mallyx a transformation like the necromancer, but you only get energy when suffering condition damage... Could be interesting, but might be too chaotic, and feel unfair for the other professions.
  • Floating weapons: Have the inactive weapon set float behind you, usable as some sort of minion. Or just use legend-themed weapons. Shiro could have some floating swords, that attack when you do. Jalis floating hammers. Glint spears. These weapons would attack simultaneously with you, kinda like the original idea for the guardian's spirit weapons. Could be too similar to mesmer illusions.

I don't know, anyone else has any other ideas? The last one, floating weapons, is the only one from those above that I think could work, but should go in line with a mesmer redesign so that both are kept unique. I could elaborate on it later, just need to rewrite my notes on it.

Edit: I've added the floating weapon idea to the first post:


Revenant - Full redesign (second option)

An alternative to the above idea, born from the same principles. Instead of relics, it would use Spirit Weapons, a new type of minion, that wouldn't attack or move unless commanded. Similar in concept to guardian spirit weapons

This redesign would also include a fifth legend, but with the new mechanic it makes no sense to keep the previous choice. I'll go with Master Togo instead, as "Legendary Ritualist", since the new mechanic is heavily inspired by GW1's weapon spells and item spells, and revenant could really use some binding rituals as slot skills anyway.

These spirit weapons would float behind the revenant, waiting to strike. Each legendary character would have his own set, formed by six weapons. Every set would have five hidden basic skills, each linked to a weapon skill slot, and they would play whenever you use its linked weapon skill slot. Also, there would be three mechanic skills at slots F1, F2, and F3, for special abilities. Some examples:

  • Centaur: Harathi Scepters. Healing role.
  • Dwarf: Deldrimor Maces. Defensive role.
  • Envoy: Shiro'ken Swords. Direct Damage role.
  • Margonite: Tormented Sickles. Condition Damage role.
  • Ritualist: Imperial Urns. Support role.

So, if your current legend is dwarf, using the second weapon skill (no matter which weapon you're wielding, be it sword, staff, etc) would trigger the second skill from the Deldrimor Maces. This could require an update for weapon skills, to make sure every slot has a common role so you don't get weird combinations.

Both this idea and the previous one could be used as elite specialization ideas instead, too.


This could work well too, and it's pretty unique on its own.

@Flauvious.6195 said:Please no, profession mechanic that makes you move around a tablet the whole time would make me drop this class for good. ventari tablet is the worst part of rev, I'd rework that legend completely, not make the whole profession revolve around it.

My major gripe with Ventari's Tablet is that it's in the slot skills, not the tablet itself. I think positioning elements and then making them do stuff is an interesting idea, that no other profession explores. Only the Scourge has something similar with the shades.

The relic (Tablet 2.0) idea is for the mechanic skills only. Slot skills would be freely selectable from a list, like all the other professions.

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I know many players here want to change how your utilities are confined to a single Legend but I think removing the Legend-locked utilities and making it a free-for-all would be a mistake. The swapping right bar is Revenant's most unique aspect and rather than making it a free-for-all, I support adding additional utility skills on each individual Legend.

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It doesn't need a redesign. If only balance changes were made that didn't go against the current design, everything about Revenant would actually be fine. It's all the counter-intuitive changes that were made over the past two years that need to be addressed.

Why have this energy mechanic, then start attaching cooldowns that defeat the purpose?Why keep reducing/removing our damage skills and traits, but leave us weak to conditions?Why only improve support skills/traits? Are we supposed to be heavily armored cheerleaders?

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I don’t think a full redesign is necessary. I like the idea of switching focus mid-fight. No other class can swap 6-10 skills mid fight. It just sucks that those 6-10 skills compete with our weapon skills for energy. Compared to a thief...2-5 are based on initiative...6-10 are on timers. Dropping energy costs on 2-5 would be a good QoL improvement.

I like the idea of adding a 4th utility per stance. It would give some better build options. And with 2 elite specs rev has 21 posibile utility skills...other classes get 28 utility options. But Inthink legend-locking those utilities should stay...that’s part of the class.

Also...Renegade is suppose to be an ambush class, yet it has 0 stealth or otherwise skills to reflect that. Whereas a mirage just has to dodge to open up an ambush skill. Its like the person who was working on the renegade came up with that idea then got moved to the mirage team.

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The 7 changes (not complete overhauls) I think would make the most difference (plus would make most of them work underwater) are as follows:

  1. add 2 more utility skills to each legend
  2. every base legend needs an F2 ability that is specific to the legend you are using, and Herald/Kalla would add extra F abilities
  3. Glint/Herald - needs to be switched to use the ammo system. Anet already switched a bunch of other skills to and leave the F2 the upkeep. Also get rid of the big dragon animation on the elite skill - it sucks to have such a huge telegraphed elite.
  4. kalla/renegade - needs to be changed to work how the current Glint/Heralds functions, with the mobile AOE with upkeeps
  5. make the Invocation line all about invoking the legends. so base it on when your swap you legend and whether your health is high/low, energy high/low, condition/boons, # of enemies/allies around you. This means every trait not just 3 of the 12 like it currently is.
  6. (someone else suggested this, but it was a cool concept) Make the Venturi/Salvation have 2 different modes - stowed and not stowed. So this means your utility skills 6-0 would work similar to how they work now, but stowed would be more selfish, whereas summoned would be more group focused. Your F2 skill would summon and stow the tablet.
  7. remove the little healing orbs that venturi and the staff drop and just make it an AOE.

This one is an overall comment towards all professions.Make each trait actually mean something - get rid of the minor trait line and just give us 3 or 4 choices in each line(currently some are meaningless/useless - so there could probably just be 3 like it currently is). Plus, make it a choice and a difficult choice at that. You can have this or that - NOT both or all. traits should be about flavor, not if you have a permanent speed boost or do 7% more damage. If a profession needs to have these types of traits, then Anet was either being lazy or profession need a boost somewhere and should be looked at.

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As of now, I would do only 2 main changes:

  • Give them a 1h ranged condition weapon. Like a main hand axe. This way core revenant can go ranged/ranged or condition/condition, which they can't go right now as they never got the missing extra weapons when they were changed from single a weapon to a sweapon swap profession.
  • Make their weapon skills have components that change based on their legend. Not fully changing the skill sets like with elementalists, just parts of them. For example, take main hand sword.
    • The rift from Rift Slash now has a different effect based on legend:
      • Shiro : The Rift does direct damage as it does now.
      • Mallyx: The rift causes torment.
      • Jalis: The rift gives retaliation to allies.
      • Ventari: The rift causes a healing blast.
      • Glint: The rift cures a condition from allies.
      • Kalla: The rift causes bleeding.
    • The projectiles from Precision Strike now has a different effect based on legend:
      • Shiro : The projectiles become unblockable.
      • Mallyx: The projectiles cause chilled as they do now.
      • Jalis: The projectiles cause weakness.
      • Ventari: Lose a condition for each projectile that hits an enemy.
      • Glint: The projectiles remove a boon.
      • Kalla: The projectiles cause short burning.
    • Unrelenting Assault gains a new effect that triggers for each different enemy hit, meaning hits on the same enemy won't trigger this effect extra times:
      • Shiro: Gain 1 stack of revenant Unblockable for 5s (the effect from Phase Traversal and Malicious Reprisal)
      • Mallyx: Gain 2s resistance.
      • Jalis: Gain 2s Vigor and 1 stack of Stability.
      • Ventari: Gain 3s Regeneration and lose a condition.
      • Glint: Gain 5 energy.
      • Kalla: Gain 1 stack of Kalla's Fervor and 2s Alacrity.
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I would just do a partial redesign, targeting Herald and Retribution traitlines as well as Sword.1)I would remove the Eye for an Eye trait and move Steadfast Rejuvenation in it's place2)I would place Enhanced Bulwark in the place where Steadfast Rejuvenation was originaly3)I would change Soothing Bastion to trigger on being disabled with a recharge of 604)I would add a trait where Enhanced Bulwark was originaly that reduces weapon recharge rate by 20% while in Dragon Stance and by 10% while outside of it.This trait will be called Elder's Finesse5)I would swap the places of Sword 3 with Sword 5, so off hand sword can be our best hybrid weapon (viable for both condi and power builds, grants us the ability to gain evade frames and a small chance to land an aoe attack that imobilizez opponents). Sword main hand will also transform from a balanced weapon,to a very aggresive weapon on top of which you can add the offense leaning axe off hand6)I would change Steadfast Rejuvenation to reduce the casting time of Jallis heal to 3/4 and have it gain a 25% for it to activate when your health drops to 50% while outside of Legendary Dwarf Stance. The recharge for the passive effect will be 45. - this is done so Jallis can be as viable as Kala is for PvP, in terms of having a legend stance where you build up energy just so you can blast your weapon skills like fireworks during new years and have a reliable heal on the side.

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1) Rework it so 1-5 abilities don't require energy. The worst part about rev now is that if you the gameplay is way to based on "either/or" ... if I use impossible odds for the dps boost, I can only auto-attack (which is boring and makes it feel like I am playing WoW or EQ again). If I want to use 1-5 abilities for more "active" combat, I won't have the energy for my utilities when I need them.

2) Give revs a choice of utilities, (and maybe even for heals and elites) based on the legend chosen. This goes back to the last sentence in my first paragraph a little. Right now, so many utilities in the revenant kit are so situational, but the way rev plays is that you either sit on energy (and do nothing and be bored and don't do much damage) so that you can use the right utility when the situation comes up, or you attempt to get the most damage out of your rev and then when you need a defensive move or escape or whatever, you're out of energy. I think the intent was to make gameplay more difficult and interactive, but it has the opposite effect. Every other prof has plenty of "oh shnikeys" buttons, but only the rev has to gimp his play just to ensure he can use it.

3) If you don't do 1 or 2 then they should at least have some abilities GAIN energy for more interesting ways to play rev.

The problem is... we got limited build options because locked utility sets, and on top of that, we have mana (renamed energy) AND cooldowns. If you've played the other profs and know the fluidity of having no resource like energy/mana, revenant will always feel off.

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@pah.4931 said:

The problem is... we got limited build options because locked utility sets, and on top of that, we have mana (renamed energy) AND cooldowns. If you've played the other profs and know the fluidity of having no resource like energy/mana, revenant will always feel off.

Yep we need at least 2 more utilities per legend and a set of generic utilities for invocation. Maybe a something that would max out our energy or give us something like barrier to you energy bar - so instead of maxing at 100%, maybe we can get 150%. Then Anet could give us an extra main and/or offhand weapon to go with it.

However, I posted this somewhere else - reduce energy cost and recharge time by 50% for 2 weeks or a month and see what happens. If it seems OP at that point then re-adjust.

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@GoZero.9708 said:I know many players here want to change how your utilities are confined to a single Legend but I think removing the Legend-locked utilities and making it a free-for-all would be a mistake. The swapping right bar is Revenant's most unique aspect and rather than making it a free-for-all, I support adding additional utility skills on each individual Legend.

As long as he gets something new in exchange, it should be fine. Legend-swapping is like attunements and kits anyway, it's not that special.

I do think the legend-locked slot skills are his biggest problem from a balance perspective, hence why I like to search a replacement for them.

@Rasp Sabreblade.5421 said:The 7 changes (not complete overhauls) I think would make the most difference (plus would make most of them work underwater) are as follows:

  1. add 2 more utility skills to each legend
  2. every base legend needs an F2 ability that is specific to the legend you are using, and Herald/Kalla would add extra F abilities
  3. Glint/Herald - needs to be switched to use the ammo system. Anet already switched a bunch of other skills to and leave the F2 the upkeep. Also get rid of the big dragon animation on the elite skill - it sucks to have such a huge telegraphed elite.
  4. kalla/renegade - needs to be changed to work how the current Glint/Heralds functions, with the mobile AOE with upkeeps
  5. make the Invocation line all about invoking the legends. so base it on when your swap you legend and whether your health is high/low, energy high/low, condition/boons, # of enemies/allies around you. This means every trait not just 3 of the 12 like it currently is.
  6. (someone else suggested this, but it was a cool concept) Make the Venturi/Salvation have 2 different modes - stowed and not stowed. So this means your utility skills 6-0 would work similar to how they work now, but stowed would be more selfish, whereas summoned would be more group focused. Your F2 skill would summon and stow the tablet.
  7. remove the little healing orbs that venturi and the staff drop and just make it an AOE.

This one is an overall comment towards all professions.Make each trait actually mean something - get rid of the minor trait line and just give us 3 or 4 choices in each line(currently some are meaningless/useless - so there could probably just be 3 like it currently is). Plus, make it a choice and a difficult choice at that. You can have this or that - NOT both or all. traits should be about flavor, not if you have a permanent speed boost or do 7% more damage. If a profession needs to have these types of traits, then Anet was either being lazy or profession need a boost somewhere and should be looked at.

Agree with the second point, Facet of Nature and Citadel Orders should only be available when using Glint and Kalla respectively. The other legends need their own things in that place, either unique stuff, or skills based on a shared theme from the elite specialization.

@"LucianTheAngelic.7054" said:just no. As much as I like ventari I don't want that mechanic on every single legend.

What about the second idea, the one with the "spirit weapons"?

I just want Ventari's Tablet outside the slot skills, I don't care if it has to be removed and reintroduced later with a new elite specialization using relics.

@"MithranArkanere.8957" said:As of now, I would do only 2 main changes:

  • Give them a 1h ranged condition weapon. Like a main hand axe. This way core revenant can go ranged/ranged or condition/condition, which they can't go right now as they never got the missing extra weapons when they were changed from single a weapon to a sweapon swap profession.
  • Make their weapon skills have components that change based on their legend. Not fully changing the skill sets like with elementalists, just parts of them. For example, take main hand sword.
    • The rift from Rift Slash now has a different effect based on legend:
      • Shiro : The Rift does direct damage as it does now.
      • Mallyx: The rift causes torment.
      • Jalis: The rift gives retaliation to allies.
      • Ventari: The rift causes a healing blast.
      • Glint: The rift cures a condition from allies.
      • Kalla: The rift causes bleeding.
    • The projectiles from Precision Strike now has a different effect based on legend:
      • Shiro : The projectiles become unblockable.
      • Mallyx: The projectiles cause chilled as they do now.
      • Jalis: The projectiles cause weakness.
      • Ventari: Lose a condition for each projectile that hits an enemy.
      • Glint: The projectiles remove a boon.
      • Kalla: The projectiles cause short burning.
    • Unrelenting Assault gains a new effect that triggers for each different enemy hit, meaning hits on the same enemy won't trigger this effect extra times:
      • Shiro: Gain 1 stack of revenant Unblockable for 5s (the effect from Phase Traversal and Malicious Reprisal)
      • Mallyx: Gain 2s resistance.
      • Jalis: Gain 2s Vigor and 1 stack of Stability.
      • Ventari: Gain 3s Regeneration and lose a condition.
      • Glint: Gain 5 energy.
      • Kalla: Gain 1 stack of Kalla's Fervor and 2s Alacrity.

The problem with that is it becomes a logistical nightmare in the long term, since revenant keeps getting more and more legends and weapons, growing the work exponentially. The elementalist has four attunements, and no more, so the different weapon skills work.

I think the major culprit of this is the concept of legends itself, which can't be properly represented without multiple restrictions. Had they used "schools of magic" or whatever instead, we would be better now. Something like "crystal magic" and then you can attune the crystals to 4-5 types, and you choose 2 at a time, and all your attacks use crystalline effects (instead of the ugly black/red mist thing) which can be dyed with your current type. Then new elite specializations don't add new crystal types at all, so it stays viable and non-exponential. My only gripe with this idea is that it's too similar to the elementalist, and I prefer having unique mechanics for each core profession.

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