Is Renegade the most poorly designed elite spec in this game?

[The Ace.9105]

Renegade works pretty decent on pvp tbh and when other classes get more nerfs it could even become op. Renegade just isn't the same role than herald and ppl are already used to the herald high dps/roaming role and revenant players don't really want to change their role in pvp cause the more bunkerish role can be considered to be boring.

[Buran.3796]

^ The only "role" which the Renegade is suited for is to feed deaths to the enemy team. And is a shame that the forums didn't split between specializations, so the full front page of the Revenant is full of threads about the Renegade, which is useless at the game modes I play the most.

[The Ace.9105]

@"Buran.3796" said:^ The only "role" which the Renegade is suited for is to feed deaths to the enemy team. And is a shame that the forums didn't split between specializations, so the full front page of the Revenant is full of threads about the Renegade, which is useless at the game modes I play the most.

I played my renegade to the legend last season and the spec in general as a team fighter and side noder is actually not that bad.

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/68254/renegade-build-for-pvp-last-season-legend

[aaron.7850]

the summon skills are so underwhelming

[Thornwolf.9721]

I mean as stated above, im begining to think this is not strictly speaking a "Renegade" issue and more of a "Whole class issue" They've changed and removed so much of the original class that honestly they need to bring back most of it and rework the functionality and utility of each legend and add one more core legend for EACH type of build core has. So We need one more condi, one more support, one more tank and one more Power-dps.

This along with a Ranged condi-weapon core, and maybe ONE more melee weapon perhaps a 2-hander for core would mean we'd have more options. Right now the class suffers from being pigeon-holed into a select few builds and theory craft has become exceedingly limited. The traitlines are NOT strong enough to compensate for the lacking utility skills. And while we get 2 sets which is to be our special thing, a good chunk of them are just utter garbage and never get used. So yes we have 2 sets of utilities of which maybe at max 3 are used on each bar at any given time.

E-specs need to be more like enhancements so to speak, so like Glint could be a support E-spec that is different from the other 2 you have in core. But you are NOT required and it DOES NOT feel like the class is built around this spec (As it seems and feels to be currently.) Honestly just move glint over to core at this point, and replace her with something and bring herald in as a core traitline? Like seriously since the whole class was built around her, then she needs to be core to the class and be a core legend for us to choose between. Yes Im aware that a "Kalla/glint" build would be wacky as all heck, but this means they could completely Remove true nature from the game which is one of the biggest gripes about herald. And then herald would get The "Echo" ability to restore energy.

All of this is assuming they worked on glint to make her less of the powerhouse she is, and more defined in her role but still maintaining its identity. Then the herald Icon could be used either for something else, or just removed. Core revenants would then have a pretty sizable oomf to their kit. That or we need as I stated above several legends to compensate the way the class is built so core can run their builds, and run a array of builds JUST LIKE THE OTHER CLASSES. But the customization needs to really come from traits, this is where the traits should be freaky strong because we don't have utility skills that we can choose between..

[Virdo.1540]

No. Its not.

[Adenin.5973]

Other than the unreliable way that the damage is dealt on some of the shortbow skills, I really don't like it since it has bleeding on it (same thing for the renegade utility skills). Bleeding simply does not synergize at all with the core revenant stuff. There should be fire and torment only, because that's what revenant gives you.

[JohnWater.5760]

We are in 2020 and this Thread is still valid.

@Adenin.5973 said:There should be fire and torment only, because that's what revenant gives you.

I totally agree.

Shortbow should increase the direct damage or the cond damage. They are pretty weak.And utilities skills are also, the focus is totally on the weapon and the shortbow loses on that.

[DonArkanio.6419]

Yup, it's the most boring design in the game since the first Beta Weekend of PoF

[KawaiiTimOfDestiny.1285]

@Ellisande.5218 said:Involving Charr at all made this spec a nonstarter. I hate Charr. THe species summoned should have matched the species of the player. So a Sylvari would summon Sylvari, a human humans, etc.

I hate this idea.This is like saying Shiro should've used guns instead because I dressed my character like a marksman.

[Raknar.4735]

@KawaiiTimOfDestiny.1285 said:

@Ellisande.5218 said:Involving Charr at all made this spec a nonstarter. I hate Charr. THe species summoned should have matched the species of the player. So a Sylvari would summon Sylvari, a human humans, etc.

I hate this idea.This is like saying Shiro should've used guns instead because I dressed my character like a marksman.

Bandido Shiro has a nice ring to it ;)

[Game of Bones.8975]

I play my Renagade because it's fun. It's a good roleplaying class that sparks the imagination rather than ask "how can I maximize this class to eke out every point of damage".

I would have liked to see them use a longbow instead of short. Keeping the enemy at range seems to be the theme of the profession; use your longbow to taunt them into position and then call down your warband from the mists for condition effects while swapping to your melee weapons and wading into battle.

[Aeolus.3615]

@The Ace.9105 said:

@"Buran.3796" said:^ The only "role" which the Renegade is suited for is to feed deaths to the enemy team. And is a shame that the forums didn't split between specializations, so the full front page of the Revenant is full of threads about the Renegade, which is useless at the game modes I play the most.

I played my renegade to the legend last season and the spec in general as a team fighter and side noder is actually not that bad.

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/68254/renegade-build-for-pvp-last-season-legend

On pvp side, on small scale the class works decently, when numbers grow the class starts performing more decently on support roles.

Been playing the last 2 days on renegade/jalis build on wanderer stats, the almost perma stab and alacrity is very good.

[lodjur.1284]

@"DiogoSilva.7089" said:1. Shortbow makes no sense

When you look at all other revenant's weapons, you can tell the intended playstyle for each of them, and how each skill contributes to that playstyle. Swords? Isolate a target, and then deal more damage to isolated targets. Staff? Disrupt your opponent while defending yourself. Hammer? Keep enemies at range to gain an advantage over them (you can even trick the AI to stay away from you with the leaping #3 skill). Mace (with axe)? Pull enemies towards you and bombard them conditions once they're close to each other.

So, what's the style behind shortbow? Which combos can you make with it? I can only see synergy between skill #4 and #5. You put a fire field and then knock them down to make sure they stay there burning. Everything else seems completely unrelated. If #4 and #5 are all about AoE, then why are other skills so focused on single-targetting, up to the point of being anti-AoE (sevenshot)? Why are there no skills that support seven shot? No leap backwards, nothing, except an AoE knockback that seems more fitting to the fire field instead. What does this weapons wants to be or to do, exactly?

Sevenshot is a mess but would be fine as a normal cone (like ranger shortbow 2 for example)

The rest of the skills are fine if slightly boring. Spiritcrush being able to target behind you would make the weapon feel a lot better.

2. All utilities skills sharing the same mechanic is a mistake in a profession that can't swap utility skills.

While it makes sense for other professions to get an entire set of new skills that share the same type, as you are not forced to use them all (for example, dragonhunters use a combination of traps and reflection walls/ blocking heals/ quickness shouts/ power signets, etc), the same is not true to Revenant. Being stuck to the same utility skills forces Anet to make them individually more distinct for the sake of... well, making them more enjoyable? And this does happens with other revenant's specs. Jalis has a road, flying hammers, stone transformation and CC chains in the same kit. Mallyx allows you to leap into dark fields, transform into a demon, or curse your opponents by touching them. This kind of diversity makes base Revenant fun. And while Herald uses the same upkeep mechanic for all of its skills, each one of them has a second, active skill with unique mechanics, so you can breath fire into a location, knockback foes with massive wings or revert damage done to you.

Here comes Renegade, and you can summon charr to fight at your side, buffing you and your team as long as you stay with them. Cool! Except it's not a single skill, but all of them. Every single one is about summoning a charr and putting yourself nearby them. No matter if you want to CC, or if you want to life steal, the gameplay is always the same. There's not even a single skill that, say, inverts this situation and allows to be you the one to protect the warband, considering how frail they are. There's no single skill that allows you to interact with the warband in other interesting and creative ways other than that single mechanic copy-pasted into 5 different skills. How boring and lazy does that feels to us, players? Seems like a sign that this elite spec was rushed.

Summons are an awful mechanic overall.

3. F skills have no purpose.

And no synergy with each other. Two of them are random party buffs, and the other is an... AoE nuke... hmm... Why? Were they chosen at random?

If you look at other professions, F skills have unique themes and purpose. Guardian's ones represent their virtues, and gives them some passive power and interesting decision-making between sacrificing their own passive benefits for the good of the party or not. Mesmer's ones also offer an interesting decision between DPS or burst/ utility, and illusion shattering is a very strong thematic quality that gives personality to that profession. Ranger's F skills are all about the different ways they have to interact with their pets.

When you look at renegade's F skills, they don't seem to have any single purpose or any unified thematic quality at all. Why isn't F3 a shortbow skill? It looks like one. Maybe it was meant to be once once, and Anet changed it halfway during development? And if it is meant to be a warband skill (according to its description), why isn't it a kalla's skill then, instead of repeating the same summoning mechanic 5 times? And why is such a nuke skill coupled with... alacrity on F4? Really? Only F2 seems to tie with the spec (as it allows you to make an extra use of the stacks from your new passive), even though the effect itself is bland.

The f2-4 skills actually feel great.

They're a great tool to dump energy, which gives you synergy with charged mists and the effects are relatively impactful.

I could see f2 at least being made instant tho, the casttime feels weird on it and f3 getting a diet casttime and/or energy drain moved to the start of the cast instead of the end.

4. Interesting ideas in theory, bad gameplay execution.

Arrows that go through portals? Cool! But the only interesting thing that came out of it was an inverted cone skill in sevenshot. Why does the renegade have no portal mechanic like mesmers have? It would be fitting. Why is there no way to create your own portals and decide where arrows would hit? That would be creative and different. But nope. Outside of seven shot, the shortbow and its "cool-looking portal arrows!" concept is just a copy past of other professions' bow skillsets.

What about fighting alongside your warband? Cool! But other than summoning each one of them in the exact same way, with the exact same playstyle, there's nothing to it, as discussed above. No way to protect them. No way to interact with them in different ways. No way to order them to change behaviour, or to follow you, or anything like that.

Summons bad.

5. The spec doesn't addresses the core issues of the base revenant.

In fact, it is completely unaware of them. Outside of offering a much needed ranged condition weapon to revenant, the designer behind this spec is or was completely oblivious to revenant's poor state of energy management in PvE in non-herald builds. Nothing was done to fix this, and in fact, it was only made worse with the new, pointless, overcosted F skills. Renegade has yet another "turn your upkeep skill, do 2-3 different attacks, then AA until your energy reaches 0. Swap legends and repeat" gameplay flow. There's no acknowledgment of this problem. There was no attempt to avoid it in the first place. Nothing.

It does help with energy management. F2-f4 are excellent energy dumps for charged mists.

It was a big DPS buff for condi rev in PvE (due to the awful legend and the good outsides). But there you don't even use the upkeep skill on kalla.

It also allowed support renegade to even exist due to f4. Which does actually use upkeep skills a lot but that's just one playstyle.

Renegade is by far the most interesting version of condi rev in WvW (assuming one doesn't use the awful legend). Giving you powerful passives and 3 extra useful skills that synergize with what condi ren wants to do.

Conclusion

Even if Anet buffs renegade's numbers, it will forever feel like a rushed spec that can only be fixed by a complete rework. And because we know Anet doesn't have the time or the budget to do a complete rework (or else we would have gotten something much better in its place, I bet), all we can do is hope that the next spec is actually given proper time and thought instead of being rushed through the door.

In PvE condi renegade doesn't really miss anything and feels fine to play with a fluid rotation that isn't just upkeep skills.

In WvW all condi renegade really misses to feel better is a decent second condi weapon (ideally 2 handed or both main+offhand) as bow is mediocre there otherwise the spec is in a good spot, if a bit overshadowed by the broken mess that is herald.

[Doctor.1384]

It was rushed and hastily thrown together in order to tick a diversity checkbox after a forum thread complained about not having any female legends, what do you expect to happen when you put a company in that position.

[Aeolus.3615]

@Doctor.1384 said:It was rushed and hastily thrown together in order to tick a diversity checkbox after a forum thread complained about not having any female legends, what do you expect to happen when you put a company in that position.

if thats one of the reasons they should have waiuted for factions and give a dagger mother and daughter(vizu and nika in same legend) that would be 2 female ladies in one ;]

And they should have made a GS norn JOra for example :D rather than this actually pseudo condi spammer :) and her utilitoes cpiçd be the liek renegade have but w/o spirits to take damage.. LOLWards would be a decent mechanics to bring back!

[Lonami.2987]

@"DiogoSilva.7089" said:3. F skills have no purpose.

And no synergy with each other. Two of them are random party buffs, and the other is an... AoE nuke... hmm... Why? Were they chosen at random?

If you look at other professions, F skills have unique themes and purpose. Guardian's ones represent their virtues, and gives them some passive power and interesting decision-making between sacrificing their own passive benefits for the good of the party or not. Mesmer's ones also offer an interesting decision between DPS or burst/ utility, and illusion shattering is a very strong thematic quality that gives personality to that profession. Ranger's F skills are all about the different ways they have to interact with their pets.

When you look at renegade's F skills, they don't seem to have any single purpose or any unified thematic quality at all. Why isn't F3 a shortbow skill? It looks like one. Maybe it was meant to be once once, and Anet changed it halfway during development? And if it is meant to be a warband skill (according to its description), why isn't it a kalla's skill then, instead of repeating the same summoning mechanic 5 times? And why is such a nuke skill coupled with... alacrity on F4? Really? Only F2 seems to tie with the spec (as it allows you to make an extra use of the stacks from your new passive), even though the effect itself is bland.

The slot skills should have been the mechanic skills instead, with each legend having its own "spirits" to summon.

Makes no sense you can use "Citadel Orders" when you are not channeling Kalla either.

@Doctor.1384 said:It was rushed and hastily thrown together in order to tick a diversity checkbox after a forum thread complained about not having any female legends, what do you expect to happen when you put a company in that position.

No jokes, I 100% believe this was the case.

What really makes me mad though, is that there were dozens of better and more interesting female characters ingame. If we were to go to Elona, why not choose Olma instead? She's the leader of the Olmakhan, and used unique sand magic. Kalla is just a random warrior with no special magic whatsoever. Hell, even the summons make no sense, they made new characters instead of using already existing lore figures! Why?

Also, still can't understand why they went with Mallyx, a dumb gorilla, instead of going with Varesh, a far more interesting character, with far more importance for the lore and the story.

Still, the worst part about renegade is that they tried to pull a ritualist elite spec, while not understanding any of what made ritualist interesting to begin with. Either make a true ritualist, with the same themes and colors, or make something different else altogether. Bad copies are a waste of time for everyone.

[Kodama.6453]

@Doctor.1384 said:It was rushed and hastily thrown together in order to tick a diversity checkbox after a forum thread complained about not having any female legends, what do you expect to happen when you put a company in that position.

Highly doubt that this is really the case. Even the premise of your theory here is wrong, there has been a female legend before Kalla already: Glint.

@Aeolus.3615 said:

@Doctor.1384 said:It was rushed and hastily thrown together in order to tick a diversity checkbox after a forum thread complained about not having any female legends, what do you expect to happen when you put a company in that position.

if thats one of the reasons they should have waiuted for factions and give a dagger mother and daughter(vizu and nika in same legend) that would be 2 female ladies in one ;]

And they should have made a GS norn JOra for example :D rather than this actually pseudo condi spammer :) and her utilitoes cpiçd be the liek renegade have but w/o spirits to take damage.. LOLWards would be a decent mechanics to bring back!

I doubt that Vizu and Nika will become legends with the next elite spec for Cantha. Mostly because they fill a thematical niche that is already filled. Thematically, both are assassins and revenant already has the "legendary assassin" with Shiro.

@Lonami.2987 said:

@"DiogoSilva.7089" said:

3. F skills have no purpose.

And no synergy with each other. Two of them are random party buffs, and the other is an... AoE nuke... hmm... Why? Were they chosen at random?

If you look at other professions, F skills have unique themes and purpose. Guardian's ones represent their virtues, and gives them some passive power and interesting decision-making between sacrificing their own passive benefits for the good of the party or not. Mesmer's ones also offer an interesting decision between DPS or burst/ utility, and illusion shattering is a very strong thematic quality that gives personality to that profession. Ranger's F skills are all about the different ways they have to interact with their pets.

When you look at renegade's F skills, they don't seem to have any single purpose or any unified thematic quality at all. Why isn't F3 a shortbow skill? It looks like one. Maybe it was meant to be once once, and Anet changed it halfway during development? And if it is meant to be a warband skill (according to its description), why isn't it a kalla's skill then, instead of repeating the same summoning mechanic 5 times? And why is such a nuke skill coupled with... alacrity on F4? Really? Only F2 seems to tie with the spec (as it allows you to make an extra use of the stacks from your new passive), even though the effect itself is bland.

The slot skills should have been the mechanic skills instead, with each legend having its own "spirits" to summon.

Makes no sense you can use "Citadel Orders" when you are not channeling Kalla either.

@Doctor.1384 said:It was rushed and hastily thrown together in order to tick a diversity checkbox after a forum thread complained about not having any female legends, what do you expect to happen when you put a company in that position.

No jokes, I 100% believe this was the case.

What really makes me mad though, is that there were dozens of better and more interesting female characters ingame. If we were to go to Elona, why not choose Olma instead? She's the leader of the Olmakhan, and used unique sand magic. Kalla is just a random warrior with no special magic whatsoever. Hell, even the summons make no sense, they made new characters instead of using already existing lore figures! Why?

Olma and the Olmakhan were not a thing when they made the Path of Fire expansion. They got introduced later in the living world story and I don't think they have been in development at all while they were working on the elite specs for Path of Fire.

Still, the worst part about renegade is that they tried to pull a ritualist elite spec, while not understanding any of what made ritualist interesting to begin with. Either make a true ritualist, with the same themes and colors, or make something different else altogether. Bad copies are a waste of time for everyone.

They can still make a ritualist elite spec, especially with Cantha as the next expansion. They should just focus on other mechanics than the ghosts, since revenant now has the summons from renegade already.

Maybe they can work with weapon spells and summon weapons for your allies to use, functioning the same like conjured weapons?Maybe they can make an elite spec that focuses on lightning and energy management, some of the ritualist spells in GW1 did something similar.There are still options.

[ASP.8093]

The whole "they needed a girl legend and that's why it's bad" argument is incredibly dumb. Do you think they had another whole spec design and they tossed it for the current renegade? Even if they did have to rush some thematic changes last minute, why would they do that instead of just changing a few animations and names?

Think about how easy it would be to "reflavor" Kalla to almost anything of your choice — Legendary Alchemist, Legendary Jotun Wizard, Legendary Warmarshal, Legendary Paragon, Legendary Frenemy Duo, whatever. Now imagine that process in reverse.

Renegade is clunky for the same reason Scourge, or original Deadeye, or post-nerf Mirage, or "fixed" Hammer Rev ended up clunky: this is just how Anet works sometimes, and it takes quite a while for a new cycle to clean things up (and sometimes they break things instead :anguished: ).

(p.s. I do really wish Mallyx was Varesh instead. Then you could roll around with the two most detailed villains from GW1 if you felt like it.)

[Aeolus.3615]

@ASP.8093 glint was seen of a female dragon :) wich also means we have the only 2 legends as females :)

[Thornwolf.9721]

The reason its bad is because rev was designed with Herald in mind. Renegade was made by people Im assuming who don't know the class or didn't know the class at the time, its boring and poorly designed. I dont care about who the legend is, so much as her kit sucking hardcore and honestly not being worth taking in my opinion because it offers nothing that can't be given elsewhere with better results.

Gender of the legend does not matter, its whether or not they are worthy of being called a legend and kalla is worthy as she did change the charr's way of life. However I feel they gimped her hardcore and simply made her as she is to make it so she didn't compete with glint. She has a niche.... just not one many people adore or like.

[ASP.8093]

@"lodjur.1284" said:It does help with energy management. F2-f4 are excellent energy dumps for charged mists.

It was a big DPS buff for condi rev in PvE (due to the awful legend and the good outsides). But there you don't even use the upkeep skill on kalla.

It also allowed support renegade to even exist due to f4. Which does actually use upkeep skills a lot but that's just one playstyle.

Renegade is by far the most interesting version of condi rev in WvW (assuming one doesn't use the awful legend). Giving you powerful passives and 3 extra useful skills that synergize with what condi ren wants to do.

I agree with this very much.

Renegade is in a weird place where you're really cherrypicking parts of the specialization (because, as you all said, "Summons bad," and also the different parts of the class do have trouble holding together) much more so than with Herald+Glint.

But I like the shortbow as a ranged poking tool, I like playing two active legends with Kalla's F skills as a third "pocket legend" to shore up some of the more boring gaps like Might generation, I like being able to lay down some cheap Alacrity for a weaver or Dragon Banner user. It's by far the more satisfying condi rev build for small- and large- scale WvW engagements. (And playing a condi build specifically is desirable because you get a lot more value out of Banish Enchantment.)

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

The only thing Kalla objectively sucks at is mid to large scale WvW, but that’s fine not all specs need to be good in every piece of content. In all other content she’s either Okay or better, even up to Excellent in a lot of cases. The legend is fine and adds a different, unique playstyle to the class that revenant didn’t have before. It’s not going to be universally loved, sure, but options, playstyle changes, and versatility are what elite specs are about and Renegade does provide that. The only thing Kalla, shortbow, and renegade needs really are quality of life changes and maybe some minor tweaks. The playstyle and legend don’t need to change

[Vinny.7260]

I believe Summons need the Gyro treatment that Scrapper got, that's about it really.

[InsaneQR.7412]

i personally would agree.Not mechanically necessarily, but overall its the one i dislike the most.