I just deleted my revenant [Beta Feedback] [Opinion]

[Arkham Creed.7358]

As a role player I don't like to delete even my alts unless I'm sure they can't be salvaged, and I've had my revenant since the launch of Heart of Thorns, so it goes without saying I was attached to him and didn't want to push that button. But the allure of the core class quickly wore thin, and I was forced to pin my hopes on Elite Specializations to save it. Ultimately I adopted a "three strikes" mindset; if none of the first three elite specs "fixed" what I considered to be core problems with the class, I'd delete it. Today, having spend several hours tinkering with the Vindicator, I am sad to report that not only does it not fix anything, I feel the spec makes everything wrong with the revenant objectively worse. This is, in my opinion, the worse elite spec in the entire game. It fixes nothing, and instead dives in headfirst into every problem. 

The revenant is so focused on being a hybrid that it is impossible to create a homogeneous build. The Vindicator further forces hybridization by having ONE legend that does two roles. 

The revenant's legend stances limit our ability to define our own skill loadouts. The Vindicator spirits "tagging out" when you use their skills restricts this control even further. 

The revenant's F2 skills generally feel underwhelming. The Vindicator's F2 doesn't even do it's primary function when using any other legend, making it objectively the weakest since the class got F2 skills. 

The revenant feels sluggish and cumbersome. The Vindicator restricts you to a single dodge on a ridiculous cooldown in the name of an added effect that isn't powerful enough to justify that cooldown. 

I will admit that the greatsword is cool, but unlike the Catalyst's hammer, the weapon alone just doesn't do enough to be worth slotting the spec. And certainly doesn't do enough to make up for making the revenant's core problems objectively worse. So, as far as I'm concerned, the revenant is too broken to be enjoyed, and isn't going to get better. If these core problems haven't been even slightly redeemed in three elite specs, they likely won't ever be. To those who enjoy the class, great. I honestly have no idea what you see in it, so I'm out. But it's nice you found something redeemable there. 

Edited September 21, 2021 by Arkham Creed.7358

[Kidel.2057]

Vindicator definitely needs some vindication. 

We need a toggle (F3) to lock the skill loadout and prevent further flipover. 

Plus Urn is probably the worst skill I've ever seen in 9 years of playing this game. 

[Arkham Creed.7358]

1 minute ago, Kidel.2057 said:

Vindicator definitely needs some vindication. 

We need a toggle (F3) to lock the skill loadout and prevent further flipover. 

Plus Urn is probably the worst skill I've ever seen in 9 years of playing this game. 

I couldn't even really pay attention to the skills. I tried, but the flip over made it too hard to use them consistently enough to really get a feel for them. And while the F2 helps, it doesn't help enough. I just found the spec was making me work harder to understand it than it was worth. IF, and I stress if, they make the F2 a toggle, sort of a secondary legend swap to pop between those two while F1 flips your full legends, that would be much better. But it still wouldn't fix any of the problems above. It would just make this four failed elite specs, instead of three. 

[Kidel.2057]

The f2 doesn't help at all, since it has an energy cost (because of the endurance generation). 

The loadout management and the energy-endurance trade should have 2 separate buttons, and the loadout management should be free. 

[Ashantara.8731]

10 minutes ago, Arkham Creed.7358 said:

The revenant is so focused on being a hybrid that it is impossible to create a homogeneous build.

Perhaps it is just me, but I feel like all of the new elite specs' main issue is that exactly.

Edited September 21, 2021 by Ashantara.8731

[Arkham Creed.7358]

8 minutes ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

Perhaps it is just me, but I feel like all of the new elite specs' main issue is that exactly.

Arguably so, but I think the revenant has it worse. I for one have been enjoying the heck out of the new elementalist. Enough that it makes me actually care to play one. The catch to this whole thing is I LIKE hybrid classes, and actually prefer to play them. But the elementalist, and especially the catalyst, is a GOOD hybrid class. While the revenant, and especially the vindicator, feels kind of half baked. This comes down to three things: first the ele has freely slotted utility skills, so we get to decide a large aspect of how we hybridize. Secondly we have more than two stances, allowing even greater depth. And third those stances affect weapon skills as well as utility skills, making the overall bar always feel consistent. In short the ele has so many options, and so much control over those options, that it allows me to get lost in the flow of the class and enjoy the game. While the revenant is so restrictive across the board, and so disjointed (it honestly feels like nobody ever stopped to consider making all these legends actually synergize with each other in a satisfying way) that I feel like I'm constantly fighting with my own character. 

[nosleepdemon.1368]

Yeah at this point I feel that taking both greatsword AND alliance legend is a massive error. I am now trying with Shiro/Jalis to find something workable. It's not going well. 

[Klowdy.3126]

2 hours ago, Arkham Creed.7358 said:

I couldn't even really pay attention to the skills. I tried, but the flip over made it too hard to use them consistently enough to really get a feel for them. And while the F2 helps, it doesn't help enough. I just found the spec was making me work harder to understand it than it was worth. IF, and I stress if, they make the F2 a toggle, sort of a secondary legend swap to pop between those two while F1 flips your full legends, that would be much better. But it still wouldn't fix any of the problems above. It would just make this four failed elite specs, instead of three. 

It became so much easier to manage with shiro/jalis, lol. Not what the devs would like to hear, I'm sure, but like you, I was constantly trying to figure out what I had available, and constantly just strafing, and looking to see what was off of CD. Also, not a fan of the heals on alliance. That entire legend needs some love. It's just not going to be competitive as is. I imagine it will end up getting the firebrand mantra rework, where they stopped trying to be so gimmicky.

[Roads.5130]

Deleting a character you had for so long after playing a BETA version of their new elite spec is certainly not a very well thought reaction 😂

[Arkham Creed.7358]

47 minutes ago, Roads.5130 said:

Deleting a character you had for so long after playing a BETA version of their new elite spec is certainly not a very well thought reaction 😂

You're welcome to your opinion, but my choice was made based less on the overall effectiveness and current balance of the spec, than it's clear design direction. At this point it's pretty obvious that we're not getting freely slotted skills, or anything else that would allow us actual agency over our builds. Just as it's pretty clear that they have no interest in reworking anything about the class to add synergy between legends. I mean let's be honest, the popular shiro/jalis combination isn't popular because it's good; it's popular because it's the least terrible. I have no doubt the Vindicator will get some rework or other to make it viable, but in my mind "viable" is the bare minimum. And if the BEST the revenant can do is the bare minimum I'll just play something else. 

Edited September 22, 2021 by Arkham Creed.7358

[Roads.5130]

2 minutes ago, Arkham Creed.7358 said:

You're welcome to your opinion

Thank you, yes.

 

3 minutes ago, Arkham Creed.7358 said:

At this point it's pretty obvious that we're not getting freely slotted skills

I think that has always been pretty obvious, since the birth of Revenant as a class. It did not have freely slotted skills as core, or Herald. Then it did not get them with Renegade. Expecting them to be a reality for third elite spec would be a mistake.

 

6 minutes ago, Arkham Creed.7358 said:

or anything else that would allow us actual agency over our builds

I agree, I don't like the concept of the Revenant class, but it has literally nothing to do with the beta.

8 minutes ago, Arkham Creed.7358 said:

I mean let's be honest, the popular shiro/jalis combination isn't popular because it's good; it's popular because it's the least terrible. I have no doubt the Vindicator will get some rework or other to make it viable, but in my mind "viable" is the bare minimum, and if the BEST the revenant can do is the bare minimum I'll just play something else. 

That's your opinion. Renegade is a top tier solo class for open world, literally second only to Scourge, and not by a wide margin. I don't think this qualifies it as "the bare minimum" but that may be just my opinion, so let's continue. Besides having a top tier solo build, it also has a top tier (second to probably none, maybe firebrand) group content support build with Alacrigade that unlike many other support builds can be used for both raids and fractals and it almost guarantees you a spot in the team, and a top tier dps build for group content.

If having a top #2 class (out of 27) for both solo and group content qualifies it as "the best revenant can do is the bare minimum" I don't know where the rest of the classes fall.

[ASP.8093]

6 hours ago, Arkham Creed.7358 said:

The revenant is so focused on being a hybrid that it is impossible to create a homogeneous build.

What do you mean exactly?

Stat-wise? The various Rev specs, weapons, and legends support Power builds, Power+Boon builds, Condition builds, and Condition+Boon (Celestial) builds. The condition builds are occasionally stronger because of how abilities in the game work, but straight Zerker is great in most of the game.

Role-wise? You can play full DPS, you can play support (which in gw2 is almost always a "half DPS" kind of role — that's more or less standard across all classes unless you're going super hard into healing), you can make very tanky builds for solo roaming or solo PVE. There's a fair bit of flexibility in how you choose legends and specs for each role, too.

Roleplay-wise? It depends on what you do, but a lot of your legends are naturally complementary. Glint + Jalis both represent making sacrifices to fight the Elder Dragons. Shiro + Achemorous/St.Viktor are enemies but they represent a single pivotal moment in time; by channeling them together you're touching on the fate of all Cantha or whatever. Alternatively, you can just play up the "These are my Pokemon" aspect of it — thanks to your connection to the Mists, you've got something for every occasion, echoes of all of Tyria's history coming together to empower you blah blah. It's a very theme-heavy class but I don't think it's hard to make sense of it, really.

If you don't like it, that's fine, but you can definitely make some very focused builds on Rev. (Its PvP footprint, for example, is heavily defined by specific builds' excellence as a DPS fighter or a roamer.)

Edited September 22, 2021 by ASP.8093

[Ludovicus.7980]

I get you didn't like it, but isn't it a bit too dramatic to delete a character before any post beta changes?

[firedragon.8953]

Well, I hope you find better utility with your newly freed up character slot. 😄

[Minjin.8259]

I main Herald, and I enjoy it.  I was a bit underwhelmed by the new elite spec.  But I am willing to see what might happen between now and actual release.  If nothing changes I may decide to play something else, but I certainly wouldn't delete my herald because I still like to play it as that.  But I also respect your decision to do what's right for you.  Good luck and I hope you find something you truly enjoy playing.

[RabbitUp.8294]

Less birthday presents for you 🥲

[Chiorix.5361]

I genuinely feel for you, but I hope it isn't too late for you to salvage your revenant. This is a beta preview. Improvement and tweaks are inevitable. It's far from a perfect elite spec but I feel like Herald and Renegade are still excellent specs, and no doubt ANet is going to use our feedback to make the necessary adjustment to make Vindicator feel worthwhile. Remember what happened with Deadeye? EoD isn't until February. They have time to make things better. That's the point of letting the community see it early.

 

Regardless, hopefully in the absence of rev, you're able to find a profession/spec that really vibes with you.

[pah.4931]

I think if they just let you choose which legend you want to be (and adjust traits accordingly) then it could work. Finally you could have a good dps build with shiro and archemorus and a good healing support build with centaur and viktor. Or you could even create a new hybrid spec with archemorus and viktor.
 

The flip-over design is a no go for me.

[Arkham Creed.7358]

3 hours ago, Chiorix.5361 said:

I genuinely feel for you, but I hope it isn't too late for you to salvage your revenant. This is a beta preview. Improvement and tweaks are inevitable. It's far from a perfect elite spec but I feel like Herald and Renegade are still excellent specs, and no doubt ANet is going to use our feedback to make the necessary adjustment to make Vindicator feel worthwhile. Remember what happened with Deadeye? EoD isn't until February. They have time to make things better. That's the point of letting the community see it early.

 

Regardless, hopefully in the absence of rev, you're able to find a profession/spec that really vibes with you.

Thank you for the sentiment, but as I've tried to elaborate on above; this isn't an issue that can be resolved by tweaking some numbers on the back end. Let's say, hypothetically speaking, that I had an issue with elementalist specifically because I didn't like the core design of attunment swapping. It really wouldn't matter how much they altered catalyst from beta to release, because no matter what they do the core of the actual problem, attunments, would still be there. 

What I was waiting on was some indication that they were going to rework the class as a whole (it's happened before, both with the revenant and the engineer) to correct some pretty glaring fundamental design flaws that transcend the balance or scope of any elite specialization past or future. Having now given them three expansions to show any signs of changing their mindset on the profession I think it's clear that they aren't going to. 

Edited September 22, 2021 by Arkham Creed.7358

[Loules.8601]

2 minutes ago, Arkham Creed.7358 said:

to correct some pretty glaring fundamental design flaws that transcend the balance or scope of any elite specialization past or future.

What is that "flaws"?

[Hadi.6025]

Remember when Revenant didn't have a weapon swap? Pepperridge farms remembers. 

[Ben K.6238]

1 hour ago, Loules.8601 said:

What is that "flaws"?

Wondering the same thing here. I'm suspecting the main one is a core feature of the class that everyone else deals with just fine.

Revenant in general has a couple big tradeoffs: energy management in exchange for low base cooldowns, and no utility skill customisation in exchange for more powerful utility skills than the other classes get and the ability to swap sets in combat.

[Dayra.7405]

21 hours ago, Arkham Creed.7358 said:

As a role player I don't like to delete even my alts unless I'm sure they can't be salvaged, and I've had my revenant since the launch of Heart of Thorns, so it goes without saying I was attached to him and didn't want to push that button.

^^ You could have parked him at a JP Box, used him for home instance farming or at a rich ore node instead 😉

At least that's what I did with my engie, I never got warm with.

[GrayHawk.7560]

RIP birthday gifts

[Arkham Creed.7358]

2 hours ago, Dayra.7405 said:

^^ You could have parked him at a JP Box, used him for home instance farming or at a rich ore node instead 😉

At least that's what I did with my engie, I never got warm with.

Not really an option, because as a role player I still use the character, and still want to actually play him in content and story. However I do not want to continue suffering with revenant gameplay. So he's getting a class change. Not the first time.