Fixing Class Identity: Revenant

[TheeBlackDeath.5692]

Since I returned to the game just last year, I've finally got around to playing Revenant for the first time and have been loving it quite a lot as a former Guardian and Ranger player, first with Herald, then Renegade, and finally Vindicator which happens to be my peak for Revenant it seems. But if there was one thing that has always bothered me was a few things regarding certain boons, traits, and skills ranging from Battle Scars or lack of unique mechanics or buffs(Herald not withstanding).

 

First, I'd like to bring up the problem with Battle Scars, not only did they nerf it quite a bit, but it's practically useless by making you only get a tiny bit of hp back which really hurts survivability on some specs, ESPECIALLY Vindicator. Instead of going with Battle Scars now you're honestly better off just going with Unsuspecting Strikes, Notoriety, and Swift Termination over the Battle Scars options in the Devastation tree, as these 3 options are MUCH more viable overall and technically can "heal you" better by killing enemies faster. I honestly think they need to go back and fix some of the changes they made to Battle Scars and at least make it a viable option for sustain, especially for characters fully decked out in pure dps gear that makes them extra squishy.

 

Second off, another issue I have is with the removal of Retaliation, and how it should be a Revenant-exclusive boon to add more profession-exclusive options to the game, as I notice this game nearly has every profession able to do anything now due to lack of diversity. I never did get why they had to replace Resolution for Retaliation(mainly since I was gone for a few years), but Retaliation is quite literally the PERFECT boon for Revenant given their playstyle, lore, and theme overall, since Revenant is literally tied to the term "Revenge" it's a bit odd they wouldn't have this obvious choice in their tool kit along with their spiky/bladed armor they commonly use. And I say this could be another situation with Aegis for Guardian since it's been an exclusive for them for a long time now, but was later given to a few other specs with it mainly still being used by Guardians primarily, and yet something like Retaliation was never an idea to keep for a class that is literally a "Vengeful Fighter", especially if we're channeling spirits with us while we fight. If they do bring it back, it shouldn't have to be overly powerful or anything but it would greatly help a lot of Revenant builds as a passive option for sustaining damage, but it should work similar to Guardian's Aegis boon.

 

And lastly, third thing I want to add as well, they need to buff the legendary stance a bit more and or Vindicator a bit, along with the dodge a bit. The reason I say this is because Vindicator lacks some real CC options with the legendary stance and they could easily add some more along with making them more useful overall, I always felt like the legendary stance was honestly pretty lackluster ever since the metas, but I'd say it still kinda is but is a better spot now than before. A few of the changes they'd need to make is adding a knockdown CC to Nomad's Advance in the Luxon stance with at least 150 defiance break, along with adding Resolution to Tree Song or Awakening to add more applications for Resolution with some builds as they really could use it. But also, they REALLY should add a knockdown(albeit with a cooldown) or knockback(if they don't give it a cooldown) effect to Death Drop to not only subtly nerf it in pve, but to also increase the viability of it in PvP/WvW as most players don't even use Death Drop due to how risky it is to waste given it's dodge cost and other options being better overall, and they could probably make it at least strip boons as well to make it an even better offensive option.

 

These are just my ideas I've had for awhile now and they are privy to change, but lemme know what you guys think if you guys approve or don't approve of these changes, personally I'd like to see them implement these buffs to the profession but even then it isn't entirely needed. RIP Retaliation though. 😕

[Oldyoung.6109]

but getting nerfed constantly both directly and indirectly IS Revenant's class identity.

[Scoobaniec.9561]

"Retaliation, and how it should be a Revenant-exclusive boon" Uhhhhmm.. that was guardian thing buddy boyo. Also they plan to homogenize all classes for some reason (not sure why not get rid of class system at this point) so expect to see even less of a identitity in rev and other classes apart from fancy colors cuz even animations are copy pasted

[Angesombre.4630]

It was nerfed on the regen in traits, the hammer is destroyed but it is the only WvW weapon, the dwarf same nerf, the demon with the skill "Pain Absorption", and I forgot some.

The sigil on the legend exchange was a big nerf and also increased the difficulty of the gameplay with even less variety, knowing already that some rune can't be used on the revenant due to the 6th rune effect because the name of the skill is different from other classes.

I find that it has lost a lot in the last 2 years. 

Even the new specialization has been nerfed while it is still buggy on the 3 swordfish and some traits are not necessarily useful on the vindi.

Edited June 14, 2022 by Angesombre.4630

[Shao.7236]

I mean if you haven't known yet and probably wouldn't have since you appear to not have touched core which is sorely underestimated ever since it finally got something to balance with the rest years ago.

 

Jalis was built in the same way that guardian is with more modifiers to play with. No one bother to play around that fact, there's weakness to lower damage with the strongest damage modifers in the game that cannot be removed, retaliation was also it's main boon with the option to have 50% increase in duration. The boon itself was still more rampant on Guardian and would often get you killed because almost all amulets have Power, every small hit would result in a loss of around 384 before it was nerfed to about 250~ which was still strong.

 

I would actually recommend that you experiment with "all" (Core and all weapons including Hammer and Axe) options before concluding much of the changes you suggested since they seem to be in the mind of other professions while Revenant is way too different to consider in the way that if x can do y then z should too, it doesn't work for Revenant since most skills already pack a lot due to energy limitation

 

Stuff like Alliances not having enough CC tells me that you underestimate how it's versatility overcomes the need of such and that if it wasn't for a single evade Alliances would be a straight upgrade. None of it's skills need to be changed, they might even be eligible for nerfs since they've been buffed hard while they were already strong.

 

Overall, I say it's a lack of experience with other things that makes me disagree because I can see how much of the suggestions can bring issues.

[Buran.3796]

   While I partially agree with the "Rev identity crisis" I fixed my issues with it moving from power Herald to condi Herald at every game mode (still play Renegade sometimes at roaming/PvP, for the sake of variety). I finally have my 25K HP bruiser with 3K armor which does tons of AoE damage without even try...

[Gibson.4036]

Still don’t get why they didn’t just nerf the torment runes first and wait on battle scars.

Someone at ANet was really worked up about self-sustain.

[Angesombre.4630]

It's like the question why Forced Engagement had a triple nerve. The change the activation of sigil during the change of legend. There are plenty of things that are either incomprehensible or that they do not look at the work done by their team.

[Scoobaniec.9561]

On 6/18/2022 at 2:22 PM, Gibson.4036 said:

Still don’t get why they didn’t just nerf the torment runes first and wait on battle scars.

Someone at ANet was really worked up about self-sustain.

...Nerf? Torment runes were deleted off game. Go forward designer team. Still curious who gonna pay me 50gold back for it lost value

[Angesombre.4630]

they have been nerfed

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Rune_of_Tormenting

[otto.5684]

PvE I will just say you are flat out wrong. Battle Scars healing is still very powerful. It was over nerfed on damage a bit. Vindicator is fairly strong and one of the most survivable melee builds. And renegade is still very powerful. Only Herald has issues (major ones though):

 

PvP, ehh, it could be better. Rev is okayish.

[Jobber.6348]

Revenant needs 3 things: 

 

1. Every Legend has a solid and reliable stunbreak. Talking same 35 Energy cost, same power level, same 5s cooldown. 

 

2. Every Legend needs a solid Upkeep skill that reflects their Legend's archetype and should be on the same level as each other as well. To make this simple, make all Upkeeps Elite skills which puts a drain on Energy for enhanced lingering effects.

 

3. Traitlines need to be divorced entirely from specific Legend mechanics. Talking about Savlation and Corruption mainly. These two are only fully utilized if one is playing Centaur or Demon respectively. 

[Angesombre.4630]

Even if I have little hope:
 

-I would like them to review the sigil deletion on the legend swap because the gameplay is much more rigid since there are few skills to remove the alteration for example, contrary to other classes that can choose their skills. We have either the dwarf, or ventari and the staff so it's very rigid. Yes, the alliance also has condition that we choose this specialization

-Mallyx since the modification of the rune of torment, the torment, the nerve of the damages and the skill to absorb the alterations of the allies on us, with the modification of the which allowed to resist to the alterations. That they can put back to day this legend.
 

-The dwarf modifies the forced engagement because it's a half-useless skill as it's carried. And the skill 2 of the hammer that is useless in the cac because of the small space.
 

-Ventari I'm waiting to see what it will give.
 

-For the Herald shield, give us the possibility to move instead of staying in a dome and waiting for time to pass.
 

-Alliance more than 40 pages of proposals to help this legend. Since the 2 nerfs she has already suffered.

 

Edited June 23, 2022 by Angesombre.4630

[felix.2386]

identity of constantly being top end meta pvp class? xD

first, retaliation was always MAINLY a guardian thing, they just gave a little to rev for bonus.

also resolution literally made rev so much strong, a lot of past and present meta pvp builds uses retribution and relies on resolution. specially that one time a renegade build would build like 90+% condition damage reduction and literally sent it into godhood.

second, why you need to increase viability of a spec that's already pretty much god tier competing with willbender/harbinger/specter, vindicator have plenty of CC using shiro and staff.

you can also switch alliance for dwarf for more CC. you can't have legend that literally does everything.

lastly, battle scar is strong in pve and power herald still uses battle scar as first choice in pvp.

oh and power herald is basically ONLY one tier below wb/harb/vindic, once these god tiers get nerfed, herald will be top again, like it always did.

just look at past mAT recordings, just randomly pick one final, you will see one or two herald per team, if it's not herald it would be renegade and now it's vindicator.

if you think any other wise, it's only because skill, rev's top potential is super high which 90% y'all have yet reached and started complaining.

to me rev is still one of my favorite classes(along mes and war), and the most complete one(among all classes) imo, if you played enough classes, you would know.

Edited June 24, 2022 by felix.2386

[Obtena.7952]

Revenant identity is about concept, not design. If we are talking about ACTUALLY fixing class identity:

1. Revenants channel their powers from legends, they don't summon them. Remove summons from Renegade and make them ... pulsing wells or something. 

2. Revenants should primarily resource limited by Energy, not CD's. Balance Energy/CD costs to reflect proper resource use and lore. 

3. Lore indicates "revenants often blindfold themselves to aid their focus in communing with the spirits" ... a logical conclusion is that being affected by a blind should have some alternative effect on Revenants.

Edited June 24, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Aeolus.3615]

On 6/18/2022 at 1:22 PM, Gibson.4036 said:

Still don’t get why they didn’t just nerf the torment runes first and wait on battle scars.

Someone at ANet was really worked up about self-sustain.

A minstrell dev that could not compreend why the enemy was so tanky : P

[Gibson.4036]

53 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

 

1. Revenants channel their powers from legends, they don't summon them. Remove summons from Renegade and make them ... pulsing wells or something. 

 

The tooltip does call each member of Kalla's warband Legends. In the end, though, she is the Legend the Revenant is channeling, and her power is leading her warband. It doesn't seem inappropriate to me.

Edited June 24, 2022 by Gibson.4036

[Jobber.6348]

On 6/25/2022 at 1:33 AM, Gibson.4036 said:

The tooltip does call each member of Kalla's warband Legends. In the end, though, she is the Legend the Revenant is channeling, and her power is leading her warband. It doesn't seem inappropriate to me.

Regardless, the way Summons function is a detriment to itself in the same way Gyros did when Gyros were Gyros. They are interruptible cooldowns that can be effectively shutdown and cancelled, or even killed.

The Well suggestion is one out of a necessity to see Kalla not get kitten due to things like Summon CC'd or dying, the same way Gyro was previously turned into Wells. 

And if these summons were made invincible? Then they're basically Wells! 

Honestly if it were up to me, I'd make it so that entering Legendary Renegade stance will summon the 5 Charrs around you like minions. Casting their active will make them invulnerable and they will disappear after the casting. If the actives are left untouched, they will attack enemies like minions do. If they die in that state, they will disappear and put the respective skill into a half-cooldown. 

[Buran.3796]

On 6/24/2022 at 1:38 PM, felix.2386 said:

identity of constantly being top end meta pvp class? xD

 

oh and power herald is basically ONLY one tier below wb/harb/vindic, once these god tiers get nerfed, herald will be top again, like it always did.

just look at past mAT recordings, just randomly pick one final, you will see one or two herald per team, if it's not herald it would be renegade and now it's vindicator.

   The first sentence I can agree with.

   But not with the second: the current meta is near full condition (2 Harbingers and 1 Specter with carrion, a Willbender and core Guardian which although technically run marauder, proc a lot of burns). You won't see any power Herald coming back in PvP because even if they nerf the damage of the EoD specs the kind of damage (condi) they run is kryptonite to power Herald. If all, Bladesworn has much better chance to gain ground as meta if a new power spec is required to replace any nerfed spec. But that won't happen this year, anyway.

[Tulkas.2576]

On 6/24/2022 at 9:43 AM, Obtena.7952 said:

Revenant identity is about concept, not design. If we are talking about ACTUALLY fixing class identity:

1. Revenants channel their powers from legends, they don't summon them. Remove summons from Renegade and make them ... pulsing wells or something. 

2. Revenants should primarily resource limited by Energy, not CD's. Balance Energy/CD costs to reflect proper resource use and lore. 

3. Lore indicates "revenants often blindfold themselves to aid their focus in communing with the spirits" ... a logical conclusion is that being affected by a blind should have some alternative effect on Revenants.

I would actually play Renegade if summons were like Scrapper Wells.

 

id prefer to be limited by energy as well. Back to back phase traversal is great, but you’d have to save up for it, so it wouldn’t be too powerful. 
 

immune to blind? Yes please. Even if blind just prevented you from critting or made the next attack do 50% damage etc. Or, it actually helped you focus so it increases the damage of your next ability! Muwahahahah!