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Herald feedback; herald of each legend


Phyrak.7260

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1 hour ago, Yasai.3549 said:

I know many Rev players disagree with me when I say this but Revenant Legend Stances in a vacuum looks designed to be camped. Hear me out. 

 

Ignoring all the other mechanics of Revenant and looking at JUST the Legends, each Legend play very very differently and will often change how you behave when you enter that Legend. And oftentimes, each Legend loses its influence completely once leaving it, which causes some major problems for certain specialized builds. (Great example is Ventari doing the peace sign and evaporate along with any of their heal/alac capability the moment you swap out of Centaur) 

So what you have through primary observation is a Class that can pick two "Sub classes" and switch between them based on what they need, which is a pretty sound concept. 

Now what happens in practice is the Energy cost and Energy system. These Legend skills are expensive and cost alot of Energy to keep casting, which is why the Revenants are forced to play the whole economy minigame whenever they need to play a specialized role. You cast a little too much and bam you just rendered your Subclass unusable for at least 3 - 4s before you can cast some on-demand skill. 

This much needed "Role uptime" is entirely lost on Revenant whose strict Energy governance basically slaughters their gameplay the moment they swap out of a Legend for the sake of refreshing their resource. This is why I will never support people who think Legend Flipping as a playstyle is Core to Rev, because it just kills so many playstyles due to the enforced Legend flipping.

More Especs need to explore altering how Energy system is governing Revenant. Herald is a start with Glint. Renegade is.... eh. Vindicator decides to put two Legends into one Legend which is... eh.

I want to see something else. I want to see maybe an Espec that can explore player movement for example to regenerate energy. Or consuming Boons to regenerate energy. (mmmyes gimmi that Discount Dervish) 



 

Well said -  I do believe that a dervish had some part to play with the melee staff and certain scythe styled skins.

And you can see why I spoke to herald being the camping style spec that focuses on the energy generation aspect.

Removing the traits from both jallis and malyx and putting them into master/grandmaster trait to assist with energy upkeep/survival - perhaps those with an elite upkeep (malyx and glint if this were to ever go through) would give benefit to stayed in the skill for long periods.

While cloaked in said elite skills; strengthening utilities and healing associated would make sense.

Perhaps additional voice lines too just for the flavour and fun 

 

 

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58 minutes ago, Fueki.4753 said:

The issue with Revenant may be that it wasn't intended to be played without Elite specializations. After all, it was released at the same time as the first batch of specializations and those were purposely powercrept so players primarily play them instead of core professions.

The four core Legends are so diverse in order to harmonize with different aspects of Elite specializations. Glint works fine with Shiro and Jalis on a physical DPS build. Glint could also work decent with Ventari on a support build, if tuned right. Mallyx used to work well with Kalla on condition builds.

I don't think the core Legends were ever meant to work well with each other.

Basically this, for better or worse. Maybe not quite so cynical as that, but the core legends feel like they were designed to lay down a foundation for elite specialisations to build from, while other professions' cores were mostly laid out before elite specialisations were conceived. Shiro provides a mobile DPS that could be combined with an elite spec to specialise there, Jalis a tanky power DPS, Mallyx conditions, and Ventari healing capability.

That said, though, I don't think it's accurate to say that you can't get the core legends to synergise. Unfortunately the Shiro-Mallyx synergy was mostly destroyed when Impossible Odds was changed, but Shiro and Jalis work fairly well, Jalis can couple with Ventari to cover the break in healing with some potent damage reduction (and staff heals are still present) and/or stability support, and while not as well-suited as it is for power builds, you could run Jalis alongside Mallyx on a condi build for a bit of extra sustain while continuing to use mace/axe (the real problem for condi core is the lack of any other decent condition weapons to swap to...).

 

To return to the topic at large...

Yeah, I don't think referring to threads from over half a decade ago is exactly representative of the current game, and where the responses to the one that's actually linked also seem to be mainly negative, is exactly a strong argument.

Herald has its niche. People enjoy that niche. Nobody has claimed that it's dominating the game the way people have said that certain other specs have, nor do there seem to be any issues with herald that would be resolved by just making it balanced around camping a single legend, except perhaps making quickness DPS support a little easier at the cost of destroying quickheal entirely. Sure, and this goes to @Yasai.3549 as well, there are situations where it's tactically advantageous to husband your energy a bit and stick to one legend... but you've always got the option to switch to the other if it would benefit you to do so, and that's how revenant is balanced. If you're more capable of just staying in one legend, your second legend can be something esoteric you pull out for a specific function rather than something you switch to regularly, like bringing Ventari for the bubble on what is otherwise a DPS or qDPS build.

Herald is good as-is, and I see no value in ticking off the players who enjoy it and taking the balance risk of a major rework just because some people don't like the profession mechanics and want to camp one legend. Can't put it any blunter than that.

And I don't think there's really much benefit to introducing single-legend-only revenants in the future. It'd be a lot of work to introduce the additional skills and trait changes proposed to make it work, it'd disappoint people who enjoy revenant as it was actually designed to be played, and I really think that any concept that doesn't involve mode-swapping would work better at professions that are already designed to work without mode-swapping (and thus already have a wide range of established selectable utilities, traits that are designed to function without mode-swapping, and so on).

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1 hour ago, Fueki.4753 said:

The four core Legends are so diverse in order to harmonize with different aspects of Elite specializations. Glint works fine with Shiro and Jalis on a physical DPS build. Glint could also work decent with Ventari on a support build, if tuned right. Mallyx used to work well with Kalla on condition builds.

I think that's pretty poor design to use Espec to essentially glue the class together. 

Take Ventari-Glint for example:

It's held together entirely by Herald Traitline. If Herald didn't have Shared Empowerment, you just kill your Might pulsing entirely by swapping to Ventari. 

 

And heck, even True Nature don't really work that well. Say you are in Glint and need a burst of healing and Condi cleanse, WOOP your True Nature is attuned to Glint, woop dee doo. You can only access Ventari's True Nature when you are already in Ventari, who already has tools to heal and condi cleanse. 

All this feels clunky to me and should be tweaked. There needs to be some form of cohesiveness and not feel like Revenant is a door between two rooms which you open and close repeatedly, meaning you only access one room at a time. 

 

Suggestion: What do you guys think of a "Reinvoke" mechanic replacing Ancient Echo and made baseline to Revenant?

Say I am in Shiro. I want to keep using Shiro but I have no energy and Legend Swap is available. I can "Reinvoke" putting Legend swap onto a 20s cooldown (double the norm) to get 70% energy back and reapply Legend Swap effects as if I just swapped to Shiro. Further Reinvokes will also be 20s cooldown. 

The new function here is if I swap to my other Legend after a Reinvoke, my other Legend gets 100% energy instead of 50% on swap. 
 

Edited by Yasai.3549
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25 minutes ago, Yasai.3549 said:

All this feels clunky to me and should be tweaked. There needs to be some form of cohesiveness and not feel like Revenant is a door between two rooms which you open and close repeatedly, meaning you only access one room at a time. 

Personally, I think this is a large part of the challenge of playing revenant to begin with. You have two sets of tools, but you can't use them both at once, and if you go all out with one you'll exhaust it (by running out of energy) and need to either slow down a bit to let it refresh, or switch to the other toolbox. Mastering when to do this is a large part of the skill involved in playing it. And it usually balances out - if you play conservatively with your legend, you can do what that legend is supposed to do, but if you burst one legend and switch to the other, and you get your timings right, you can get the benefit of both.

Heal Herald is actually a strong example of this. The general principle of the build is "burst enough quickness that it will last until you swap back to Glint, then burst enough healing that the group will survive (along with staff heals, regeneration, and protection) while you're in Glint. QuickDPS is a weaker example since you can probably get away with camping Glint without a huge DPS loss (note, I have not tried this, do not quote me on this), but the overall idea of "build up enough quickness while in Glint that you can swap to Shiro and Impossible Odds for at least eight seconds or so" is there.

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Just now, draxynnic.3719 said:

Personally, I think this is a large part of the challenge of playing revenant to begin with. You have two sets of tools, but you can't use them both at once, and if you go all out with one you'll exhaust it (by running out of energy) and need to either slow down a bit to let it refresh, or switch to the other toolbox. Mastering when to do this is a large part of the skill involved in playing it. And it usually balances out - if you play conservatively with your legend, you can do what that legend is supposed to do, but if you burst one legend and switch to the other, and you get your timings right, you can get the benefit of both.

Heal Herald is actually a strong example of this. The general principle of the build is "burst enough quickness that it will last until you swap back to Glint, then burst enough healing that the group will survive (along with staff heals, regeneration, and protection) while you're in Glint. QuickDPS is a weaker example since you can probably get away with camping Glint without a huge DPS loss (note, I have not tried this, do not quote me on this), but the overall idea of "build up enough quickness while in Glint that you can swap to Shiro and Impossible Odds for at least eight seconds or so" is there.

And that's why Quick/Alac Revenants aren't as good as popular builds that can do their job better without messing around with jank. I'm here because I want to see Revenant gameplay improve, not to see people circlejerk about how "Revenant is fine with its jank, and is fine despite being jank" 

Ideally jank won't exist, and that's fun to discuss. It's not fun accepting that jank is gonna stay and just be okay with it. 

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5 minutes ago, Yasai.3549 said:

And that's why Quick/Alac Revenants aren't as good as popular builds that can do their job better without messing around with jank. I'm here because I want to see Revenant gameplay improve, not to see people circlejerk about how "Revenant is fine with its jank, and is fine despite being jank" 

Ideally jank won't exist, and that's fun to discuss. It's not fun accepting that jank is gonna stay and just be okay with it. 

Well what’s jank to you is not necessarily jank to others, and there’s no objective metric for jank, just subjective opinions. 
 

I personally think Revenant’s core mechanics are fine and don’t need changes. I’ve never felt like it was janky. The professions has always felt smooth and flexible to me, especially once mastered. 

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7 minutes ago, LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:

Well what’s jank to you is not necessarily jank to others, and there’s no objective metric for jank, just subjective opinions. 
 

I personally think Revenant’s core mechanics are fine and don’t need changes. I’ve never felt like it was janky. The professions has always felt smooth and flexible to me, especially once mastered. 

If you need more effort to output lesser results, it's objectively jank. It simply is. 

Rev builds right now built for specialized roles like Heal ARE JANK. They need much more effort to do their job than another build doing the same job. You can say you like the playstyle and the busy-work, but at the end of the day, jank is jank. 

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I've had quite a few people express the opinion that heal herald is a serious competitor to healbrand, and was in fact pushing that before the firebrand rework. It is a bit more complex to play, to be sure, but the potential results are there, and between staff and shield you're not exactly lacking in healing output while in Glint form. I haven't done the numbers, but it's probably comparable to what healbrand puts out without dipping into tomes or healing utilities (apart from MoS), and that's often enough.

The skill floor is higher, but accommodating multiple playstyles does mean they're not all likely to rest on the same floor.

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24 minutes ago, Yasai.3549 said:

If you need more effort to output lesser results, it's objectively jank. It simply is. 

Rev builds right now built for specialized roles like Heal ARE JANK. They need much more effort to do their job than another build doing the same job. You can say you like the playstyle and the busy-work, but at the end of the day, jank is jank. 

That's not an objective metric, but go off and keep pushing your subjective narrative as if it's fact

Edit: You also don't seem to know what "jank" even means; it's not about results, but about feeling, which is inherently subjective.

Edited by LucianTheAngelic.7054
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1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I've had quite a few people express the opinion that heal herald is a serious competitor to healbrand, and was in fact pushing that before the firebrand rework. It is a bit more complex to play, to be sure, but the potential results are there, and between staff and shield you're not exactly lacking in healing output while in Glint form. I haven't done the numbers, but it's probably comparable to what healbrand puts out without dipping into tomes or healing utilities (apart from MoS), and that's often enough.

The skill floor is higher, but accommodating multiple playstyles does mean they're not all likely to rest on the same floor.

Competitor to healbrand before rework? Hard to believe. If you mean competitor in terms of healing values, then probably true, but if you're talking about overall support capability, Healbrand trumps over Heal Herald by a long shot, not only being easier to play but also having access to some boons and boon uptime which Herald cannot match. 

And let me address the talk about flexibility. HealHerald NEEDS Ventari. There is no flexibility left for Herald. If they have no Ventari, they cannot heal. If they take Ventari, they have no Stab access. They need Glint for quickness and boons, and they have to pick between Heal or Stability. Where's the flexibility in that? 

At least Renegade has a "press me for Alac" button. Honestly Herald would be pretty good too if they had a similar "press me for Quick" button if they ever need to go Jalis/Ventari. 
 

Meanwhile Healbrand is like Lol I have everything, AND I'm easier to play. I do believe Healbrand is pretty bloody busted but Herald is nowhere near Firebrand in terms of capability.  

Edited by Yasai.3549
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4 hours ago, Yasai.3549 said:

I know many Rev players disagree with me when I say this but Revenant Legend Stances in a vacuum looks designed to be camped. Hear me out. 

 

Ignoring all the other mechanics of Revenant and looking at JUST the Legends, each Legend play very very differently and will often change how you behave when you enter that Legend. And oftentimes, each Legend loses its influence completely once leaving it, which causes some major problems for certain specialized builds. (Great example is Ventari doing the peace sign and evaporate along with any of their heal capability the moment you swap out of Centaur) 

So what you have through primary observation is a Class that can pick two "Sub classes" and switch between them based on what they need, which is a pretty sound concept. 

Now what happens in practice is the Energy cost and Energy system. These Legend skills are expensive and cost alot of Energy to keep casting, which is why the Revenants are forced to play the whole economy minigame whenever they need to play a specialized role. You cast a little too much and bam you just rendered your Subclass unusable for at least 3 - 4s before you can cast some on-demand skill. 

This much needed "Role uptime" is entirely lost on Revenant whose strict Energy governance basically slaughters their gameplay the moment they swap out of a Legend for the sake of refreshing their resource. This is why I will never support people who think Legend Flipping as a playstyle is Core to Rev, because it just kills so many playstyles due to the enforced Legend flipping.

More Especs need to explore altering how Energy system is governing Revenant. Herald is a start with Glint. Renegade is.... eh. Vindicator decides to put two Legends into one Legend which is... eh.

I want to see something else. I want to see maybe an Espec that can explore player movement for example to regenerate energy. Or consuming Boons to regenerate energy. (mmmyes gimmi that Discount Dervish) 



 

That's why I had something in mind for vindicator around such problem. Also because of this, they can buff the dodge effects little bit back up. =>

 

 

 

Vindicator needs in the following upsumming a small rework for more identity and better balancing in the future:

 

  • 1. Energy meld:  2 charges 15 sec cd each, make it consume then the endurance for 25% endurance bar so it gets converted in 15% energy bar.
    •                                The benefits of the selected dodge traitline gets triggered too for 50% effect because only 25% endurance consumed.
  •  

2. Mid row traits:

 

Reaver's Curse

Angsiyan's Trust

Song of Arboreum

this traitline row should work around vindicator switching between archemorus and saint viktor.

 

When you switch between each other, the active side should get bonus effect on the 2 abilities first used.

This way archy can give saint viktor for example some extra cc, boons, damage.

And saint viktor can give archy this way for example some extra support like boons, healing.

 

These bonus effects can be used on allies or enemies, so you can choose where you want to have it hit or spent, this gives some decision and more thinking where and when you want it be used.

 

 

OR

 

 

the alliance stance change could be a 5 second cd, this isn't to abnormal high but also not too low that you can switch on and off, so it still requires thinking which one you want to be in.

 

 

You could make archemorus or viktor meld with another legend. 

that could add 2 options ontop of my idea in mid row traitline. I would though still keep all 3 to activate but only 2 of them can meld according to following mid row traits. ==>

 

•1st traitline mid) archy can meld with shiro, mallyx.

2nd traitline mid) archy and viktor meld together like described in first post.

3rd traitline mid) viktor can meld with centaur and jalis.

 

But still on changing stances for both ideas, let it give bonus effect on first 2 abilities used when you switched.

 

The idea to seperate them I wouldn't do, this spec is about melding together alliances in unity.

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10 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Basically this, for better or worse. Maybe not quite so cynical as that, but the core legends feel like they were designed to lay down a foundation for elite specialisations to build from, while other professions' cores were mostly laid out before elite specialisations were conceived. Shiro provides a mobile DPS that could be combined with an elite spec to specialise there, Jalis a tanky power DPS, Mallyx conditions, and Ventari healing capability.

That said, though, I don't think it's accurate to say that you can't get the core legends to synergise. Unfortunately the Shiro-Mallyx synergy was mostly destroyed when Impossible Odds was changed, but Shiro and Jalis work fairly well, Jalis can couple with Ventari to cover the break in healing with some potent damage reduction (and staff heals are still present) and/or stability support, and while not as well-suited as it is for power builds, you could run Jalis alongside Mallyx on a condi build for a bit of extra sustain while continuing to use mace/axe (the real problem for condi core is the lack of any other decent condition weapons to swap to...).

 

To return to the topic at large...

Yeah, I don't think referring to threads from over half a decade ago is exactly representative of the current game, and where the responses to the one that's actually linked also seem to be mainly negative, is exactly a strong argument.

Herald has its niche. People enjoy that niche. Nobody has claimed that it's dominating the game the way people have said that certain other specs have, nor do there seem to be any issues with herald that would be resolved by just making it balanced around camping a single legend, except perhaps making quickness DPS support a little easier at the cost of destroying quickheal entirely. Sure, and this goes to @Yasai.3549 as well, there are situations where it's tactically advantageous to husband your energy a bit and stick to one legend... but you've always got the option to switch to the other if it would benefit you to do so, and that's how revenant is balanced. If you're more capable of just staying in one legend, your second legend can be something esoteric you pull out for a specific function rather than something you switch to regularly, like bringing Ventari for the bubble on what is otherwise a DPS or qDPS build.

Herald is good as-is, and I see no value in ticking off the players who enjoy it and taking the balance risk of a major rework just because some people don't like the profession mechanics and want to camp one legend. Can't put it any blunter than that.

And I don't think there's really much benefit to introducing single-legend-only revenants in the future. It'd be a lot of work to introduce the additional skills and trait changes proposed to make it work, it'd disappoint people who enjoy revenant as it was actually designed to be played, and I really think that any concept that doesn't involve mode-swapping would work better at professions that are already designed to work without mode-swapping (and thus already have a wide range of established selectable utilities, traits that are designed to function without mode-swapping, and so on).

The other side of this would be to give the camping spec some mist neutral/non legendary abilities which might fulfil particular roles depending on legend chosen.

Then there's the whole upkeep traits and how they'd work within a line.

It might also introduce a more consistent style of play instead of the consistent swapping - something that a player may not have thought about considering it's an antithetical way to play of sorts 

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8 hours ago, Yasai.3549 said:

Competitor to healbrand before rework? Hard to believe. If you mean competitor in terms of healing values, then probably true, but if you're talking about overall support capability, Healbrand trumps over Heal Herald by a long shot, not only being easier to play but also having access to some boons and boon uptime which Herald cannot match. 

And let me address the talk about flexibility. HealHerald NEEDS Ventari. There is no flexibility left for Herald. If they have no Ventari, they cannot heal. If they take Ventari, they have no Stab access. They need Glint for quickness and boons, and they have to pick between Heal or Stability. Where's the flexibility in that? 

At least Renegade has a "press me for Alac" button. Honestly Herald would be pretty good too if they had a similar "press me for Quick" button if they ever need to go Jalis/Ventari. 
 

Meanwhile Healbrand is like Lol I have everything, AND I'm easier to play. I do believe Healbrand is pretty bloody busted but Herald is nowhere near Firebrand in terms of capability.  

Seems camping a spec by proxy

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10 hours ago, Yasai.3549 said:

Competitor to healbrand before rework? Hard to believe. If you mean competitor in terms of healing values, then probably true, but if you're talking about overall support capability, Healbrand trumps over Heal Herald by a long shot, not only being easier to play but also having access to some boons and boon uptime which Herald cannot match. 

And let me address the talk about flexibility. HealHerald NEEDS Ventari. There is no flexibility left for Herald. If they have no Ventari, they cannot heal. If they take Ventari, they have no Stab access. They need Glint for quickness and boons, and they have to pick between Heal or Stability. Where's the flexibility in that? 

At least Renegade has a "press me for Alac" button. Honestly Herald would be pretty good too if they had a similar "press me for Quick" button if they ever need to go Jalis/Ventari. 
 

Meanwhile Healbrand is like Lol I have everything, AND I'm easier to play. I do believe Healbrand is pretty bloody busted but Herald is nowhere near Firebrand in terms of capability.  

Heal herald comes pretty close to having everything healbrand had except stability. Good uptime on several boons (including regeneration by default), good CC, and a few cleanses, some ability to heal away from itself if it has to leave the group for a mechanic. It also has the ability to increase everyone else's boon durations, and possibly the most convenient projectile destruction in the game (old-style healbrand can only match this if it's doing not much else during the period, and new healbrand only has 5s uptime every 15 or so seconds). Doesn't have stability, but hey, a quickDPS herald probably has more stability than a quickDPS firebrand does.

I haven't been in the groups myself, but people doing, for example, CM Harvest Temple were already starting to prefer heralds over firebrands before the firebrand rework happened.

Firebrand is easier to play, to be sure, but I think your argument grossly underestimates what herald is already bringing to the table. And the only way to have everything being exactly the same level of complexity to play is if everything played the same way.

 

2 hours ago, Phyrak.7260 said:

The other side of this would be to give the camping spec some mist neutral/non legendary abilities which might fulfil particular roles depending on legend chosen.

Then there's the whole upkeep traits and how they'd work within a line.

It might also introduce a more consistent style of play instead of the consistent swapping - something that a player may not have thought about considering it's an antithetical way to play of sorts 

So creating a whole set of new utilities that will allow revenant to swap in utilities in order to finetune their build? So... guardian, then?

That's really the main issue I have here, if we're talking about a potential future spec rather than breaking an existing one: We have eight professions that already camp one customisable set of utility skills. Of those, six also employ regular weapon swapping. Is it really worth the investment to rejig revenant in order to make it behave just like one of those other six already does, which at the minimum would come at the opportunity of an elite specialisation that which otherwise could have been aimed towards people who enjoy revenant's unique style rather than wanting to play it as if it was one of those six other professions with revenant skills?

Seriously, a Shiro camper is basically a thief with an area stun. A Jalis or Glint camper is basically a guardian with fancy graphics. A Mallyx camper would be a condi reaper that is actually good or a condi harbinger with a decent melee weapon, configured for boon removal and condition transfer. A Ventari camper would be... will I say it? I'll say it. It'd be a healmech with more control over a pacifist mech. There. I said it.

Most of the legends are really just some guy with a regular profession, albeit at a higher level than normally associated with PCs, who got famous. Even Mallyx probably used to be human. Glint is obviously an exception to this, but it's already possible to get some strong dragon knight themes out of guardian builds, and it really wouldn't surprise me to see a Champion of Aurene elite spec crop up for another profession further down the pipeline, or heck, maybe even one for every profession that isn't revenant (as herald probably already counts there).

I can see the logic somewhat for elementalist, as the attunement mechanic makes it hard to build a concept much more defined than Captain Planet or Aang, but I really don't see a niche that a legend camping revenant can fill that can't be filled by one of the multiple other professions that already camp a utility bar.  

TL;DR: Why go to all that effort just to make a unique profession more like everything else?

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27 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Heal herald comes pretty close to having everything healbrand had except stability. Good uptime on several boons (including regeneration by default), good CC, and a few cleanses, some ability to heal away from itself if it has to leave the group for a mechanic. It also has the ability to increase everyone else's boon durations, and possibly the most convenient projectile destruction in the game (old-style healbrand can only match this if it's doing not much else during the period, and new healbrand only has 5s uptime every 15 or so seconds). Doesn't have stability, but hey, a quickDPS herald probably has more stability than a quickDPS firebrand does.

I haven't been in the groups myself, but people doing, for example, CM Harvest Temple were already starting to prefer heralds over firebrands before the firebrand rework happened.

Firebrand is easier to play, to be sure, but I think your argument grossly underestimates what herald is already bringing to the table. And the only way to have everything being exactly the same level of complexity to play is if everything played the same way.

 

So creating a whole set of new utilities that will allow revenant to swap in utilities in order to finetune their build? So... guardian, then?

That's really the main issue I have here, if we're talking about a potential future spec rather than breaking an existing one: We have eight professions that already camp one customisable set of utility skills. Of those, six also employ regular weapon swapping. Is it really worth the investment to rejig revenant in order to make it behave just like one of those other six already does, which at the minimum would come at the opportunity of an elite specialisation that which otherwise could have been aimed towards people who enjoy revenant's unique style rather than wanting to play it as if it was one of those six other professions with revenant skills?

Seriously, a Shiro camper is basically a thief with an area stun. A Jalis or Glint camper is basically a guardian with fancy graphics. A Mallyx camper would be a condi reaper that is actually good or a condi harbinger with a decent melee weapon, configured for boon removal and condition transfer. A Ventari camper would be... will I say it? I'll say it. It'd be a healmech with more control over a pacifist mech. There. I said it.

Most of the legends are really just some guy with a regular profession, albeit at a higher level than normally associated with PCs, who got famous. Even Mallyx probably used to be human. Glint is obviously an exception to this, but it's already possible to get some strong dragon knight themes out of guardian builds, and it really wouldn't surprise me to see a Champion of Aurene elite spec crop up for another profession further down the pipeline, or heck, maybe even one for every profession that isn't revenant (as herald probably already counts there).

I can see the logic somewhat for elementalist, as the attunement mechanic makes it hard to build a concept much more defined than Captain Planet or Aang, but I really don't see a niche that a legend camping revenant can fill that can't be filled by one of the multiple other professions that already camp a utility bar.  

TL;DR: Why go to all that effort just to make a unique profession more like everything else?

Theme is a draw towards a class; 

Warrior has little to do with magic outside of spell breaker - guardian is more or less the next step having a good deal of spell casting while still keeping the aspect of pure combat - revenant is directly tapping into the mists and legends themselves. What may draw a player to one class and style may drive them away from another.

As for the neutral mist skills - they could even be made baseline then given additional strength with the camp style e-spec.

I can appreciate your middle ground between the classes - though, a guardian and holy strength is a little different to channeling the power of a dwarven king, yet they share similar themes and a middling of play style.

Power fantasies across the board 🙂

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1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Firebrand is easier to play, to be sure, but I think your argument grossly underestimates what herald is already bringing to the table. And the only way to have everything being exactly the same level of complexity to play is if everything played the same way.

Well it's simple really: when a class is complex, people expect it to do better for the effort put into pulling it off. Right now Revenant as a whole in the class ecosystem isn't doing that, and I pointed the issue at Energy system. Take it or leave it. 

Besides, the stupid thing about the whole Herald argument is how embedded Glint is into the equation, and Glint Facets having little or no energy cost at all. This just further means that in order for Herald to even work, they need to circumvent the Energy system in some way, which makes the Energy system look even worse. 

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45 minutes ago, Phyrak.7260 said:

Theme is a draw towards a class; 

Warrior has little to do with magic outside of spell breaker - guardian is more or less the next step having a good deal of spell casting while still keeping the aspect of pure combat - revenant is directly tapping into the mists and legends themselves. What may draw a player to one class and style may drive them away from another.

As for the neutral mist skills - they could even be made baseline then given additional strength with the camp style e-spec.

I can appreciate your middle ground between the classes - though, a guardian and holy strength is a little different to channeling the power of a dwarven king, yet they share similar themes and a middling of play style.

Power fantasies across the board 🙂

Yeah, I used guardian for Jalis because I was looking at a profession in GW2 that did basically the same thing mechanics-wise.

A more direct match theme-wise, though, would be GW1-style W/E focusing on earth. Jalis was a warrior in GW1. His legend-associated skills are primarily associated with stone in some fashion, and relate to stability and/or damage reduction. Funnily enough, those are all things associated with earth magic in both games. Warrior elite specialisation that draws on the power of earth and stone, possibly learned from the surviving dwarfs that emerged from the depths in Icebrood Saga, and you basically have a Jalis camper in all but name. Only problem is that a lot of warrior players really want a proper support elite spec next, but hey, maybe they could throw in some healing-with-the-power-of-earth themes in there and cover both.

Similar observations could be made with all of them. Could even include some Mists themes onto other professions. Especially if they decide to pick up Utopia-related plot threads.

I think a large part of the draw towards revenant for a lot of players IS the unique playstyle. And while you might well be able to rebuild revenant mechanics from the ground up, I think there's much greater return for all concerned if revenant elite specs stuck to revenant mechanics, and the professions that are already designed around camping a single utility set cover that style.

23 minutes ago, Yasai.3549 said:

Well it's simple really: when a class is complex, people expect it to do better for the effort put into pulling it off. Right now Revenant as a whole in the class ecosystem isn't doing that, and I pointed the issue at Energy system. Take it or leave it. 

Besides, the stupid thing about the whole Herald argument is how embedded Glint is into the equation, and Glint Facets having little or no energy cost at all. This just further means that in order for Herald to even work, they need to circumvent the Energy system in some way, which makes the Energy system look even worse. 

The anecdotes I'm hearing from the players that are tackling the most difficult content are saying otherwise - Herald is pulling it off at that level. Heal herald specifically hasn't eclipsed healbrand for most content, but healbrand actually got buffed for more skilled players in the rework, so my statement holds there. Heal herald is certainly a perfectly viable substitute, though, it just has a higher skill floor.

The energy system is based around the principle that you can 'burn out' a legend and then swap to another - the hope is that in the sprint, you've already done everything you need with that legend and can safely swap to another and burn through that legend as well. Glint does this with cooldowns rather than energy (at least in quickness providing mode), but still does it. Many other professions, especially supports, also do it, just gated behind some other mechanic: druids rely on Celestial Avatar for their biggest healing-per-second, firebrands on Tome of Resolve, and so on, and even weaponswaps can result in shifts in how much healing and boons are being outputted. Heal herald having a period where they have stronger healing and a period where they have weaker healing is nothing unusual. 

And if you're a quickDPS herald... well, your DPS will be highest if you can dip into Shiro regularly, but you can still get pretty decent damage just sticking in Glint because of the low energy cost of facets, and keep the other legend available to deal with a mechanic or to pull out some emergency ability in a pinch. Which is a capability that would go away if herald is relegated to being a camp spec. 

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2 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Only problem is that a lot of warrior players really want a proper support elite spec next, but hey, maybe they could throw in some healing-with-the-power-of-earth themes in there and cover both.

Given that Barrier is sand-themed, It'd work fine as a form of Healing on a Earth-themed Warrior.

All the Barrier-related abilities on Elementalist also are associated with the Earth element.

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15 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Yeah, I used guardian for Jalis because I was looking at a profession in GW2 that did basically the same thing mechanics-wise.

A more direct match theme-wise, though, would be GW1-style W/E focusing on earth. Jalis was a warrior in GW1. His legend-associated skills are primarily associated with stone in some fashion, and relate to stability and/or damage reduction. Funnily enough, those are all things associated with earth magic in both games. Warrior elite specialisation that draws on the power of earth and stone, possibly learned from the surviving dwarfs that emerged from the depths in Icebrood Saga, and you basically have a Jalis camper in all but name. Only problem is that a lot of warrior players really want a proper support elite spec next, but hey, maybe they could throw in some healing-with-the-power-of-earth themes in there and cover both.

Similar observations could be made with all of them. Could even include some Mists themes onto other professions. Especially if they decide to pick up Utopia-related plot threads.

I think a large part of the draw towards revenant for a lot of players IS the unique playstyle. And while you might well be able to rebuild revenant mechanics from the ground up, I think there's much greater return for all concerned if revenant elite specs stuck to revenant mechanics, and the professions that are already designed around camping a single utility set cover that style.

The anecdotes I'm hearing from the players that are tackling the most difficult content are saying otherwise - Herald is pulling it off at that level. Heal herald specifically hasn't eclipsed healbrand for most content, but healbrand actually got buffed for more skilled players in the rework, so my statement holds there. Heal herald is certainly a perfectly viable substitute, though, it just has a higher skill floor.

The energy system is based around the principle that you can 'burn out' a legend and then swap to another - the hope is that in the sprint, you've already done everything you need with that legend and can safely swap to another and burn through that legend as well. Glint does this with cooldowns rather than energy (at least in quickness providing mode), but still does it. Many other professions, especially supports, also do it, just gated behind some other mechanic: druids rely on Celestial Avatar for their biggest healing-per-second, firebrands on Tome of Resolve, and so on, and even weaponswaps can result in shifts in how much healing and boons are being outputted. Heal herald having a period where they have stronger healing and a period where they have weaker healing is nothing unusual. 

And if you're a quickDPS herald... well, your DPS will be highest if you can dip into Shiro regularly, but you can still get pretty decent damage just sticking in Glint because of the low energy cost of facets, and keep the other legend available to deal with a mechanic or to pull out some emergency ability in a pinch. Which is a capability that would go away if herald is relegated to being a camp spec. 

An interesting byline there;

How solid/fluid a class can be; 

Rev takes the energy mechanic from gw1 and a fair amount of other aspects too along with other classes - guardian being a paragon/monk mix for example.

Yet going pure in a class also was a possibility, perhaps you would be able to access the same cleanses or stun breaks as a mix class could but there'd be other factors in going a pure profession in come cases.

It'd be an adjustment of scaling, trait triggers and maybe a new skill ability here and there within the legend itself - Skyrim dragon aspect styled looking channel that grants passive bonuses while making the consume skills more powerful/direct access would be up there.

A Herald of peace - ventari camp - would be able to push for greater heals and boons.

Herald of the mountain king would gain access to more stability and access to resolution - sending out a few hammers to deal damage as they circle you would be a rad combat mechanic. As you said with barrier, it'd work here thematically too.

Herald of unyielding would be exploiting the dark field that is created by staying in the elite skill and again giving utility skills a little more oomph while under the effect

Herald of blades - watch the gw1 cinematic again with shiro's fight. That'd be the feeling of the camping style Shiro 

 

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9 hours ago, UncreativeGreen.2019 said:

Now I'm just imagining Warrior warhorn blowing out a bunch of sand whenever they use it and Scrapper/Holo quickly reaching down and throwing sand on themselves when they attack.

Holosmith is a desert-themed specialization powered by zephyrite crystals, so it makes sense for them to also use sand. After all, both the crystals and sand are just stones.

Warrior and Scrapper Barrier feels like an afterthought though, disregarding the theme of Barrier. But you could imagine Warriors cleaning out their Warhorns by blowing out the sand. In Case of Scrapper, Shock Shield is just employing a magnetic field that picks up sand from the ground and Bulwark Gyro is just a container filled with sand. Mechanist's Barrier Signet would also be a magnetic field and Barrier Blast is just sand from that got stirred up from the mace impact.

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2 hours ago, Fueki.4753 said:

Holosmith is a desert-themed specialization powered by zephyrite crystals, so it makes sense for them to also use sand. After all, both the crystals and sand are just stones.

Warrior and Scrapper Barrier feels like an afterthought though, disregarding the theme of Barrier. But you could imagine Warriors cleaning out their Warhorns by blowing out the sand. In Case of Scrapper, Shock Shield is just employing a magnetic field that picks up sand from the ground and Bulwark Gyro is just a container filled with sand. Mechanist's Barrier Signet would also be a magnetic field and Barrier Blast is just sand from that got stirred up from the mace impact.

And Vindicator is just the revenant landing too hard on the ground and kicking up sand 😄

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20 hours ago, Fueki.4753 said:

With enough imagination, all the Barrier applications can (somewhat) make sense.

I think it's simpler to just accept that the original logic for a status effect does not necessarily have to apply for every instance of that effect in the game from then on. Alacrity was originally time manipulation, but from renegade on it's largely been presented as more of a motivation thing, to the point where the graphic was made less mesmery. Barrier can take the form of necromantically animated sand, but really anything that has the mechanical effect of providing some temporary ablative armour counts.

 

On 12/28/2022 at 8:36 AM, Phyrak.7260 said:

An interesting byline there;

How solid/fluid a class can be; 

Rev takes the energy mechanic from gw1 and a fair amount of other aspects too along with other classes - guardian being a paragon/monk mix for example.

Yet going pure in a class also was a possibility, perhaps you would be able to access the same cleanses or stun breaks as a mix class could but there'd be other factors in going a pure profession in come cases.

It'd be an adjustment of scaling, trait triggers and maybe a new skill ability here and there within the legend itself - Skyrim dragon aspect styled looking channel that grants passive bonuses while making the consume skills more powerful/direct access would be up there.

A Herald of peace - ventari camp - would be able to push for greater heals and boons.

Herald of the mountain king would gain access to more stability and access to resolution - sending out a few hammers to deal damage as they circle you would be a rad combat mechanic. As you said with barrier, it'd work here thematically too.

Herald of unyielding would be exploiting the dark field that is created by staying in the elite skill and again giving utility skills a little more oomph while under the effect

Herald of blades - watch the gw1 cinematic again with shiro's fight. That'd be the feeling of the camping style Shiro 

 

Just when herald is actually doing well in group PvE. Nah.

I really still don't see the value of turning revenant into a camp profession when we already have several, especially when you're proposing removing a playstyle many people enjoy for the sake of your fantasy. And if something like this came along, it'll probably come at the expense of an elite legendary stance, due to the effort that would be needed to make the core legends work.

Dragon knight? Any condi guardian would work. Breath fire on people directly. Cleansing Flames is your equivalent to Elemental Blast. You don't get to summon a ghostly dragon to Winds of Chaos enemies back, but you might be able to summon a ghostly dragon maw to swallow them from below.

Pacifism, heals, boons, natural theme? Druid.

If you define Jalis by hammers, you need to see what happens when you use a gen 3 legendary hammer with Catalyst, which also has some of the features you're talking about when using the appropriate traits.

Mallyx focused on the transform? Know who else has a transform that causes them to radiate conditions? I do.

And Shiro is basically a super-Assassin. Thief is the successor to what Shiro was.

Seriously, unless you're hyperfocused on the specific skills, the only things that are fundamental to revenant are legend swapping and the energy mechanic. Take away the legend swapping, and it's just the energy mechanic. And there are several other examples of energy-like mechanics around, they just tend to be focused more on using specific skills or groups of skills rather than the whole profession requiring the resource.

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1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I think it's simpler to just accept that the original logic for a status effect does not necessarily have to apply for every instance of that effect in the game from then on. Alacrity was originally time manipulation, but from renegade on it's largely been presented as more of a motivation thing, to the point where the graphic was made less mesmery. Barrier can take the form of necromantically animated sand, but really anything that has the mechanical effect of providing some temporary ablative armour counts.

 

Just when herald is actually doing well in group PvE. Nah.

I really still don't see the value of turning revenant into a camp profession when we already have several, especially when you're proposing removing a playstyle many people enjoy for the sake of your fantasy. And if something like this came along, it'll probably come at the expense of an elite legendary stance, due to the effort that would be needed to make the core legends work.

Dragon knight? Any condi guardian would work. Breath fire on people directly. Cleansing Flames is your equivalent to Elemental Blast. You don't get to summon a ghostly dragon to Winds of Chaos enemies back, but you might be able to summon a ghostly dragon maw to swallow them from below.

Pacifism, heals, boons, natural theme? Druid.

If you define Jalis by hammers, you need to see what happens when you use a gen 3 legendary hammer with Catalyst, which also has some of the features you're talking about when using the appropriate traits.

Mallyx focused on the transform? Know who else has a transform that causes them to radiate conditions? I do.

And Shiro is basically a super-Assassin. Thief is the successor to what Shiro was.

Seriously, unless you're hyperfocused on the specific skills, the only things that are fundamental to revenant are legend swapping and the energy mechanic. Take away the legend swapping, and it's just the energy mechanic. And there are several other examples of energy-like mechanics around, they just tend to be focused more on using specific skills or groups of skills rather than the whole profession requiring the resource.

Fair criticisms;

A camping spec in the future would perhaps solve this and give rise to highly tuned/strengthened legendaries and their utility skills.

Looking across professions thematically: Soldier.

Warrior is martial - little reference to magic outside of spell breaker 

Guardian is the archetypal paladin

Revenant therefore being the death night/spell sword 

Appealing to typology is how people enjoy particular play styles. I have a thread similar to this discussion in the elementalist forum discussing how camping would work in the spec and how it would be a beneficial niche/type of play depending on camp style.

The same can be be said for revenant - perhaps I didn't go about the best way with how people are enjoying a swap style of play with Herald.

This leaves open a place to play the spell sword archetype that focuses on one legend to the maximum extent.

I can see the threads of hammer catalyst and jallis, thief and shiro etc.

It's play style niche in combination with base core concept of the class itself. I suppose I will wait for the next expansion and pray that there will be a camping spec which gives rise to this particular niche, as the swapping spec - in boon share/healing and ranged condition and melee power are there to play.

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