Confusing Rev Issues (Mostly Lore)

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

I know the Revenant, as a class, was basically to round out the heavy armor spec and also a way to reintroduce the ritualist class into GW2 again. However, they do very little to explain any of the class as a whole. At best we get snippets, conflicting information, and zero story acknowledgement of our character. Now this post is admittedly all 20/20 hindsight and in a perfect world would love to see some revisions to the game to fix some issues, but I will start at character creation.

 

Before I start I will say that unless you are a lore or story junky this means very little to you, and I doubt I am the only one to bring this up, but eh everyone has their two bits to add and this is mine.

 

First and foremost, I think revenants were done dirty when they decided to just use the generic race starter story for revenants. Since revenants do not get any racial powers, they aren't really tied into their race. This also fails to acknowledge or even describe why and how revenant powers work. We just got a vague idea of we channel a legend of the past and go from there (conflicting data of course on whether the legend has to have died or even has to be from the past, as some say it has to be dead and some say it just has to be a legendary act from said individual).

 

Another problem is the fact that at no point in any of the story, especially from HoT or beyond, is that your revenant status ever acknowledged. Instead anything dealing with revenant powers is often given a line or two of dialog from Rytlock if anything is brought up at all. Your character is left to be dumbfounded and amazed by Rytlock's revenant powers despite you being a revenant yourself. It's jarring. I mean attention to detail of what our playing a given race does to the story (Sylvari for HoT, Asura and Charr in other various points, and so on) but this one core thing is never mentioned by your character or even any other character despite when they are fawning over and making a big deal of Rytlock when he becomes a revenant.

 

So, how would I fix this generally?

 

For starters I would give Revenants a new starting intro mission set that is not tied to the race background. Acknowledge the noise the revenant is suffering through from the mists as they find their legends and slowly part the mists and make the world more clear to them. Maybe they find Jalis, since he is our first Legendary by default, or we fight him much like with Mai Trin before we are able to quiet the noise in our head with the blindfold we are given. And with that clarity the mists part and drop us back into the world again.

 

Once that is done we change the level 10 quest to something more akin for the revenant that will go into detail in exactly what the revenant is doing how it works. Answer questions that people want to know such as how do revenants see with the blindfold on, is it mist sense or what? This part can deal with following a particular legends ideal one of the four starting ones perhaps. maybe introduce the legendaries as unique to revenants that they see in the world that answer questions guide them as the revenant is taught how to harness and focus the legendary within to give them guidance. And can even give us more lore on each legendary so we know more without having to /wiki them to even get an idea of who they are beyond some were in GW1. I mean I would certainly be interested to know more about Mallyx beyond he's a demon and he wants to corrupt you, or Jalis, and not everyone played GW1 to know about Shiro or Ventari.

 

Once the level 10 is out of the way the level 20 racial proceeds as normal so for instance the human one would be find your parents killer, sister, or circus for instance and the game proceeds as normal at that point going forward.

 

But, and always a but, I think the character's revenant status needs to be acknowledged in the game too. I know for the older content getting new lines of dialog recorded is problematic at this point just for a specific class, but not acknowledging it was a huge mistake to begin with in my opinion. It is jarring, and a tad annoying, that my character fawned over Rytlock coming in as a revenant but here I am doing the same thing as him and using the same powers, or lack of acknowledgement of the events in season 4 of the game while once again Rytlock mentions something but my character acts like nothing is different (though lore wise and given what happens in season 4 the Revenant should have been devastated).

 

In the end there needs to be more lore, and I fully acknowledge that Revs are unlikely to get their own intro especially for already established characters. But there needs to be something done for this class that mechanically and lore speaking, shouldn't be treated as just another thing and a lot of things happening in the game has a direct impact on this class specifically as far as story and lore would be concerned.

Edited January 25, 2023 by Ravenwulfe.5360

[draxynnic.3719]

First, revenant wasn't a way to bring ritualist back. Engineer was supposed to be the GW2 equivalent of the ritualist (or, perhaps more accurately, ritualist was a means of bringing engineer gameplay into GW1's lower-tech setting). It hasn't worked out for a number of reasons, but that was the intent. Revenant was a means of using ritualist-like spirit magic to create a dervish that wasn't bound to the culture of another race.

 

Onto the meat of your post:

Being able to play a ritualist at all prior to Heart of Thorns is a case of gameplay/story segregation. Story-wise, a PC revenant starts off as some other profession, like Rytlock, and is taught by Rytlock somewhere between when he pops out of the Mists and when he gets dragged back to be debriefed by Smodur. However, instead of having the hassle of having players play something else through the core storyline and then switch, ArenaNet just accepted the anachronism of letting people play revenant from level 1.

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

First, revenant wasn't a way to bring ritualist back. Engineer was supposed to be the GW2 equivalent of the ritualist (or, perhaps more accurately, ritualist was a means of bringing engineer gameplay into GW1's lower-tech setting). It hasn't worked out for a number of reasons, but that was the intent. Revenant was a means of using ritualist-like spirit magic to create a dervish that wasn't bound to the culture of another race.

 

Onto the meat of your post:

Being able to play a ritualist at all prior to Heart of Thorns is a case of gameplay/story segregation. Story-wise, a PC revenant starts off as some other profession, like Rytlock, and is taught by Rytlock somewhere between when he pops out of the Mists and when he gets dragged back to be debriefed by Smodur. However, instead of having the hassle of having players play something else through the core storyline and then switch, ArenaNet just accepted the anachronism of letting people play revenant from level 1.

Except, it doesn't work, first of all, and second, there is nothing in the game to suggest what you are suggesting. And I mean absolutely nothing. Like most posts I see concerning discussing anything about Revenant, it is conjecture at best when I hear any answer. Reading along the wiki doesn't even back this viewpoint up if I were to be blunt, and again does not excuse the fact that from HoT forward the revenant player is never acknowledged, unlike playing a specific race will be acknowledged, not ot mention nothing about Revenant is ever answered lore wise. Just lots of conjecture at best.

 

And while the idea of class swapping might have been a thought at one time, that still doesn't change what is now.

Edited January 26, 2023 by Ravenwulfe.5360

[draxynnic.3719]

ArenaNet did explain their reasoning prior to the HoT release. I don't know if that original explanation is still somewhere where it's publicly available, and perhaps it should be somewhere where new players can find it if it isn't, but it IS the explanation.

Regarding recognition of profession by the story: That's a general problem, not a revenant-specific one. Every so often the writers do remember to bring up some profession-specific interactions within the story, but situations where you'd think being one profession or another would make a difference but it doesn't are unfortunately the norm.

I'm also not sure why you think revenant would be particularly devastated by the events in Season 4? I could see an argument that there should have been some special dialogue for heralds, but Kralkatorrik's rampage through the Mists doesn't appear to have affected the regions where revenants draw their power from. I could see why a revenant might be more concerned than other professions, but the situation was already bad enough that it's like worrying about paying your mortgage during a nuclear war.

[Eekasqueak.7850]

7 hours ago, Ravenwulfe.5360 said:

Except, it doesn't work, first of all, and second, there is nothing in the game to suggest what you are suggesting. And I mean absolutely nothing. Like most posts I see concerning discussing anything about Revenant, it is conjecture at best when I hear any answer. Reading along the wiki doesn't even back this viewpoint up if I were to be blunt, and again does not excuse the fact that from HoT forward the revenant player is never acknowledged, unlike playing a specific race will be acknowledged, not ot mention nothing about Revenant is ever answered lore wise. Just lots of conjecture at best.

 

And while the idea of class swapping might have been a thought at one time, that still doesn't change what is now.

Actually in EoD there's a part where being a Revenant gets special dialogue. 

[Yasai.3549]

On 1/26/2023 at 3:44 AM, Ravenwulfe.5360 said:

First and foremost, I think revenants were done dirty when they decided to just use the generic race starter story for revenants. Since revenants do not get any racial powers, they aren't really tied into their race. This also fails to acknowledge or even describe why and how revenant powers work. We just got a vague idea of we channel a legend of the past and go from there (conflicting data of course on whether the legend has to have died or even has to be from the past, as some say it has to be dead and some say it just has to be a legendary act from said individual).

Agree

 

On 1/26/2023 at 3:44 AM, Ravenwulfe.5360 said:

Another problem is the fact that at no point in any of the story, especially from HoT or beyond, is that your revenant status ever acknowledged. Instead anything dealing with revenant powers is often given a line or two of dialog from Rytlock if anything is brought up at all. Your character is left to be dumbfounded and amazed by Rytlock's revenant powers despite you being a revenant yourself. It's jarring. I mean attention to detail of what our playing a given race does to the story (Sylvari for HoT, Asura and Charr in other various points, and so on) but this one core thing is never mentioned by your character or even any other character despite when they are fawning over and making a big deal of Rytlock when he becomes a revenant.

Disagree. Revs are not meant to be "special" it's only because Rythlock, a main character, debut as a Rev that people think they're special. We see Revenants scattered all over the place, just like any Espec NPC. With EoD, we see even Aetherblades take up Revenant training to cope with their changes. 

 

On 1/26/2023 at 3:44 AM, Ravenwulfe.5360 said:

For starters I would give Revenants a new starting intro mission set that is not tied to the race background. Acknowledge the noise the revenant is suffering through from the mists as they find their legends and slowly part the mists and make the world more clear to them. Maybe they find Jalis, since he is our first Legendary by default, or we fight him much like with Mai Trin before we are able to quiet the noise in our head with the blindfold we are given. And with that clarity the mists part and drop us back into the world again.

Agree. Revenant deserves as much. 

 

On 1/26/2023 at 3:44 AM, Ravenwulfe.5360 said:

Once that is done we change the level 10 quest to something more akin for the revenant that will go into detail in exactly what the revenant is doing how it works. Answer questions that people want to know such as how do revenants see with the blindfold on, is it mist sense or what? This part can deal with following a particular legends ideal one of the four starting ones perhaps. maybe introduce the legendaries as unique to revenants that they see in the world that answer questions guide them as the revenant is taught how to harness and focus the legendary within to give them guidance. And can even give us more lore on each legendary so we know more without having to /wiki them to even get an idea of who they are beyond some were in GW1. I mean I would certainly be interested to know more about Mallyx beyond he's a demon and he wants to corrupt you, or Jalis, and not everyone played GW1 to know about Shiro or Ventari.

Meh tbh. You may as well do something like have a specific racial Revenant Mentor who specializes in one Legend, and they be the mouthpiece for that Legend instead. For example, Sylvari Mentor would be Ventari Rev, Human Mentor would be Shiro Rev etc. 

 

 

On 1/26/2023 at 3:44 AM, Ravenwulfe.5360 said:

But, and always a but, I think the character's revenant status needs to be acknowledged in the game too. I know for the older content getting new lines of dialog recorded is problematic at this point just for a specific class, but not acknowledging it was a huge mistake to begin with in my opinion. It is jarring, and a tad annoying, that my character fawned over Rytlock coming in as a revenant but here I am doing the same thing as him and using the same powers, or lack of acknowledgement of the events in season 4 of the game while once again Rytlock mentions something but my character acts like nothing is different (though lore wise and given what happens in season 4 the Revenant should have been devastated).

Agree but it shouldn't be more or less than what other classes receive in acknowledgement. Remember, this is an MMO story, so they need to keep most dialogue options as broad as possible to fit all narratives. This shouldn't become a "WRITE ME A REV STORY COS IM SPECIAL" treatment. We already have Racial specific dialogue, I think that much is enough. 

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

On 1/26/2023 at 7:08 PM, Yasai.3549 said:

Disagree. Revs are not meant to be "special" it's only because Rythlock, a main character, debut as a Rev that people think they're special. We see Revenants scattered all over the place, just like any Espec NPC. With EoD, we see even Aetherblades take up Revenant training to cope with their changes. 

I dunno, it seems silly to me when Rytlock starts talking about revenant powers meanwhile you are dashing through the mists much the same as he is or talking to Glint, or my favorite, I am listening to Archemerous and Viktor and their lovers quarrel while he is talking about his new discovered powers, or the blindfold.

Edited January 28, 2023 by Ravenwulfe.5360

[draxynnic.3719]

12 hours ago, Ravenwulfe.5360 said:

I dunno, it seems silly to me when Rytlock starts talking about revenant powers meanwhile you are dashing through the mists much the same as he is or talking to Glint, or my favorite, I am listening to Archemerous and Viktor and their lovers quarrel while he is talking about his new discovered powers, or the blindfold.

Which is just another anachronism - Vindicator doesn't exist until End of Dragons, so from a strict lore perspective, you shouldn't be able to play it in any of the prior content. But from a gameplay perspective, that would suck, so they let you play elite specialisations, and in the case of revenant the profession itself, in content that is set before that specialisation (or entire profession) even existed.

Again, that's the source of the inconsistency. Rytlock is, canonically, the first revenant. The PC doesn't become a revenant until they have a chance to sit down and learn how to become one.

Maybe you can view everything up to that point as the revenant training process involving reliving your life up to that point (in a special Mists fractal or something) except with revenant powers instead in order to learn how to use them?

[Yasai.3549]

10 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Maybe you can view everything up to that point as the revenant training process involving reliving your life up to that point (in a special Mists fractal or something) except with revenant powers instead in order to learn how to use them?

This is why I agree with OP's suggestion that Revenants be given a new sort of "welcome" to the game. 

Revenants are mostly intended to be something of a "advanced class" with how it's released in HoT, targeting players experienced with the game and introducing a new class in the first expansion, and this is in combination of the Level boost (which throws you into Silverwaste, the area right before VB) you receive on purchasing HoT.

I think Anet quickly saw how adding one class per expansion like GW1 did would catch up with them and strangle them so they opted to do Especs per Expansion instead of adding more classes. 

Honestly, wouldn't even mind if Revenant characters were so special that in the character creation screen, they are given the option to choose all their Personal Story options (recalling the events so to speak) and skip it entirely, provided they are given their own unique story from the start of Silverwastes area, already prelevelled to 80. The lore implications would be they were lost to the Mists after they fell into the same Foefire cleansing fissure by accident, seperated from Rythlock, and appeared back in Tyria sometime sooner than Rythlock in order to participate in the events of Silverwaste already trained up in Revenant discipline. (Would also mean canonically, Revenants would miss out on the entire investigation of Silverwaste, and pop back into Tyria at the Point of no return.) 

Edited January 29, 2023 by Yasai.3549

[draxynnic.3719]

Eh. It might be a 'more advanced' profession, but it's still supposed to be possible for a new player to come in after having bought HoT and still get all the story. I'm pretty sure it's possible to skip the original Personal Story through the story journal page if you're so inclined, although I've never tried it myself, so I don't think they should make revenants just skip it if there are already options to do so.

It could be worthwhile to have a special instance somewhere before the end of HoT which is an explicit 'your training is complete, back to the real-world mission', but I think there's space for a unique instance each somewhere for other professions as well.

[Ausar.9542]

On 1/26/2023 at 7:33 PM, Eekasqueak.7850 said:

Actually in EoD there's a part where being a Revenant gets special dialogue. 

what that?

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

I always say that its a common misconception that Rytlock was the first Revenant, when we have no actual proof of this. It seems much more likely that he was the first Herald, trained especially by Glint. This results in the lore making alot more sense but players always argue with me about it saying the game specifically states that Rytlock was the first and only Revenant in Heart of Thorns,. I've never been able to find this information in canon.

 

The closest we come is him teaching other Revenants and them ending up channeling Kalla instead, but that doesn't really prove anything, and we encounter other Revenant-like warriors before Rytlock. We even have Amala, who is able to directly channel the Human Gods somehow, even after they left Tyria.

 

We know she was a Dervish because this is how they worked in Guild Wars, but this doesn't explain how her powers continued to work while they were in the Mists, away from Tyria (and while being controlled by Joko), and there's also nothing saying that Dervish and Ritualists didn't combine and evolve into Revenants over the last 250 years, who curiously can still wield scythes.

 

Its also ambiguous whether a being even has to be dead to be channeled by a Revenant, as we were able to channel Palawa Joko while he was still alive (or what passes for alive, as a lich), further blurring the boundaries between them and the aformentioned classes from the original game.

Players on here always seem to have answers, but you'll find hard pressed to find any actual confirmations.

Edited January 31, 2023 by Mariyuuna.6508

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

3 hours ago, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

Players on here always seem to have answers, but you'll find hard pressed to find any actual confirmations.

It's a fallacy, if something gets repeated enough people tend to treat it as fact no matter how wrong it is. It's kind of why I started the thread because the players are saying one thing, the lore says another and there is no real answers in games covering anything about Revenants other than they are. And for those who just play the game this stuff is trivial and they accept what other players say, but for those who are interested in the lore this stuff can be bothersome with it being glossed over if not outride just hand waved.

[draxynnic.3719]

3 hours ago, Ausar.9542 said:

what that?

After the Mai Trin fight.

 

3 hours ago, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

I always say that its a common misconception that Rytlock was the first Revenant, when we have no actual proof of this. It seems much more likely that he was the first Herald, trained especially by Glint. This results in the lore making alot more sense but players always argue with me about it saying the game specifically states that Rytlock was the first and only Revenant in Heart of Thorns,. I've never been able to find this information in canon.

 

The closest we come is him teaching other Revenants and them ending up channeling Kalla instead, but that doesn't really prove anything, and we encounter other Revenant-like warriors before Rytlock. We even have Amala, who is able to directly channel the Human Gods somehow, even after they left Tyria.

 

We know she was a Dervish because this is how they worked in Guild Wars, but this doesn't explain how her powers continued to work while they were in the Mists, away from Tyria (and while being controlled by Joko), and there's also nothing saying that Dervish and Ritualists didn't combine and evolve into Revenants over the last 250 years, who curiously can still wield scythes.

 

Its also ambiguous whether a being even has to be dead to be channeled by a Revenant, as we were able to channel Palawa Joko while he was still alive (or what passes for alive, as a lich), further blurring the boundaries between them and the aformentioned classes from the original game.

Players on here always seem to have answers, but you'll find hard pressed to find any actual confirmations.

I don't think it's explicitly said ingame because ingame, it's a case of 'show, not tell' - the way in which everyone treats Rytlock as this brand new thing is part of the demonstration that this is something that was previously unknown. It's also notable that so far every elite specialisation NPC revenant has been from central Tyria. It's possible that somewhere there was an earlier revenant, but not in any of the regions we've visited yet, and the only independent source of revenants seems to be the Aetherblades.

ArenaNet also said it outright several times during Heart of Thorns promotional material. The reason you're not getting 'confirmation' is that people aren't willing to spend hours trawling through material from 2015 just because someone on the Internet doesn't believe them. You can take the people who were there at the time on our word, or you can do your own research (the third-party stuff is probably long gone, but the videos on ArenaNet's channel and the articles that were published on the GW2 site are still there).

Dervish powers still work despite the gods leaving, btw. They tap into the powers of the gods that remain in humans rather than relying on the gods granting power directly - the gifts were granted centuries ago (this is why human racial skills exist, but no prayer has been granted in living memory at the time the game started). Dervish is essentially focusing on developing that. They're not playable because only humans can use dervish avatars, so ArenaNet took a suggestion from the forum of how to make a non-race-specific equivalent of a dervish. Guess what that became.

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

Just being there isn't always the case, as memories are a faulty beast and outside of the few snippets (also the game is more tell than show until around Season 3 and Path of Fire so I heartily disagree with that one) there isn't much else to go on. Rytlock is fawned over his new magic, despite what he is doing is what the Ritualists of Cantha did. Furthermore, nothing in game from all the dialog (and I've been replaying it) suggests Rytlock has trained any revenants, since you meet with him in HoT, and during the events of season 3 he is called away to explain his absence and what happened to him while they debate on stripping him of his tribune title in the Black Citadel, and then you meet up with him in PoF after he has been exonerated so at no point has he had a chance to train people in the powers of the revenant.

 

And outside of your character (if you chose to be a revenant that is), there are only four other known revenants currently in lore, each of them finding their own way to the powers and they are;

 

Rytlock Brimstone a Herald

Gorea Halfcut a Renegade

Mai Trin who is being overwhelmed by Scarlet Briar

Scholar Luta a Vindicator

 

The closest who could have potentially been trained by Rytlock, Gorea, had no chance to be since Rytlock was still dealing with controlling his revenant powers and the Citadel by the time we show up in PoF, since one the lines of dialog is we even comment that he isn't wearing his blindfold any more. What Mai Trin suggests is that the road to becoming a revenant is a personal one involving proximity to the mists, not one that is taught. It's a type of power that one has to awaken too, whether they want to or not, not spend time beating a tree in until you can learn to wield the mists.

 

This is why having actual answers in-game matter. Supposition by players is about all to go on, not to mention as the story has progressed since Heart of Thorns, it's obvious things have changed behind the scenes as the story has gone on. Hell all things considered, Razah from GW1 is as likely to have been a revenant as well, which has him predating Rytlock by a few centuries.

 

I don't think it's much to ask to at least get some answers for those who love the lore and want them. Even if isn't the biggest of deals and it's "just a video game" it's still nice when consistency is there and going on words that can't be confirmed due to things in game contradicting the supposition of players who are going on memory of things is all to go on. Again a lot even the wiki contradicts.

Edited February 1, 2023 by Ravenwulfe.5360

[Yasai.3549]

1 hour ago, Ravenwulfe.5360 said:

Just being there isn't always the case, as memories are a faulty beast and outside of the few snippets (also the game is more tell than show until around Season 3 and Path of Fire so I heartily disagree with that one) there isn't much else to go on. Rytlock is fawned over his new magic, despite what he is doing is what the Ritualists of Cantha did. Furthermore, nothing in game from all the dialog (and I've been replaying it) suggests Rytlock has trained any revenants, since you meet with him in HoT, and during the events of season 3 he is called away to explain his absence and what happened to him while they debate on stripping him of his tribune title in the Black Citadel, and then you meet up with him in PoF after he has been exonerated so at no point has he had a chance to train people in the powers of the revenant.

 

And outside of your character (if you chose to be a revenant that is), there are only four other known revenants currently in lore, each of them finding their own way to the powers and they are;

 

Rytlock Brimstone a Herald

Gorea Halfcut a Renegade

Mai Trin who is being overwhelmed by Scarlet Briar

Scholar Luta a Vindicator

 

The closest who could have potentially been trained by Rytlock, Gorea, had no chance to be since Rytlock was still dealing with controlling his revenant powers and the Citadel by the time we show up in PoF, since one the lines of dialog is we even comment that he isn't wearing his blindfold any more. What Mai Trin suggests is that the road to becoming a revenant is a personal one involving proximity to the mists, not one that is taught. It's a type of power that one has to awaken too, whether they want to or not, not spend time beating a tree in until you can learn to wield the mists.

 

This is why having actual answers in-game matter. Supposition by players is about all to go on, not to mention as the story has progressed since Heart of Thorns, it's obvious things have changed behind the scenes as the story has gone on. Hell all things considered, Razah from GW1 is as likely to have been a revenant as well, which has him predating Rytlock by a few centuries.

 

I don't think it's much to ask to at least get some answers for those who love the lore and want them. Even if isn't the biggest of deals and it's "just a video game" it's still nice when consistency is there and going on words that can't be confirmed due to things in game contradicting the supposition of players who are going on memory of things is all to go on. Again a lot even the wiki contradicts.

Revenant honestly seems like a self-taught or self adapted training than anything because the Aetherblades gained a whole literal boatload of Revenants after exiting the Mists too. As for the process, I'd prefer it to be vague. Mists as a literary device is meant to be unknown and mysterious and Revenants being from the Mist is similarly unknown and mysterious, last thing I want is a lore dump about the mechanics of the Mist and how specifically one trains to be a Revenant. 

From all the current interactions with Revenant, we can roughly guess how they become Revenants anyway: 
1. Enter the Mist and stay for a prolonged period of time

2. The nature of the Mists is unstable and reality warping, so the person in question has every chance or not to meet an echo of a figure, past, present or future. 

3. The echoes are drawn to the foreigner of the Mist and constantly warp their perception of reality or try to possess them (Hence the need for blindfolds to focus their thoughts)

4. Revenants are those that has attained step 3 and somewhat controls this symbiosis and as a side effect they are more attuned to the Mist and can jump in and out of it as natural skill 

I'd rather it just remained vague all the same. It's the entire point. 

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

14 hours ago, Yasai.3549 said:

Revenant honestly seems like a self-taught or self adapted training than anything because the Aetherblades gained a whole literal boatload of Revenants after exiting the Mists too. As for the process, I'd prefer it to be vague. Mists as a literary device is meant to be unknown and mysterious and Revenants being from the Mist is similarly unknown and mysterious, last thing I want is a lore dump about the mechanics of the Mist and how specifically one trains to be a Revenant. 

From all the current interactions with Revenant, we can roughly guess how they become Revenants anyway: 
1. Enter the Mist and stay for a prolonged period of time

2. The nature of the Mists is unstable and reality warping, so the person in question has every chance or not to meet an echo of a figure, past, present or future. 

3. The echoes are drawn to the foreigner of the Mist and constantly warp their perception of reality or try to possess them (Hence the need for blindfolds to focus their thoughts)

4. Revenants are those that has attained step 3 and somewhat controls this symbiosis and as a side effect they are more attuned to the Mist and can jump in and out of it as natural skill 

I'd rather it just remained vague all the same. It's the entire point. 

I would agree with this point of view if we were talking about a specific character that  is not meant to have answers for or at least the interpretation of those answers can have many meanings such as the mysterious stranger in Fallout series or the Joker in DC. The revenant isn't that type of character.

[Yasai.3549]

8 hours ago, Ravenwulfe.5360 said:

I would agree with this point of view if we were talking about a specific character that  is not meant to have answers for or at least the interpretation of those answers can have many meanings such as the mysterious stranger in Fallout series or the Joker in DC. The revenant isn't that type of character.

Correct, but the nature of the Mists which Revenants are so closely tied to is. So by association, the Revenants in general are also shrouded in mystery aside from their capabilities which are displayed in combat. 

I mean heck, did you read the Revenant flavour text description for this subforum?

"Mysterious Mistwalkers who channel Tyria's Legends in battle" 

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

14 minutes ago, Yasai.3549 said:

Correct, but the nature of the Mists which Revenants are so closely tied to is. So by association, the Revenants in general are also shrouded in mystery aside from their capabilities which are displayed in combat. 

I mean heck, did you read the Revenant flavour text description for this subforum?

"Mysterious Mistwalkers who channel Tyria's Legends in battle" 

Yes, but I do think there needs to be at least some form of explanation of how it all works, and at least some acknowledgement in the story. I mean several points the revenant would be the most directly affected of all the classes, and an understanding or even story point where the revenant comes about their powers would work wonders instead of just doing the bog standard racial starting intro.

[draxynnic.3719]

On 2/1/2023 at 11:16 AM, Ravenwulfe.5360 said:

Just being there isn't always the case, as memories are a faulty beast and outside of the few snippets (also the game is more tell than show until around Season 3 and Path of Fire so I heartily disagree with that one) there isn't much else to go on.

Sure, it happens, but in this case I'm confident enough that's what was said, because it's one of those things that sticks. But it's not worth my while going through hours of material to find the one quote to prove someone wrong on the internet, especially since the disclosures on third-party sites are probably long gone by now. If you're interested and you refuse to take the words of apparently several people who have tried to inform you, you can go through that material yourself (nowhere have you said you've tried - problematic as it might be, there was a fair amount that was said in articles on the main page and videos on the channel in 2015) or you can continue tilting at a windmill of getting ArenaNet to change content that was released over half a decade ago to fit your headcanon. At most, you could expect a minor change or two so that this information becomes more directly available to new players rather than being part of the institutional knowledge of the vets.

On 2/1/2023 at 11:16 AM, Ravenwulfe.5360 said:

 

Rytlock is fawned over his new magic, despite what he is doing is what the Ritualists of Cantha did. Furthermore, nothing in game from all the dialog (and I've been replaying it) suggests Rytlock has trained any revenants, since you meet with him in HoT, and during the events of season 3 he is called away to explain his absence and what happened to him while they debate on stripping him of his tribune title in the Black Citadel, and then you meet up with him in PoF after he has been exonerated so at no point has he had a chance to train people in the powers of the revenant.

Yeah. He's called back to the Black Citadel early in Season 3 in order to explain what happened and where he got this new magic, and the first NPC revenant we meet apart from Rytlock himself happens to be a charr who references Rytlock as knowing more about being a revenant than she does. You don't think that their miiiiiight just be a connection between Rytlock being pulled away from the PC for months and a charr revenants who mentions him by name showing up?

Scholar Luta, meanwhile, shows up nearly half a decade later. Plenty of time for it to spread through the Pact for other interested learners to pick it up, given that it doesn't seem to take long to pick up the basics. But have you noticed that unlike the other EoD elite specs, the Vindicator mentor is still a character from Central Tyria, and that there are no native Canthan ritualists? Emergent storytelling in practice. Rytlock was the first, and it's since been expanding from there. The only other independent source has been the Aetherblades, who had been stuck in the Mists since their retreat into the Mists from the Battle of Lion's Arch.

[Einlanzer.1627]

The mistake they made was acting like Revenant was a new idea introduced within the game world when it was released as a class instead of just retrofitting into the world as if it was always there but was just not as prominent before. 

Bluntly, this was just a bad writing decision, and they've really never gone back to clean this up. It may or may not be worth doing, considering it's only a handful of throwaway lines mostly surrounding Rytlock's evolution as a character.

I'm not sure I agree with your general assessment that Revenant needs a lot of unique lore building that other classes don't really have either. 

Edited February 5, 2023 by Einlanzer.1627

[Yasai.3549]

4 hours ago, Einlanzer.1627 said:

The mistake they made was acting like Revenant was a new idea introduced within the game world when it was released as a class instead of just retrofitting into the world as if it was always there but was just not as prominent before. 

Bluntly, this was just a bad writing decision, and they've really never gone back to clean this up. It may or may not be worth doing, considering it's only a handful of throwaway lines mostly surrounding Rytlock's evolution as a character.

I'm not sure I agree with your general assessment that Revenant needs a lot of unique lore building that other classes don't really have either. 

I wouldn't say it was a mistake, more like they were blindly following the Gw1 formula of each Expansion = new area + new class. 

In Gw1, you got new classes Dervish and Paragon when you get Nightfall expansion and Assassin and Ritualist in Factions. Each class were unique to their regions prior to them being released. That's all the "backstory" it needed. They blindly followed this for Revenant introduced in Heart of Thorns and were quickly stumped because if they were to revisit old locations in Gw1 for new expansions, how were they gonna cook up a new previously unknown class from nowhere? And thus, Elite Specs were formed. 

Elite specs for each expansion do roughly detail its inception, usually due to the environment or condition of the expansion. For HoT, alot of these were explained to exist in order to better fight Mordremoth or to survive in the jungle. 

Edited February 6, 2023 by Yasai.3549

[draxynnic.3719]

On 2/6/2023 at 1:54 PM, Yasai.3549 said:

For HoT, alot of these were explained to exist in order to better fight Mordremoth or to survive in the jungle. 

While some others had been teased prior to HoT, suggesting that it was something that people in central Tyria had already been experimenting in and HoT was just when they became widespread enough for PCs to get them.

[Thornwolf.9721]

On 1/25/2023 at 1:44 PM, Ravenwulfe.5360 said:

I know the Revenant, as a class, was basically to round out the heavy armor spec and also a way to reintroduce the ritualist class into GW2 again. However, they do very little to explain any of the class as a whole. At best we get snippets, conflicting information, and zero story acknowledgement of our character. Now this post is admittedly all 20/20 hindsight and in a perfect world would love to see some revisions to the game to fix some issues, but I will start at character creation.

 

Before I start I will say that unless you are a lore or story junky this means very little to you, and I doubt I am the only one to bring this up, but eh everyone has their two bits to add and this is mine.

 

First and foremost, I think revenants were done dirty when they decided to just use the generic race starter story for revenants. Since revenants do not get any racial powers, they aren't really tied into their race. This also fails to acknowledge or even describe why and how revenant powers work. We just got a vague idea of we channel a legend of the past and go from there (conflicting data of course on whether the legend has to have died or even has to be from the past, as some say it has to be dead and some say it just has to be a legendary act from said individual).

 

Another problem is the fact that at no point in any of the story, especially from HoT or beyond, is that your revenant status ever acknowledged. Instead anything dealing with revenant powers is often given a line or two of dialog from Rytlock if anything is brought up at all. Your character is left to be dumbfounded and amazed by Rytlock's revenant powers despite you being a revenant yourself. It's jarring. I mean attention to detail of what our playing a given race does to the story (Sylvari for HoT, Asura and Charr in other various points, and so on) but this one core thing is never mentioned by your character or even any other character despite when they are fawning over and making a big deal of Rytlock when he becomes a revenant.

 

So, how would I fix this generally?

 

For starters I would give Revenants a new starting intro mission set that is not tied to the race background. Acknowledge the noise the revenant is suffering through from the mists as they find their legends and slowly part the mists and make the world more clear to them. Maybe they find Jalis, since he is our first Legendary by default, or we fight him much like with Mai Trin before we are able to quiet the noise in our head with the blindfold we are given. And with that clarity the mists part and drop us back into the world again.

 

Once that is done we change the level 10 quest to something more akin for the revenant that will go into detail in exactly what the revenant is doing how it works. Answer questions that people want to know such as how do revenants see with the blindfold on, is it mist sense or what? This part can deal with following a particular legends ideal one of the four starting ones perhaps. maybe introduce the legendaries as unique to revenants that they see in the world that answer questions guide them as the revenant is taught how to harness and focus the legendary within to give them guidance. And can even give us more lore on each legendary so we know more without having to /wiki them to even get an idea of who they are beyond some were in GW1. I mean I would certainly be interested to know more about Mallyx beyond he's a demon and he wants to corrupt you, or Jalis, and not everyone played GW1 to know about Shiro or Ventari.

 

Once the level 10 is out of the way the level 20 racial proceeds as normal so for instance the human one would be find your parents killer, sister, or circus for instance and the game proceeds as normal at that point going forward.

 

But, and always a but, I think the character's revenant status needs to be acknowledged in the game too. I know for the older content getting new lines of dialog recorded is problematic at this point just for a specific class, but not acknowledging it was a huge mistake to begin with in my opinion. It is jarring, and a tad annoying, that my character fawned over Rytlock coming in as a revenant but here I am doing the same thing as him and using the same powers, or lack of acknowledgement of the events in season 4 of the game while once again Rytlock mentions something but my character acts like nothing is different (though lore wise and given what happens in season 4 the Revenant should have been devastated).

 

In the end there needs to be more lore, and I fully acknowledge that Revs are unlikely to get their own intro especially for already established characters. But there needs to be something done for this class that mechanically and lore speaking, shouldn't be treated as just another thing and a lot of things happening in the game has a direct impact on this class specifically as far as story and lore would be concerned.

Funnily enough I thought the same thing, I've been playing BDO (Black desert online) and they recently released a class called Drakkania which is basically herald meets demon hunter. They went back and REWROTE and gave specific dialogue for the second half of the story, due to the class being a child of one of the main black dragons. It also can read all of the draconic runes and god writings strewn throughout the world, its the only class that can do this.

As well it can take one of the crafting mats, the dragon fossils and turn them into dragon essences which gives them a free buff that is as strong or stronger then praying at a church. Its the ONLY class to get this level of love or attention...

Revenant should've had this level of care given to its creation and development 

[Thornwolf.9721]

On 1/31/2023 at 8:42 PM, Yasai.3549 said:

Revenant honestly seems like a self-taught or self adapted training than anything because the Aetherblades gained a whole literal boatload of Revenants after exiting the Mists too. As for the process, I'd prefer it to be vague. Mists as a literary device is meant to be unknown and mysterious and Revenants being from the Mist is similarly unknown and mysterious, last thing I want is a lore dump about the mechanics of the Mist and how specifically one trains to be a Revenant. 

From all the current interactions with Revenant, we can roughly guess how they become Revenants anyway: 
1. Enter the Mist and stay for a prolonged period of time

2. The nature of the Mists is unstable and reality warping, so the person in question has every chance or not to meet an echo of a figure, past, present or future. 

3. The echoes are drawn to the foreigner of the Mist and constantly warp their perception of reality or try to possess them (Hence the need for blindfolds to focus their thoughts)

4. Revenants are those that has attained step 3 and somewhat controls this symbiosis and as a side effect they are more attuned to the Mist and can jump in and out of it as natural skill 

I'd rather it just remained vague all the same. It's the entire point. 

I Think it can be something like an infection too as Mai Trin mentions she never tried, wanted or went into it trying to get those powers. It just sort of happened while she was in the mists which is likely due to her bond and love of scarlet; So of course scarlets echo would be attracted to her. 

I dont think every user gets the rytlock treatment, and likely the echo could potentially consume and possess the user if the users will power and strength were to ever waiver. As this did happen with Mai trin, and when she channeled scarlet her eyes would change colors (Which I'd like to see added to our characters too... give us glowing eyes which change based on our legends that we channel, its a small thing but a cool detail and I kind of want it for my rev.)