Weapon Skills generate Energy, Legend Skills Consume Energy

[Knighthonor.4061]

I had this idea. What if the Weapon Skills generate a fixed amount of Energy, and the Legend Skills/Legend Swap consumes a fixed amount of Energy cost (like they currently do, no change there)

There is still a passive Energy Regen but it's not as strong as currently.

Auto attack (note I call skills 1 Auto Attack. Just want to clarify) skills has the fastest energy Regen rate. Weapon skills all generates energy. Doesn't have to be an attack skill.

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

The fact that a major complaint about power dps rotations was that it was too autoattack based means that a system like this shouldn’t give the majority of energy gain on the autoattack.

However, I don’t really like this idea nor do I like the “no energy cost weapon skills” idea. I don’t want to have to wait 18+ seconds for unrelenting assault or even longer for sword 4/5.

Honestly, energy on Revenant is fine. Veteran Revenants know how to use the energy system effectively in all situations and aren’t hampered by it. If people don’t like the energy system I don’t see why they can’t play a class that has more of what they want instead of asking for changes that would negatively impact those of us that enjoy the current class mechanic and gameplay. This isn’t Mesmer where a major change to the class mechanic was a good thing (for the class, not necessarily the game as a whole); for Revenant it would likely end up more along the lines of the deadeye rework (aka mediocre to awful) simply because it would mean pretty much every skill would have to be adjusted in terms of energy cost and/or cooldown.

Revenant’s issues are not energy based or mechanic based, but balance decisions based. The class was hit with years of nerfs without skill splits that wrecked both their pvp and pve diversity. Just look at what happened to it in raids; it was removed from the meta for 1+ years due to nerfs targeted for wvw. While it’s doing better in pve now, add scourge to necro and give rev an awful pvp elite spec and you get a class that’s fallen out of pvp meta since POF. People want to blame the energy system or think that a rework to it will solve Revenants issues, but it won’t. Revenant as a whole just needs some targeted buffs for each game mode and it would be a lot better off. Renegade however needs a full rework if it ever wants to be good at any form of pvp.

[ethanzephyr.7298]

@LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:The fact that a major complaint about power dps rotations was that it was too autoattack based means that a system like this shouldn’t give the majority of energy gain on the autoattack.

However, I don’t really like this idea nor do I like the “no energy cost weapon skills” idea. I don’t want to have to wait 18+ seconds for unrelenting assault or even longer for sword 4/5.

Honestly, energy on Revenant is fine. Veteran Revenants know how to use the energy system effectively in all situations and aren’t hampered by it. If people don’t like the energy system I don’t see why they can’t play a class that has more of what they want instead of asking for changes that would negatively impact those of us that enjoy the current class mechanic and gameplay. This isn’t Mesmer where a major change to the class mechanic was a good thing (for the class, not necessarily the game as a whole); for Revenant it would likely end up more along the lines of the deadeye rework (aka mediocre to awful) simply because it would mean pretty much every skill would have to be adjusted in terms of energy cost and/or cooldown.

Revenant’s issues are not energy based or mechanic based, but balance decisions based. The class was hit with years of nerfs without skill splits that wrecked both their pvp and pve diversity. Just look at what happened to it in raids; it was removed from the meta for 1+ years due to nerfs targeted for wvw. While it’s doing better in pve now, add scourge to necro and give rev an awful pvp elite spec and you get a class that’s fallen out of pvp meta since POF. People want to blame the energy system or think that a rework to it will solve Revenants issues, but it won’t. Revenant as a whole just needs some targeted buffs for each game mode and it would be a lot better off. Renegade however needs a full rework if it ever wants to be good at any form of pvp.

This is a revenant who understands. It's such a different class that people go to it and wonder why they can play every other class except for this one. I on the other hand, started playing as a revenant, and can't really play any other classes effectively.

[Knighthonor.4061]

@LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:The fact that a major complaint about power dps rotations was that it was too autoattack based means that a system like this shouldn’t give the majority of energy gain on the autoattack.

However, I don’t really like this idea nor do I like the “no energy cost weapon skills” idea. I don’t want to have to wait 18+ seconds for unrelenting assault or even longer for sword 4/5.

Honestly, energy on Revenant is fine. Veteran Revenants know how to use the energy system effectively in all situations and aren’t hampered by it. If people don’t like the energy system I don’t see why they can’t play a class that has more of what they want instead of asking for changes that would negatively impact those of us that enjoy the current class mechanic and gameplay. This isn’t Mesmer where a major change to the class mechanic was a good thing (for the class, not necessarily the game as a whole); for Revenant it would likely end up more along the lines of the deadeye rework (aka mediocre to awful) simply because it would mean pretty much every skill would have to be adjusted in terms of energy cost and/or cooldown.

Revenant’s issues are not energy based or mechanic based, but balance decisions based. The class was hit with years of nerfs without skill splits that wrecked both their pvp and pve diversity. Just look at what happened to it in raids; it was removed from the meta for 1+ years due to nerfs targeted for wvw. While it’s doing better in pve now, add scourge to necro and give rev an awful pvp elite spec and you get a class that’s fallen out of pvp meta since POF. People want to blame the energy system or think that a rework to it will solve Revenants issues, but it won’t. Revenant as a whole just needs some targeted buffs for each game mode and it would be a lot better off. Renegade however needs a full rework if it ever wants to be good at any form of pvp.

I respectfully disagree. Energy play a big role. Especially depending on your legend and weapon use. Certain weapons have higher cost than others which doesn't seem to been in design to consider the corresponding Legends. Legends had different cost that under most cases aren't balanced for their effectiveness. Revenant Currently start at 50 energy at the start of combat. Somebody like a mesmer or necro drop a condition bomb on you, that's would require a large Chuck of your initial energy to counter for certain Legend/weapon combo and leave little energy for combat on the offensive which leaves a lot of catching up reactionary combat which can never out last a enemy with a unlimited use of their skills not hampered by a resource system.

[Knighthonor.4061]

@ethanzephyr.7298 said:

@LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:The fact that a major complaint about power dps rotations was that it was too autoattack based means that a system like this shouldn’t give the majority of energy gain on the autoattack.

However, I don’t really like this idea nor do I like the “no energy cost weapon skills” idea. I don’t want to have to wait 18+ seconds for unrelenting assault or even longer for sword 4/5.

Honestly, energy on Revenant is fine.

Veteran Revenants know how to use the energy system effectively in all situations and aren’t hampered by it. If people don’t like the energy system I don’t see why they can’t play a class that has more of what they want instead of asking for changes that would negatively impact those of us that enjoy the current class mechanic and gameplay. This isn’t Mesmer where a major change to the class mechanic was a good thing (for the class, not necessarily the game as a whole); for Revenant it would likely end up more along the lines of the deadeye rework (aka mediocre to awful) simply because it would mean pretty much every skill would have to be adjusted in terms of energy cost and/or cooldown.

Revenant’s issues are not energy based or mechanic based, but balance decisions based. The class was hit with

years

of nerfs without skill splits that wrecked both their pvp and pve diversity. Just look at what happened to it in raids; it was removed from the meta for 1+ years due to nerfs targeted for wvw. While it’s doing better in pve now, add scourge to necro and give rev an awful pvp elite spec and you get a class that’s fallen out of pvp meta since POF. People want to blame the energy system or think that a rework to it will solve Revenants issues, but it won’t. Revenant as a whole just needs some targeted buffs for each game mode and it would be a lot better off. Renegade however needs a full rework if it ever wants to be good at any form of pvp.

This is a revenant who understands. It's such a different class that people go to it and wonder why they can play every other class except for this one. I on the other hand, started playing as a revenant, and can't really play any other classes effectively.

But that's a contradiction. Can't say the class been nerfed heavyly but is also fine as is. That statement alone contradict itself. I remember in Vanilla people said Necro was fine as is and that Ranger was fine as is just learn to play. But clearly most people didn't agree with that small minority.

[ethanzephyr.7298]

@Knighthonor.4061 said:But that's a contradiction. Can't say the class been nerfed heavyly but is also fine as is. That statement alone contradict itself. I remember in Vanilla people said Necro was fine as is and that Ranger was fine as is just learn to play. But clearly most people didn't agree with that small minority.

If he said that the Revenant is both underpowered and overpowered, that would be a contradiction. He said that our flaws are based on number tweaks, and not the mechanics. I also fail to see how this would make the class perform better, maybe add some slight numbers and that's about it. All we need are better numbers.

If you've watched PvP, Revenant was very strong. We have a role for WvW, and I never fail to find a group for fractals due to my Power Herald. We're fine, but could be better.

[Sereath.1428]

@LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:The fact that a major complaint about power dps rotations was that it was too autoattack based means that a system like this shouldn’t give the majority of energy gain on the autoattack.

However, I don’t really like this idea nor do I like the “no energy cost weapon skills” idea. I don’t want to have to wait 18+ seconds for unrelenting assault or even longer for sword 4/5.

Honestly, energy on Revenant is fine. Veteran Revenants know how to use the energy system effectively in all situations and aren’t hampered by it. If people don’t like the energy system I don’t see why they can’t play a class that has more of what they want instead of asking for changes that would negatively impact those of us that enjoy the current class mechanic and gameplay. This isn’t Mesmer where a major change to the class mechanic was a good thing (for the class, not necessarily the game as a whole); for Revenant it would likely end up more along the lines of the deadeye rework (aka mediocre to awful) simply because it would mean pretty much every skill would have to be adjusted in terms of energy cost and/or cooldown.

Revenant’s issues are not energy based or mechanic based, but balance decisions based. The class was hit with years of nerfs without skill splits that wrecked both their pvp and pve diversity. Just look at what happened to it in raids; it was removed from the meta for 1+ years due to nerfs targeted for wvw. While it’s doing better in pve now, add scourge to necro and give rev an awful pvp elite spec and you get a class that’s fallen out of pvp meta since POF. People want to blame the energy system or think that a rework to it will solve Revenants issues, but it won’t. Revenant as a whole just needs some targeted buffs for each game mode and it would be a lot better off. Renegade however needs a full rework if it ever wants to be good at any form of pvp.

I have to quote as well because this right here is the truth :+1:

[Clownmug.8357]

I don't know if the energy system is fine or not, but Sevenshot costs 7 energy and has seven in its name, so that must mean something. Now I just need to figure why all the other rev weapon skills have their energy costs; plus cooldowns that aren't much better than other professions'.

[lunaeclipse.6843]

Honestly ive been thinking about this idea as well but i would go a bit more extreme:

Zero passive regen

Weapon skills generate energy as they currently consume it

Legend swap has 1s CD (ngl only to prevent double tapping) but does not reset energy to 50

Balancing might not be perfect with that exactly as stated but itd be better than now. You'd have the benefit of actually swapping legends for what you need as opposed to swapping them only for energy. It would also have a benefit of spicing up pve rotations a bit too.

[derd.6413]

the biggest problem i have with rev is that legend swap takes away from the class instead of adding to it. most classes get to choose 5 utility skills from a set of 27 (ignoring heal and elite skill restrictions) while rev gets to choose 2 sets of skills from 4 legends. they have double the utilities skill slots but less then a quarter of the customization that other classes enjoy.

[The Spiral King.2483]

@"Ertrak.9506" said:Honestly ive been thinking about this idea as well but i would go a bit more extreme:

Zero passive regen

Weapon skills generate energy as they currently consume it

Legend swap has 1s CD (ngl only to prevent double tapping) but does not reset energy to 50

Balancing might not be perfect with that exactly as stated but itd be better than now. You'd have the benefit of actually swapping legends for what you need as opposed to swapping them only for energy. It would also have a benefit of spicing up pve rotations a bit too.

I'm going to need a pure healing weapon if they do this. Not a, "generate two random tiny heal balls and a 15 second cooldown heal"weapon, but a legitimate healing weapon. Otherwise you may as well just toss all of Ventari and the concept of rev healer/support out the window.

[lunaeclipse.6843]

@The Spiral King.2483 said:

@"Ertrak.9506" said:Honestly ive been thinking about this idea as well but i would go a bit more extreme:

Zero passive regen

Weapon skills generate energy as they currently consume it

Legend swap has 1s CD (ngl only to prevent double tapping) but does not reset energy to 50

Balancing might not be perfect with that exactly as stated but itd be better than now. You'd have the benefit of actually swapping legends for what you need as opposed to swapping them only for energy. It would also have a benefit of spicing up pve rotations a bit too.

I'm going to need a pure healing weapon if they do this. Not a, "generate two random tiny heal balls and a 15 second cooldown heal"weapon, but a legitimate healing weapon. Otherwise you may as well just toss all of Ventari and the concept of rev healer/support out the window.

How so would what i said break ventari? Energy is a single resource every legend uses. You wouldn't need a staff to gain energy on ventari.

That said staff is pretty bad. It does need a rework tbh.

That also said a potential problem is ppl using only the best energy generating weapon... potentially.

[narcx.3570]

@LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:The fact that a major complaint about power dps rotations was that it was too autoattack based means that a system like this shouldn’t give the majority of energy gain on the autoattack.

However, I don’t really like this idea nor do I like the “no energy cost weapon skills” idea. I don’t want to have to wait 18+ seconds for unrelenting assault or even longer for sword 4/5.

Honestly, energy on Revenant is fine. Veteran Revenants know how to use the energy system effectively in all situations and aren’t hampered by it. If people don’t like the energy system I don’t see why they can’t play a class that has more of what they want instead of asking for changes that would negatively impact those of us that enjoy the current class mechanic and gameplay. This isn’t Mesmer where a major change to the class mechanic was a good thing (for the class, not necessarily the game as a whole); for Revenant it would likely end up more along the lines of the deadeye rework (aka mediocre to awful) simply because it would mean pretty much every skill would have to be adjusted in terms of energy cost and/or cooldown.

Revenant’s issues are not energy based or mechanic based, but balance decisions based. The class was hit with years of nerfs without skill splits that wrecked both their pvp and pve diversity. Just look at what happened to it in raids; it was removed from the meta for 1+ years due to nerfs targeted for wvw. While it’s doing better in pve now, add scourge to necro and give rev an awful pvp elite spec and you get a class that’s fallen out of pvp meta since POF. People want to blame the energy system or think that a rework to it will solve Revenants issues, but it won’t. Revenant as a whole just needs some targeted buffs for each game mode and it would be a lot better off. Renegade however needs a full rework if it ever wants to be good at any form of pvp.

o/Thank you, it's so refreshing to see somebody who actually gets it make a post on the forums instead of just more unnecessary and repetitive QQ.

To add to what you said, I would say that the biggest problem with Revenant is that since it was released with an expansion, anet assumed people would already know enough about the game to be able to handle several different resources at once and maybe want to play something different--not just want another SPAMALLMYSKILLSOFCOOLDOWN class. Unfortunately, they also gave Revenants a super-edge-lord deathknightesque theme to try and sell copies, which attracts a lot of newer players for the Lore aspects (especially those with that hardcore GW1 nostalgia boneski.) I think most of them would honestly be happy if Revenant was just exactly like Warrior or Dragon Hunter, but with cool blindfold skins and a demon in your head that talks to you. And I really hope anet doesn't cave in to the nub complaints and dumb down revenant's energy mechanics... They have sort of been establishing a pattern of giving into these type of complaints and focusing their attention on them instead of other more positive directions for the class, which scares me. (Shortbow, underwater Jails, Charged Mists, etc.) I wouldn't be surprised at this rate if they add a spectacularly underwhelming Greatsword with energy generating skills to the game, instead of something that we could actual use to realistically be more competitive... :bleep_bloop:

[Carighan.6758]

@"derd.6413" said:the biggest problem i have with rev is that legend swap takes away from the class instead of adding to it. most classes get to choose 5 utility skills from a set of 27 (ignoring heal and elite skill restrictions) while rev gets to choose 2 sets of skills from 4 legends. they have double the utilities skill slots but less then a quarter of the customization that other classes enjoy.

Yeah but if more balancing work was invested the pre-designed "roles" of the Revenant could in fact work much better than the "hollow" choices most other classes make. Not that those choices would need to be as fake as they are, but the raw amount of combinations of character setup already imply virtually all of them will be meaningless.

[derd.6413]

@Carighan.6758 said:

@"derd.6413" said:the biggest problem i have with rev is that legend swap takes away from the class instead of adding to it. most classes get to choose 5 utility skills from a set of 27 (ignoring heal and elite skill restrictions) while rev gets to choose 2 sets of skills from 4 legends. they have double the utilities skill slots but less then a quarter of the customization that other classes enjoy.

Yeah but if more balancing work was invested the pre-designed "roles" of the Revenant could in fact work much better than the "hollow" choices most other classes make. Not that those choices would need to be as fake as they are, but the raw amount of combinations of character setup already imply virtually all of them

will

be meaningless.

i'm not saying rev needs more utility skills (that'd be boring) i'm saying legend swap should do more then it currently does. (and yes more balancing is necesary)rev is the only core class i'd call incomplete instead of just poorly balanced and i think how restrictive legendswap makes rev is one of the main factors(also bring back beta Mallyx)

[starlinvf.1358]

@derd.6413 said:the biggest problem i have with rev is that legend swap takes away from the class instead of adding to it. most classes get to choose 5 utility skills from a set of 27 (ignoring heal and elite skill restrictions) while rev gets to choose 2 sets of skills from 4 legends. they have double the utilities skill slots but less then a quarter of the customization that other classes enjoy.

The lack of options isn't a problem..... its more to do with whats available constantly being caught in a bad balance situation. Any skill thats decisive is overly restricted, or monopolizes energy. And because those decisive skills are only good for 2-3 uses before the Rev shuts down from energy starvation, coupled a lack of reliable mitigation, they have a lot of trouble sustaining a position before being forced out of it. Thats a problem when half the Rev legends are meant to be camped for extended periods, and why Shiro and Glint are the Go-To for Power Revs, as they have reliable burst defenses they can bounce between.

If all the Utility skills had decisive impact, which is what the class was supposed to be designed around, and could be reliably chained without the insanely tight energy management, Rev could weave its way between its 2 Legends as either proactive or Reactive based on their individual designs. A big conflict in the Rev design is the weapons being the main source of pressure from the Rev, causing it to eat up a lot of energy in the process. And what bothers me is I'm starting to wonder if Rev auto attacking most of the time was part of the design intention, and what the Devs thought would be the solution to Energy problems. And the reason it doesn't work is the Revs strong skills lacking persistence, and that was also intentional to leave them exposed for counter attacks.

We can theorycraft this pretty easily if we scale back the energy cost, and/or remove the cool down on cheaper skills.... Suddenly the Revs seem to gain a lot more momentum, as the Rev can do more per Legend cycle, or a camp a legend longer and without compromising defense options.

[LucianDK.8615]

Weapon skills should not cost energy. That would allow the the legend skills to be more impactful.

[Master Ketsu.4569]

Energy is really not the problem with Revenant and most of these energy-rework ideas would take away what makes the class unique or make things worse one way or another.

[Knighthonor.4061]

@Master Ketsu.4569 said:Energy is really not the problem with Revenant and most of these energy-rework ideas would take away what makes the class unique or make things worse one way or another.

so whats the problem with the Revenant class?

[Master Ketsu.4569]

@Knighthonor.4061 said:

@Master Ketsu.4569 said:Energy is really not the problem with Revenant and most of these energy-rework ideas would take away what makes the class unique or make things worse one way or another.

so whats the problem with the Revenant class?

Poor utility that has not been kept up with the last year of power creep + bad decisions from the balance team that go in exactly the opposite direction of what top players tell them.

[Knighthonor.4061]

@Master Ketsu.4569 said:

@Knighthonor.4061 said:

@Master Ketsu.4569 said:Energy is really not the problem with Revenant and most of these energy-rework ideas would take away what makes the class unique or make things worse one way or another.

so whats the problem with the Revenant class?

Poor utility that has not been kept up with the last year of power creep + bad decisions from the balance team that go in exactly the opposite direction of what top players tell them.

Please be detailed in your description. Which utilities are a problem and how are they a problem for balance?

[Nath Forge Tempete.1645]

the problem is ... weapon skill are too crucial to be no energy dependant . I mean as a power herald player in pvp ... it would be way to OP to use all your weapon skills freely at anytimes. You already destroy foes with your insane burst (in pvp) and with no limitation that would be way to OP.

Then I guess You would say :" let's nerfed dmg and/or increase CD" but then you'll be stuck in the AA chain since most of the legend skills are just utilities and not dmg dealing skills. So it's a no from me.

[Master Ketsu.4569]

To undertsand what the specifics are you need to understand how Revenant was designed. Rev skills were made to be OP if you ignore the energy cost. For instance, Jade winds is a 3s hard cc massive aoe burst on a 5s cooldown. Ignoring the energy system, this skill would be psychotically overpowered on any other class. Rev skills are supposed to be OP with the trade-off being that energy must be efficiently managed and the class cannot be played by randomly spamming skills.

The issue with the power creep is other classes have now been given skills ( such as holographic shockwave, or nefarious favor, full counter, etc ) that actually do start to rival Revenant skills minus the energy requirement. And this is why Rev has fallen so far behind: why play Rev when other specs can do similar things for free?

Technically, you aren't wrong that lowering energy costs across the board is one way to buff Rev. The problem with that is it goes against the design of what Rev was supposed to be, because all that lowering costs does is make Rev more spammy and thus just makes it function more like other classes. So while you may make the class more viable this way, you take away its identity in the process.

A better way to buff Rev -one that does not go against it's concept- is to keep energy the same but just straight buff some of the skills left behind by the creep. The jalis heal buff from 3 Condi to 5 was a good start. Applying that mentality to other skills would likely bring rev back up. Or alternatively, leave Revenant alone and just Nerf the power creep.

[narcx.3570]

@Knighthonor.4061 said:

@"Master Ketsu.4569" said:Energy is really not the problem with Revenant and most of these energy-rework ideas would take away what makes the class unique or make things worse one way or another.

so whats the problem with the Revenant class?

It's original-release balance was built around managing your energy correctly to produce huge bursts with a deliberate uber-weakness to condi's--which make sense because it punished a Rev who failed to burst since classes could poke them with condi's and then get away while their condi's did the work for them. The problem was Rev also had a lot of iframes, and an invulnerability/potential hp reset, which coupled with their extreme burst, was super OP... This led to a drastic reduction in the damage output of those skills (Eq, SotM, and PS were all nerfed OVER 50%--75% across two nerfs in SotM's case!!!!) This in and amount itself would be fine, but then the dev's also decided to make condis crazy stronger and introduced new insane condi bomb elite specs, while also introducing a TON of additional unblockable attacks into the game. So simultaneously, Rev was getting nerfed offensively and losing a lot of it's defensive capabilities while it's weaknesses were getting megabuffed... Things probably hit a low point when PoF got released--you just stood absolutely zero chance against a mirage.

Since then things are a lot better... Incensed Responce and OH Sword have restored a lot of the missing burst, and Mirage/Scourge/FB have been toned down considerably (although probably not enough still). I would say Rev's actually pretty close to being balanced, just some other classes are still pretty far out of line.

To answer your question though... I honestly think that the biggest problem with Rev is that it has a "cool" theme, which attracts a lot of new players and lore junkies, and Rev was designed as an expansion class, so anet gave it more to deal with than the typical "Spam your kitten off cooldown" mentality of the other heavies. This leads to a lot of frustration from the more inexperienced Rev players.

[Nath Forge Tempete.1645]

@Master Ketsu.4569 said:To undertsand what the specifics are you need to understand how Revenant was designed. Rev skills were made to be OP if you ignore the energy cost. For instance, Jade winds is a 3s hard cc massive aoe burst on a 5s cooldown. Ignoring the energy system, this skill would be psychotically overpowered on any other class. Rev skills are supposed to be OP with the trade-off being that energy must be efficiently managed and the class cannot be played by randomly spamming skills.

The issue with the power creep is other classes have now been given skills ( such as holographic shockwave, or nefarious favor, full counter, etc ) that actually do start to rival Revenant skills minus the energy requirement. And this is why Rev has fallen so far behind: why play Rev when other specs can do similar things for free?

Technically, you aren't wrong that lowering energy costs across the board is one way to buff Rev. The problem with that is it goes against the design of what Rev was supposed to be, because all that lowering costs does is make Rev more spammy and thus just makes it function more like other classes. So while you may make the class more viable this way, you take away its identity in the process.

A better way to buff Rev -one that does not go against it's concept- is to keep energy the same but just straight buff some of the skills left behind by the creep. The jalis heal buff from 3 Condi to 5 was a good start. Applying that mentality to other skills would likely bring rev back up. Or alternatively, leave Revenant alone and just Nerf the power creep.

PLUS , some skills (utilities) are not worth at all for their energy cost ... no point on using it then (taunt on jalis or AOE torment on mallyx)

and others siphon all your energy as an opener (since u have only 50 OOC) and you can't chain with something else than AA