draxynnic.3719

> @"Yasai.3549" said: > They just do some wonky "AoE nerf" on everything **BUT** the problem, and leave it as is when everything has been hammered down, leaving many builds in a crippled, barely functional state. Yeah, this has been a problem going back to GW1 days. They nerf everything that _supports_ the problem rather than the problem itself, sometimes rendering those supporting states into a level where they're now _only_ useful when used to support the problem, and when they eventually grudgingly address the problem directly, the supporting skills they nerfed along the way are left in a subpar state. At least we don't have professions being nerfed because of what some _other_ profession is doing using their skills as a secondary profession.

> @"Opopanax.1803" said: > > @"Lan Deathrider.5910" said: > > > @"Opopanax.1803" said: > > > > @"VocalThought.9835" said: > > > > > @"Fueki.4753" said: > > > > > > @"Delita Silverburg.8632" said: > > > > > > We need a unarmed/clawed monk profession imo. > > > > > Maybe warrior gets another melee specialization that uses dual Foci as fist weapons. > > > > > Imagine punching people while dual-wielding Binding of Ipos! > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Dual Shields!! > > > > > > I know this is probably a joke, but I've heard the dual shield thing crop up a few times, usually in a single line like this. > > > > > > I've never understood how you could make a dual shield look good, or have good animations. > > > > > > If you want this, could you explain why? > > > > There is a Martial Arts style the uses two shields. I can't find a reference right now, but I've seen it. Think of it as more like very large metal boxing gloves attacking the the edge of the shield. > > I could see small buckler style shields for something like that. > > The problem is that most shields in game right now just seem too big for that to look good, imo. Pretty much this. People in real battles used weapon and shield, not shield and shield, for a reason. Particularly since a one-handed sword with a good guard, if used well, can protect a surprisingly large area without blocking the wielder's vision (an often overlooked problem with large shields among people who haven't actually trained with one). A one-handed sword with a good guard combined with a good-sized shield is probably the best combination you can get. Two shields... is better than a shield and a bare hand, to be sure, but risk blocking off too much of your vision and allowing the enemy to strike somewhere that isn't blocked by the shield because you can't see the blow coming. I've seen the Dark Souls dual tower shield thing. Now imagine, when the wielder does that dual plant move, the attacker just angles a sword or spear to stab down over the top of the shield. Or sidesteps and stabs the dual shield wielder in the back. In the 3rd-person-view of the game, this isn't a problem, but if it was a realistic first-person-view, what you should have on the screen when using that move is the backs of your shields and maybe a bit of sky at the top. Unless your Toph from Avatar, you have no idea what your enemy is doing. Now, if you have friends, you can form a line of shields... but if you have friends, you can do that with one shield apiece, and in your other hand you can have a spear or a sword... good for, y'know, stabbing over the top of the enemy's shield line. The only 'dual shields' I could see actually being practical would be, essentially, weaponised bucklers. Take a pair of bucklers and add blades to them, or just sharpen the edges to make a blade. You wouldn't have the reach of a sword (which is probably why, historically, bucklers were usually paired with a thin-bladed sword like a rapier or smallsword, rather than doing this), but you'd have a pair of reasonably portable weaponised bucklers that you could defend yourself with if attacked while maintaining a means of disabling your attacker. However, the end result of that would be something like the Claw of the Khan-Ur, Guild Wars 1 split chakrams, or wind and fire wheels with additional hand protection, and would probably therefore be counted as _daggers._

> @"MatyrGustav.6210" said: > @"Kodama.6453" > > Everytime Anet has given a melee style class a staff it was used as a Bo Staff kinda like Revenant as well. I just cant really see them adding it as a Spear since we already have spears in the game, and most of the staff skins wouldnt look right if one used it as a Spear. Same with banner because most skins wouldn't have a banner on it. > > I mean they wouldnt need to fight with it in a kung fu martial arts way, but what meant is it should be melee oriented and not magical. Stick fighting basically. Playing devil's advocate somewhat, having a staff skin with 'wave the banner' type skills could probably be handled by having the banner be part of the skill animation, rather than the weapon itself. > @"Dadnir.5038" said: > > @"Kodama.6453" said: > > > @"Dadnir.5038" said: > > > > > > Engineer have few weapons because they do have kit if I remember properly. Fortunately kits work just as well with e-spec than they work with core. Having a main-hand, an off-hand or a 2 handed weapon won't change this fact. I believe that engi getting an off-hand isn't necessarily a bad option, sure you'll get "less" new skill, but that's all. > > > > > > > I don't really consider that a fair treatment for the engineer, to be honest. > > > > Engineer literally has just 1 single mainhand weapon, meaning that if you want to use the new offhand weapon of the elite spec, you **have** to use it together with a mainhand pistol. > > > > That is not true for any other class. Berserker can use the torch with 3 mainhand weapons, allowing way more build diversity that way: mace, axe, sword. > > Even elementalist, another class with alot of extra skills through the attunement system, can pair their warhorn with 2 other weapons, dagger and scepter, but they get more skills from an offhand weapon on top of that anyway, since a new mainhand weapon means 8 new skills for them instead of just 2. > > > > If even elementalist has more options to pair an offhand weapon, on top of them getting 4 times the amount of weapons skills than engineer, then I think it is not really fair to give engineer an offhand weapon with legit just 1 possible combination.... > > > > > > If e-specs weapons were matter of "fairness", Any weapon the elementalist would get would end up into an unfair advantage for the elementalist since he got 4 attunments making him effectivelly getting 4 weapons skillsets each time he got a weapon. > > That's not the case, the elementalist get it's 4 weapon skillset as a part of the way it work. The engineer work with the possibility to use kit in any builds, that's why whether he got a main hand, an off hand or a 2 hand weapon, it's not "unfair". Other professions could see it as "unfair" that the engineer can always switch between 6 weaponkits with basically no CD (actual weaponset + 5 Kits) having potentially access to the widest variety of range and effects out of all professions. > > It's always a matter of point of view, we all tend to be focused on our limits and ignore the depth within our limits. Engineer having an off-hand on an e-spec isn't that unfair when you consider that the engineer's gameplay involve kits and you can have as far as 5 of them sloted on top of your weapons skillset. Yeah, I have to agree with @"Kodama.6453" on this one. The professions that got offhands had multiple weapons to pair it with. The worst off were chronomancer and tempest, which had two each. Engineer only has one mainhand weapon, which already has two offhands to pair it with. The last thing engineer needs is an elite specialisation which pairs an offhand weapon with pistol. A chronomancer or a tempest still has a decent number of options to pair with their shield or warhorn respectively: a chronomancer can pair it with a ranged hybrid weapon or a melee power weapon, while a tempest can pair it with a reasonably long-range, generally single-target-oriented weapon, or a weapon oriented towards close range area effects. An engineer elite spec getting an offhand will only _ever_ be able to combine it with a ranged condition weapon, unless it's part of a pair like spellbreaker daggers. Sure, you could say "but kits", but the (il)logicial end result of that line of thinking is why have an elite specialisation weapon at all when you have kits? Why bother making new utility skills for an elite specialisation when they're just going to be replaced by kits anyway? (Answer: because engineer elite specialisations have tended to try to push engineer out of "healing turret and three kits" skillbars, but hey, if the presence of kits means that the standard of the weapon doesn't matter, why not apply that theory to everything else that kits can potentially replace, which is basically everything but the traitline?) Finally, the elite specialisation's weapon is generally something that is intended to work with the profession's theme. Chronomancer shield grants defence, CC, quickness, and alacrity - which is kinda encapsulating everything the chronomancer does in two skills. Tempest warhorn is a combination of support and attacks that generally reward fighting in close combat - which fits the tempest's own focus on PBAOE overloads and supportive shouts, even if there are often circumstances where focus and/or dagger would work better. Any hypothetical engineer elite specialisation whose weapon is an offhand would be straitjacketed into being an elite specialisation which works well with pistol... and pistol is, ultimately, pretty straightforward as being a condi DPS weapon (maybe you could call it hybrid if you squint, but I don't think anyone has seriously suggested using pistol with a power build since Coated Bullets got nerfed). So any elite specialisation who's weapon is designed to work with pistol is pretty much going to _have_ to be an elite specialisation oriented towards condition DPS. And while that could be interesting, I don't think that's the best choice for the engineer, or the game as a whole, right now.

I think there's a valid reason to be gunshy about large swings in PvE balance. A lot of such discussions tend to be "I'm tired of seeing (profession that isn't mine) being dominant in the meta, it's time to nerf it to death so (my profession) can get a chance to shine!" And while that's not entirely invalid, the flipside of it is... it's a real PITA to gear up to ascended the first time and then have the build that you were pushing towards get invalidated by a balance patch. Yes, if you're already established in raids or high-level fractals or whatever, you probably have the resources to make that switch - but the person who's just trying to break into those modes probably _doesn't._ There's also a degree to which there's an expansion coming, and that expansion is likely to be coming with new elite specialisations. That's an opportunity for professions that are currently struggling in the high-end PvE meta to find new roles. One thing I'd definitely agree with is that it would be good to see enemy boons playing more of a role in PvE in general - ideally, however, that would be coupled by making sure that every profession has access to boonstrip _somewhere_ so every solo openworlder or story player has the opportunity to adjust their build to deal with enemy boons.

> @"Fueki.4753" said: > > @"Yasai.3549" said: > > #My only thoughts on the Balance Patch is that this current balance team is very very very lazy when it comes to balancing. > > Not only do they not regularly balance the game, when they do, they only reduce coefficients. > > Go and pull up all the Game Update patches featuring balance changes for 2020 and yu will quickly notice that every patch is just a coefficients shift, or a resource numbers change. > The problem is, the balance team doesn't work together with the profession design team. > The "balance" team only changes numbers. > > The actual functionality of skills is handled by the other team, which allegedly currently is too busy with the next set of elite specializations. Which is a problem on a couple of levels, because sometimes the balance team make changes that go against the intent of the profession design team.

> @"lil muffin.1250" said: > balthazar with a great sword specialization. Considered Asgeir? Keep in mind that the weapon he used to break Jormag's tooth was enchanted with a jotun scroll just like Braham did with Eir's bow, so you can get fiery greatsword action that way easily enough.

Honestly, at this stage, it's more about lack of communication meaning that people don't know what they should be doing right now. Is there new content available (like, at all), or is it just a case of being asked to do the same set of dragon response missions, just for different tokens? It's _looking_ like it's the latter, but...

> @"Kat.2849" said: > > @"Moradorin.6217" said: > > > @"Lord Hizen.5918" said: > > > I am a big fan of revenant and i really love how renegade spec works but the main reason that i dont like to use it is because Renegade : Heal, Utility and Elite can be CCed ( knockback, knockdown, Stunned, dazed and feared ). > > > https://prnt.sc/vd9lfg > > > https://prnt.sc/vd9lnq > > > and when they do after i summon them their duration will be before i get the benefits of using them beside wasting 30-50 energy :skull: > > > almost 90% mobs of path of fire season 4, 5 they CC lock renegade skills so i hope the devs do something about this for new players and rev mains sake :( > > > > I will just say I think renegade is amazing in OW or any pve for that matter. Its the best for many things. Renegade srance imo has a good heal. It is stationary to a location and has a cast time. That isnt unique. For instance, Ranger healing spring comes to mind. Also it heals allies, also renegade elite is also a group heal, also you can just f1 to change stance and use the OTHER heal, also you can use staff if you still want yet more heals. > > > > So Im really having a hard time understanding why you feel renegade is horrible in EQ. > > > > > > > > Condi or power renegade is pretty amazing! Try playing it a little more. If you still have a hard time or dont like it maybe try another class and come to renegade later. I really enjoy playing renegade in open world and also in Fractals. Rengade is one of the best class options according to MANY players. > > This video is a year old - changes didn't happen in a year for Revenant? None that substantially changed the build. In fact, IIRC, that was before the Devastation changes, which only made it _stronger._

> @"Yasai.3549" said: > > Rev could have worked with no weapon swap : If their skills functioned similarly to Elementalist's and swapped based on current Legend. > Engineer never had that problem, because Kits were essentially a 2nd, 3rd or 4th weapon set they can equip, and still have a utility through their toolbelt. The bigger problem is twofold: The first is that rev was a no-weaponswap profession with weapons that weren't designed with that in mind. If you look at the core Elementalist and Engineer weapons, they each share the key features of being _versatile._ Engineer core weapon sets all have the property of having a long-range auto, but also having skills that allow them to punish anyone who comes in close (or lets the engineer get in close) as well. Elementalist core weapons also combine being effective close in (Staff out-DPSed most professions' melee sets for a long time) with having a standoff capability - even dagger gives you 600 range pressure in Water. Revenant weapons... don't do this. Hammer is designed purely for long-range combat, and is pretty much helpless when the enemy gets too close. Staff and sword are pure melee. Only mace even comes close, and that only because of laying down that fire field on a short cooldown. Furthermore, if elementalist and engineer need more versatility, they have other options to change up their weapon skills. Engineers are pretty much built around the assumption that they'll be using at least one kit - you don't _have_ to, but if you don't have one, you're implicitly accepting the disadvantages of not having a swap in order to leverage whichever utility skills you felt were strong enough to accept that handicap. Elementalists have conjures. Without weaponswap, a revenant who found themselves at the wrong range for their weapon had no option other than burning through their energy with the right side of their bar, and that can't be sustained for long. With that said: > @"Psykewne.3025" said: > I doubt anet is going to ever add further core weapons (trident being added to rev was an anomaly as far as I'm concerned) but i honestly think if they were to add any, ele and engie are much more likely to receive something than rev who even if you overlook the bugs you cited the weapons all have clear purpose and use, and show up in some manner of meta build or have done until recently. Personally, I consider bugs to be a 'fix the bugs' issue than a 'make a new weapon' issue. However, I think there are two things you're missing with your relative privation argument beyond the inherent fallacy of such arguments: The first is that, as I've said before, core revenants (and heralds) have literally _no_ alternative to hammer if they want to fight at ranged. Given ArenaNet's track record, we can probably reasonably safely assume that any single weapon is going to have some period where it performs poorly, but if you've got two weapons to choose from, usually at least one of them will be doing okay. Because revenant doesn't have an alternative, though, if hammer sucks, that means that the ranged capabilities of all revenants (that aren't taking an elite specialisation that has a ranged weapon) are going to suck. To add insult to injury, the fact that hammer is fundamentally a power weapon means that condi revenants will never have a good ranged weapon unless it comes from their elite specialisation. They can keep packaging ranged condi or ranged hybrid weapons with elite specialisations to mitigate this, but like engineer elite specialisations always getting melee weapons, this is a bandaid solution at best. Compare that to engineer and elementalist. An engineer that wants to fight at range has rifle, pistol, grenades, elixir gun, and mortar kit. The odds of them _all_ being bad are pretty low. For melee, there are bombs and the toolkit. Elementalist ranged has staff, scepter, and with a few extra complications, frost bow and lava axe. For melee, they have daggers, earth shield, and lightning hammer, while staff and scepter can both reward 'AoE on my feet'-type tactics. Neither has the sensitivity to a single weapon that revenant does. The second is that, _with revenant being a profession with weaponswap,_ it needs two sets to support any given build. At the moment, despite being a profession which is intended to have a strong condition output, it only has one autoattack-capable core weapon that's oriented towards condis - namely, mace. The weaponswap, which has now become part of the balance of the revenant profession, then becomes a choice between 'mace with a different offhand', or a least-bad choice of an alternative weapon where your DPS is going to drop significantly when you switch to it because it has no damaging conditions except maybe the odd Abyssal Chill proc. At best, you could say that revenant can handle this in a similar fashion to condi mesmers using sword back in the day (the sword being there for defence while the real damage came from shatters - revenants can do something similar by having a defensive set while running Embrace the Darkness or otherwise getting conditions from somewhere other than their weapon), but mesmers still have two good core options for condis, while revenants don't. Engineers and elementalists, on the other hand, don't have this problem. An engineer going power or condi would use rifle or pistol respectively, and can then choose kits to further support their choice. Elementalist weapons are, by nature, versatile hybrids, and choice of a power versus condi build usually doesn't influence your weapons so much, but your choices of traits and which attunements you spend more time in. With all that, I've been advocating off and on for engineers to get a core melee weapon since before HoT, but I think revenant genuinely has it worse than either of them. Elementalist in particular: one of the effects of being a non-weaponswap profession is that you have fewer weapon choices, in part because you don't _need_ as many because you're only going to be bringing one set of weapons to a fight instead of two. Giving elementalist a fourth autoattack-capable weapon in core would give them the same number as mesmer (sword, staff, scepter, greatsword), necromancer (dagger, staff, scepter, axe) and thief (sword, dagger, pistol, shortbow) - when they're a non-weaponswap profession that has attunements and access to conjures, I don't see how they also need to have as many weapon options as half of the professions which DO have in-combat weaponswaps.

> @"Sobx.1758" said: > Espec doesn't need to do everything, it's part of a class, not a new class of its own. You want cleave, then build for cleave. On top of this, rifle is only one weapon on a profession with weaponswap. Sword/pistol gives pretty good cleave. If you want to stay at ranged, shortbow is another good option for area damage.

Yeah, I think there's a need for at least one more weapon. Partially because core revenant has nothing that a condi rev can switch to that really works apart from mace with a different offhand. Partially because, whatever you think about the state of hammer, only having one ranged weapon makes revs very sensitive to the balance state of that weapon. > @"Yasai.3549" said: > > @"Justine.6351" said: > > rev needs a warhorn with skills that grant boons. > > Rev needs an ANYTHING which is support based. > > It's so strange that Rev is the only Profession which has blatant support capabilities (Ventari for example) but no weapon that provides support. > Unless yu count Staff. (ROFLMAO) ArenaNet does count Staff, though... > @"ScottBroChill.3254" said: > And then like everyone else has said, there is no core legend or center piece for core revenant. There are like no good complimentary legends or weapons within the core profession causing every e-spec to be loaded with all the short coming of core rev. That's not quite true. Jalis makes for a decent power melee damage legend with hammers, and outside of raid "I just want to deal maximum damage and rely on the healers to keep me alive" scenarios, having a more defensive off-legend is often worthwhile. Jalis can also work as support, albeit usually in the form of tossing RotGD to achieve damage reduction. Condi is probably the hardest to get an off-legend for - Shiro used to work before the Impossible Odds nerf, and _kinda_ does if you spam the alternate source of Quickness, and Jalis can provide durability, but both are really 'least bad' options. There isn't a 'this legend can be added to anything' legend (although Jalis probably comes closest), but you can generally find a combination that works with core. Some combinations work a lot better with an elite specialisation legend to add to the mix, of course, but I've seen power builds in the meta which used an elite traitline but still ran Shiro/Jalis, and it's not uncommon for professions to need an elite specialisation to _really_ make a non-power role viable (particularly support/healer). Which might really be the intent of the core legends: you've got one that fulfills virtually each role; one for power, one for condi, one for durability, and one for healing. Which means they have the freedom to make an elite spec oriented towards any of these roles knowing that there's a core legend that supports it. There isn't one that's designed so you can add it to any of those and it would reinforce it, but I think the idea is that, similar to elementalist attunements (which broadly cover similar roles between them: fire is usually hybrid damage, water healing, air power damage and mobility, and earth condition damage and durability) having a second legend with a different focus to the first still gives you more versatility and adaptability rather than if you just had the one. Any glass cannon build, for instance, can benefit from having a more durability-oriented legend to fall back on, and a selfless healer like Ventari also benefits from a legend that makes them tougher and grants them better ability to heal _themselves_ (typically a weakness of Ventari). Mind you, it could be interesting if Revenant had a fifth core stance that wasn't a legend _at all,_ but gave revenant access to a small selection of skills they could choose (including racial skills) - with those skills generally being weaker than skills that came as part of a legend package, but allowing for the "if all you want to do is X, this stance allows you to build something that will complement your primary legend". I don't think there's any realistic chance of that happening at this stage, though. > @"Psykewne.3025" said: > It would be worth noting that engineer and to some degree elementalist suffer much more from their limited weapon choices, engineer is entirely reliant on spending their utility skills or tied into using holo elite to access meaningful damage as their weapons are functionally limited and poor across the board compared to all other classes. Engineer is designed on the expectation that you're running at least one kit (or holoforge) to act as their equivalent of a weaponswap, however. Kitless is certainly something you can _do_, but it's not the expected style. That said, I think they could do with a mainhand melee weapon on core. Elementalist... generally has one or two attunements that they rarely swap to with any given build, but they do alright. Especially considering that they have the option to bring conjures to fill in for any gaps in their weapon. They certainly don't have the situation that core revenant (and herald) has where hammer is the ONLY option for ranged, so if they want to have a ranged presence at all they have to use hammer regardless of how bad it is. Elementalist staff is suffering a bit at the moment from what I gather, but scepter is a decent alternative, and if you've got two weapons it's less likely that they'll _both_ be so bad that they're practically memes outside of a specific scenario that maximises their effectiveness.

> @"Chaos.7614" said: > > @"draxynnic.3719" said: > First off, thanks for the post - lots of good points in here. > > > First response: Oh, it's another "find an excuse for greatsword" proposal. > People keep thinking this but it's not a matter of wanting greatsword and building a spec around it; it's building a spec geared toward the pDPS niche we lack and finding an appropriate weapon which I believe is the greatsword for reasons given above. At first glance, it does look that way, though. Sword/sword is already a pretty decent power DPS option - revenant just doesn't currently have the ability to orient its utilities to support sustained pDPS the way that some other professions can. Axe mainhand could would well, and that's before getting into things like daggers, melee scepter, and things of that nature. Broadly speaking, there's no reason why pDPS specs HAVE to mean Greatsword. > > > Second response: Inspired by berserker? Isn't half the point of revenant to find concepts that don't fit nicely into other professions? > There's a few things we can discuss here - the first being lore. When I was thinking about an appropriate figure for the next legend, Usoku seemed like a good choice since he was an influencial figure in Canthan history and Canthan revenants (if they exist canonically) would probably draw power from something in Canthan history. From what I pieced together from the wiki, he was the one that waged war against the Luxons and Kurzicks to bring them back into a united Cantha, so definitely not someone who'd derive power from a scepter or his heritage as previous comments in this thread suggested. > > Elite specs don't have to completely re-invent the wheel, only patch up weaknesses and find new niches. The part of the berserker theme I like most is that it offers a clear trade off of dealing more damage for taking increased damage: "killing the enemy at all costs". Gameplay-wise, the support bannerslave seems to dominate in endgame over DPS berserker, but the theme still feels nice. Applying that to revenant while reducing the supportive potential would be great - which I noticed you addressed. From a lore perspective, we know Usoku conquered the vassal states and expelled nonhumans from Cantha. There's no evidence that I know about, however, that shows that he did so from the front. Consider that the leader of the Ministry of Purity was a mesmer (acted as somewhat of a showcase for what GW2 mesmers would be like, even), Emperor Kisu was a ritualist, and several other human leaders have been spellcasters rather than frontliners. ArenaNet _could_ take that approach with him, but they don't have to. From a philosophical perspective... I tend to view Revenant as being a profession that takes concepts that don't fit nicely into the existing professions. We've had a legend inspired by a demon, one inspired by the facets of Glint's Lair, one that uses a mobile tablet as a channel for a variety of support effects, and Shiro, while technically an Assassin, had abilities so outside the realm of thief/assassin that he was really his own thing, and the Legendary Assassin Stance leans heavily on that. Basing an elite spec on what another profession can do really feels like a waste of the revenant's potential to do something off the wall that just wouldn't work with any other profession. > > > Third response: I'm really not fond of the "locked into one legend" concept. The whole point of revenant is legendswapping, just like elementalists have their attunements (and you'll note that while elementalist elites modify how attunement works, the base system remains intact). I'm presuming that part of the idea is that you still choose two 'conquered' legends and can swap between them, but even so, you're giving up the main advantage of the revenant (having two utility skillbars to draw from) while retaining one of the main drawbacks of revenant (having to choose your utilities in blocks of five, rather than being able to pick the ones that are going to give you the most benefit for the situation you expect to go into). From a balance perspective, it'd make the specialisation very predictable - as soon as you see that an enemy player is running this in PvP, you'd have a pretty good idea of what you're going to be facing. On a personal level... if this was introduced, the only way I could see myself playing this is if it was so ridiculously overpowered that I felt like I _had_ to, and I don't think that's a balance state that would persist for very long. If I wanted to play a revenant without legend swapping, I'd play Guardian. > I'll admit I didn't have a legend-swapping aspect built into the conquered mechanic, but having one would be better than just swapping out of combat. Legend-swapping is definitely important for all prior specs but this would offer a different playstyle where you're not concerned with legend-swapping to regain energy and use different skills; instead, you'll use skills as they come up and using Conqueror's Legacy off-CD so you can keep that DPS going. The lack of skills is more of an issue for competitive, which is why I didn't flesh it out as much as I should've. I think a good compromise would be to alter the skills to change their functionality even more than what I have here e.g. for the auto chain, there's not really much difference except for boons. A more drastic change could be to alter damage coefficients, base animation speed, or have drastically diverging skill differences e.g. Emperor's Dominion would summon 6 greatswords to impale an enemy while in Shiro, but would call forth temporary demonic summons while in Mallyx. That would be a LOT of work for Anet though; however, I'd like to justify the effort given that our last spec's 6-10 skills were just having 5 summons that probably took less than a month to come up with the idea for... Yeah. Ultimately, I think there'd need to be some swapping mechanic that remains. I think it would be hard to get to a point where the different 'conquered legends' really felt different without putting a heavy burden on the devs, although it might be possible. Mind you, I think it would be possible to achieve the desired goal without sacrificing the normal swapping mechanic. Shiro is a decent selfish-damage-option if you spend your energy on Impossible Odds, your heal, and weapon attacks - the problem is that your next best option to switch to for selfish damage is Jalis or Glint. > > > > Which segways somewhat into my fourth response on looking at the actual skills: > > > There's certainly a valid point that revenant could use a selfish DPS-oriented specialisation. Dragon Stance is effectively a support stance that has generally become accepted as being underwhelming support, and gained a second life as a self-buffing tanky DPS stance, but that's not a stance suitable for high-end PvE. Renegade Stance is a second take at a support stance that actually _worked,_ mostly because of alacrity, the lifesteal spirit, and having the potential to bring in additional support effects from a core legend. > Yep, no disagreements here. I've mentioned many times that once we finally have 3 specs per profession, it's long overdue for Anet to go back and rebalance prior specs on a drastic scale. Power creep has made support herald irrelevant and I'd love to have other specs besides chronomancer and renegade to reliably provide alacrity so I'm not stuck on it all the time in groups. I don't think it was power creep that made support herald irrelevant so much as being DoA due to the boons it provided being better applied by other sources in raid or fractal conditions. Maybe it'd be worth it for protection, but renegade now pretty much wins when it comes to support revenant. > > > What you've made, though... would likely be treated as another support stance by the balance team, after a few passes if not at release. I'm not going to call out the numbers since you're not trying to finely balance it here, but Emperor's Command is two of the strongest anti-disruption boons in the game, not just to you but to your allies. That's a pretty strong support before we even consider the other two boons or the conquered legend effect. Emperor's Divide is essentially a short-duration Shelter. The balance team is probably not going to allow you to have top-tier DPS while packing that sort of support on your bar. Granted, for high-end PvE purposes, it's not quickness, alacrity, or stacking 25 might on a raid squad on your own, but you'd probably end up being balanced as being closer to a renegade or a non-quickness firebrand than a pure DPS build. > I sure hope they wouldn't! Let's break it down though and I'll run through each skill: > 6. Emperor's Resolve - Pretty sure the heal is ok as is, nothing game-breaking about it. Maybe offer it some more offensive potential e.g. give it something akin to Guardian's Litany of Wrath as a base skill and modify that according to conquered legend. > 7. Emperor's Command - I can see how it would be busted in a competitive environment. We could definitely remove at least one of those anti-disruption boons, maybe a few others, and give it a base functionality of increasing self+ally damage by a percentage. Looking at it from a PvE endgame scenario, unique buffs are a strong draw for people to pick up those specs for encounters. > 8. Emperor's Resourcefulness - I don't think there's much issue with having a toggle skill that empowers oneself, seeing as every single stance has one upkeep skill. Numbers and functionality depending on conquered legend can change, but at a fundamental level it should be something that a Tyrant almost always has on for some extra DPS. > 9. Emperor's Divide - This idea came from a lore standpoint with Usoku closing off Cantha and I did draw on some inspiration from Sanctuary for it. To make it a more selfish spec, I think a good alternative would be to limit the reflect to oneself through a magnetic aura and an AoE knockback. > 10. Emperor's Dominion - Reading a few other forum threads made me realize how some elite skills don't really feel like game-changing abilities, especially for revenant in a PvE standpoint. The only reason I'd use elites on Shiro or Jalis is to spend energy for a swap when I have too much energy. These skills shouldn't be spammed or tossed away for energy, which is why I designed this skill to be a high CD and high impact one. Can always change the functionality based on what I described earlier with Shiro vs Mallyx and just apply that to the rest of the legends. It could even be changed to an AoE skill rather than a targeted one, since my new ideas for a targeted Ventari/Jalis-conquered version don't seem that good in my head. Yeah, it was mostly Emperor's Command and Emperor's Divide that I was looking at and going "these are support abilities - competing with existing revenant support, even". For Emperor's Command... giving extra damage to allies is something that would lead to the build being balanced as if that extra damage was part of its own contribution. You can see this with, say, condi firebrand, which gets to a competitive DPS _when you take into account Ashes of the Just triggering off allies._ Might and/or fury you can possibly get away with, since the general assumption is likely to be that a raid squad is capped on those anyway (which is why support herald fails). If you're giving a damage boost that stacks with everything else out there... well, you've basically created another bannerslave. Unique buffs ARE a big draw, and professions with them tend to get balanced accordingly. It might be easier to have something like "Emperor's Contempt", striking enemies within a radius and granting stability and resistance to yourself for each enemy struck. In the case of Emperor's Divide... I see what you're going for there, essentially going for replaying the expulsion of nonhumans and foreigners, similar to how the Shiro and Jalis elites replay some of their signature impacts on the world on a smaller and more temporary scale. You probably can afford an AoE knockback - even the most pure DPS builds usually have some control. Projectile blocking could possibly be made something that happens when combined with Ventari or something along those lines. (I would note, too, that while revenant elites are less inclined to be high recharge, high impact skills than elites of some other professions, I have seen some impressive results from clutch use of Jade Wind and RotGD. One player I know was particularly good at helping to mitigate mechanics using RotGD and Inspiring Reinforcement.

First response: Oh, it's another "find an excuse for greatsword" proposal. Second response: Inspired by berserker? Isn't half the point of revenant to find concepts that don't fit nicely into other professions? Third response: I'm really not fond of the "locked into one legend" concept. The whole point of revenant is legendswapping, just like elementalists have their attunements (and you'll note that while elementalist elites modify how attunement works, the base system remains intact). I'm presuming that part of the idea is that you still choose two 'conquered' legends and can swap between them, but even so, you're giving up the main advantage of the revenant (having two utility skillbars to draw from) while retaining one of the main drawbacks of revenant (having to choose your utilities in blocks of five, rather than being able to pick the ones that are going to give you the most benefit for the situation you expect to go into). From a balance perspective, it'd make the specialisation very predictable - as soon as you see that an enemy player is running this in PvP, you'd have a pretty good idea of what you're going to be facing. On a personal level... if this was introduced, the only way I could see myself playing this is if it was so ridiculously overpowered that I felt like I _had_ to, and I don't think that's a balance state that would persist for very long. If I wanted to play a revenant without legend swapping, I'd play Guardian. Which segways somewhat into my fourth response on looking at the actual skills: There's certainly a valid point that revenant could use a selfish DPS-oriented specialisation. Dragon Stance is effectively a support stance that has generally become accepted as being underwhelming support, and gained a second life as a self-buffing tanky DPS stance, but that's not a stance suitable for high-end PvE. Renegade Stance is a second take at a support stance that actually _worked,_ mostly because of alacrity, the lifesteal spirit, and having the potential to bring in additional support effects from a core legend. What you've made, though... would likely be treated as another support stance by the balance team, after a few passes if not at release. I'm not going to call out the numbers since you're not trying to finely balance it here, but Emperor's Command is two of the strongest anti-disruption boons in the game, not just to you but to your allies. That's a pretty strong support before we even consider the other two boons or the conquered legend effect. Emperor's Divide is essentially a short-duration Shelter. The balance team is probably not going to allow you to have top-tier DPS while packing that sort of support on your bar. Granted, for high-end PvE purposes, it's not quickness, alacrity, or stacking 25 might on a raid squad on your own, but you'd probably end up being balanced as being closer to a renegade or a non-quickness firebrand than a pure DPS build. This'd be even more the case in competitive environments, where stability, resistance, projectile block, and area denial are all powerful capabilities.

> @"Arcaneus.6931" said: > Or maybe they could have just had it so Legends changed your weapon abilities as well, so some legends would change weapon abilities to melee and others would change them to long range and have them match legends utility. This would have also would have made no-weapon swap thing more viable for the class. Possibly they could have, but that would probably require making four different versions of each weapon just for core and then each core weapon would need to be remade every time a new legend was introduced. Would be fairly cool if they could pull it off, but it'd have been a big ask to call for back during HoT's development, let alone now. That said, being a little less ambitious, it _could_ offer a possible solution of making hammer have different effects depending on legend, similar to how trident works. That way, hammer could be a condi weapon when used with Mallyx, a support weapon when used with Ventari, and so on.

> @"LucianTheAngelic.7054" said: > > @"Opopanax.1803" said: > > > @"LucianTheAngelic.7054" said: > > > > @"Opopanax.1803" said: > > > > > @"LucianTheAngelic.7054" said: > > > > > > @"Opopanax.1803" said: > > > > > > > @"LucianTheAngelic.7054" said: > > > > > > > > @"Opopanax.1803" said: > > > > > > > > One could say that the need for a condi weapon is a core only issue. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Also, this has been brought up before on this forum before and several of the vocal Vets will argue incessantly that you just need to run Renegade for condi and that you should forget about having a core option, so dont expect support from the frequent fliers > > > > > > > > > > > > > > **The entire point of elite specs is to fill in gaps in the core class and add new playstyles.** Core doesn’t need to be viable for all things (plus Condi core rev is still decently viable even without renegade; it’s just a step down to run it when you can just run Ren instead). > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > I couldnt disagree more on literally everything you said. > > > > > > > > > > Unfortunately for you it doesn’t matter if you disagree with me or not. **This is Anet’s stance on Elite Specs and has been since Heart of Thorns** > > > > > > > > There is nothing about elites that suggest your conclusion. > > > > > > Completely untrue and Anet doesn’t agree with you. **Anet LITERALLY states my conclusion. It’s not even my conclusion, it’s theirs.** > > > > > > > > > > > Look at many of the classes that have multiple builds with core and the same type of builds with elites. There is no reason you can't have a viable core Condi class. > > > > > > This is completely class dependent. There is no hard or fast rule here. However **every class has gaps in their core builds, which is what elite specs are intended to address as Anet has said themselves on many occasions** > > > > > > > > > > > Though your argument fails, in general its true that elites are more powerful. > > > > > > I’m going to state this a 4th time because you apparently didn’t understand it the first time I said it. **Anet’s stance on Elite Specs is that they are supposed to add new playstyles and help fill in gaps in the core classes.** > > > > > > This isn’t a matter of “my argument fails” (which it very literally doesn’t since it’s not even my argument) it’s a matter of “these are the design decisions that Anet themselves have chosen.” **I’m not sure how the creators of their own game can be wrong about the reasons why they make certain design decisions.** > > > > There is a complete disconnect with that vs core have a Second Condi Weapon that could be used on Core or Herald or any other Elite in the future. > > > > So, Renegade fails to add what is missing on core and herald concerning additional weapons. > > False. Renegade adds a ranged condi option and stronger options for condi damage, something that core is lacking. Herald adds additional boon support and defensive options, as well as additional ways to utilize Upkeep skills. Neither Herald nor Renegade fail in adding to the core class effectively. These are objectively true observations. > > > > > You are free to be bold, caps, or repeat you line over and over about Anets claimed intent, you simple fail to show it with logic and evidence. > > Again, these are Anet’s statements NOT my own. **This is common knowledge since before Heart of Thorns released.** it’s as if you don’t even read my words since you keep arguing with me telling me my argument doesn’t make sense, **when it’s not even my argument; it’s the developer’s.** > > You want evidence? Here’s some evidence for you. The Heart of Thorns Elite Specialization Release page. > > https://heartofthorns.guildwars2.com/game/specializations/ > > Tempest: “With the design of this elite specialization we’re aiming to add a more direct frontline support option (for elementalist) that rewards precise positioning.” > > Dragonhunter: “ **When we set out on the search for the guardian's elite specialization, we looked for areas in which the guardian lacked a solid role.** It turns out that wielding light and virtue as power sources is actually somewhat difficult to do, and **a guardian's abilities are fairly short range** or unconventional in their application. **We thought about how the guardian might handle long-range combat** and supporting allies while fighting on the back lines.” > > These are fairly easy to find quotes, however, they’ve commented on this in a much deeper way through video and text interviews. I don’t feel like further digging through 6 years worth of interviews to find more of their statements. Their intention that Elite Specs are supposed to expand upon core specs and fill in gaps/expand playstyles is clear through their statements. As mentioned this is common knowledge. Now some of the evidence is directly in front of your face. **You can choose to disregard it if you want since it doesn’t fit your worldview, but it’s still irrelevant because Anet has been explicitly clear with their intentions for elite specs for 6+ years.** Those are... shockingly bad examples. The only 'standoff' application dragonhunter has is that longbow was, in the days of lootstick staff and you-can-outrun-the-projectiles-with-Swiftness scepter, longbow provided a viable ranged weapon for moving targets. Nerfs to longbow along with changes to scepter and staff mean that you need to do a fair amount of hunting to find a popular dragonhunter build that actually uses longbow, and nobody uses dragonhunter specifically to get access to longbow any more. Everything else in dragonhunter's kit just enhances something that core guardian was already good at - area power damage at close range, and survivability. Tempest essentially took a close-in support role _that elementalist was already good at by pre-HoT standards,_ and upgraded it to HoT standards. Remember that it was intended design pre-HoT that support was fairly weak, which is why the only core professions that have good support by modern standards are the revenant and those like the engineer that had a post-HoT redesign. Nitpicking your examples aside, though, a fundamental distinction is that there are some things that are _intended_ to be a weakness in the core profession, and some things that are shortfalls that have come about accidentally through changes in balance and design. Consider the core guardian, for instance. Its strengths on release were close-in area power damage, high survivability, and good (for the time) support. However, it had a weak stand-off game and limited condition damage play (having no condi weapons, only having access to burning when it came to damaging conditions, and that mostly coming from traits, utilities, and VoJ). Ironically, one of those weaknesses has been ironed out somewhat by the aforementioned changes to staff and scepter, and core guardian's condition game has been improved by trait reworks so that a burning-oriented core guardian is actually viable. However, the core condi guard is still working pretty much entirely off traits and utilities, and there is no traitline that is built around conditions - every traitline that guardian has with condition-oriented options would work just as well for a power build with different individual trait selections. Now, look at core revenant. Conditions are CLEARLY expected to be a viable playstyle for core revenant. Spear, back in the day when spear was the only underwater weapon revenant had, was so deliberately set up as a hybrid weapon that it effectively had _two_ autoattacks, one for inflicting conditions at range, one for inflicting power damage in melee. Mace is a dedicated condition weapon, and Corruption/Mallyx has always had the assumption that if you're using them, you're using them with a condi build. One out of five core traitlines, one out of four legends (and the others can still support a condi build, albeit generally not as well as they do power) and one out of four autoattack-capable weapons is a pretty significant investment towards condi rev to make the claim that condi rev was intended to be a gap that gets filled with elite specialisations. Especially considering that neither of the elite specialisations really commit to conditions. Renegade has a hybrid shortbow and a few condi-oriented traits because it kinda _had_ to, but Kalla's legend skills work better with power builds. Condition play isn't an intended gap in the core kit to be filled by an elite specialisation, it's intended to be part of the core kit. The reason why core revenant doesn't have a good weaponswap for conditions is simple - when the weapons were being designed, revenant was intended to be a no-weaponswap profession, so a lack of suitable weaponswap options just wasn't a problem. Ironically, in fact, mace/axe was probably the one set that actually _worked_ as a weaponset for a non-weaponswap profession, since it combined being a good melee weaponset with enough standoff capabilities that you weren't completely reduced to thumb-twiddling if going into melee wasn't viable for whatever reason. Which is why core condi revenant (and condi herald) is something that actually somewhat works as long as the rest of the kit is strong enough - because camping mace and regarding the swap purely as a defensive and/or mobility option is a workable approach. The fact remains, however, that since core is supposed to allow for condi builds, core should have a suitable weaponswap for condi builds. There's precedent in trident for introducing a new core weapon to fill this sort of gap, and it's better than requiring every future revenant elite to have at least a hybrid weapon if that elite is to be considered suitable for condition builds. Ideally it should also be ranged, because having only one ranged core weapon makes the profession, including any present or future elite specs that don't bring their own ranged weapon, _really_ sensitive to the state of balance of that weapon.

> @"Mormegil.2345" said: > > @"Legion.4198" said: > > The classical archetype of the blind ronin samurai is the perfect match for the revenant. Therefore one that carries a greatsword be a Tengu or a Norn. > > i could like a samurai with a gs but samurai wont wear plate armor so it is more likely to be a thief spec since they match with the armor class. although, i could love both of them to use greatswords:D Historical samurai absolutely _did_ wear European plate when they got access to it. Plus, 'heavy armour' in GW2 is anything metallic, including scale, mail, and lamellar, not just plate. O-yoroi, do-maru, and other samurai armours would definitely count as heavy in a GW2 setting.

> @"Scavarius.6059" said: > while somewhat lacking, there is no real need for more weaponchoices. ele got attunements, engi got kits, necro got dagger as a choice, revenant is already broken with the existing choices. not to mention, how do you think this should be balanced. pretty much every weapon got in some way or form traits, should they just revamp the traitsystem again? The problem with the 'engi got kits' is that most kits are ranged-oriented. If you've got a couple of those on a core engi, your backup weapon underneath the kits is... yet another ranged weapon. If you want a melee option, you _have_ to invest in another utility slot for the toolkit or bomb kit, while having a rifle or pistol/X set beneath the kits that you might not actually be using. There's a _reason_ why every engineer elite spec has had a melee weapon. Rev has a similar problem - condi revs that aren't Renegedes have no practical ranged weapon, and after the mace/X set, the alternative set is pretty much always a case of picking the least bad option. Staff or sword/X are generally popular for their defence options, but they're still intended more for power damage. That's going to be a problem for any elite specialisation in the future that's intended to have any condi game whatsoever if it isn't solved at the core level, since otherwise any elite spec will need to have a condi-oriented weapon to really be suitable for conditions. Necromancer having daggers as a power choice is something I was going to point out. Staff is also a decent hybrid, with good power coefficients on the autoattack, skill 4, and to a lesser extent, skill 3. Elementalists are pretty much 'acting as intended' in terms of not having much opportunity to shift range out of their weapons (although dagger/X does have the opportunity to shift to water to get 600 range). They compensate for this through their weapons generally being suited to all ranges, with even the longest-range weapons being able to potentially have strong effects at close range (for instance, if you put a fire field at your feet, the enemy who's attacking you is more likely to stay in that field for the duration than if you throw it at maximum range) and where that isn't enough, conjures can provide another way of shifting up the engagement distance. There is a problem of staff being weak at the moment, but that's largely because it dominated high-end PvE for a long time and ArenaNet didn't want it to be the best weapon in the game for engaging single bosses.